With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, US imperialism envisioned a “unipolar” world in which its economic and political interests would reign supreme. From Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and Syria, the US pursued a policy of regime change and destruction that bulldozed entire societies. More than one million were killed in Iraq alone in the US quest for control over resources and governments.
The ICFI warned that the eruption of imperialist military violence in the late 20th century only foreshadowed the destruction US-NATO planned to unleash in the first decades of the 21st. Pursuing a neocolonial policy of redividing the world to compensate for its weakened economic and political position, the US, along with its imperialist allies, has escalated to “Great Power” conflicts targeting Iran, Russia and China--conflicts that carry with them the possibility of nuclear annihilation.
“In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than in the period of boom.” — Trotsky, Third International After Lenin
The proxy war between the US-NATO powers and Russia that began with the imperialists provoking the criminal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, created the antechamber of a third world war. In October 2023, Israel initiated sweeping genocidal violence against the Palestinians in Gaza as part of the wider US-Israeli project of creating a “New Middle East” that has now expanded to target Iran directly.
There are inseparable links between the popular struggle against the Gaza genocide and the need for a global movement against escalation by the US and its NATO accomplices of its war against Russia and preparations for war against Iran and China.
These are essential works to study in this period.
Bogdan Syrotiuk, a young socialist leader, was seized from his home by Ukrainian police in April 2024. He was charged with “high treason” for writing articles opposing the US-led war against Russia on the World Socialist Web Site.
The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.
Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited." - David North, Preface to A Quarter Century of War
