Imperialism

Renfrey Clarke - The war in Ukraine has presented left-wing theorists and commentators with a difficult analytical challenge. How are we to resolve this conundrum? As well as needing to answer the question of where Russia stands within the capitalist world-system we also need to decide how the right to national self-determination plays out within this context.

Promise Li - What characterizes this new multipolar order and the nature of inter-capitalist competition? As a whole, this emerging multipolar world of bourgeois states does not create better conditions to challenge global imperialism, but merely preserves and even heightens these capitalist dynamics.

Gilbert Achcar, Zofia Malisz and Ilya Matveev - What comparative-historical parallels can help to understand the dynamics of the Russian-Ukrainian war and its consequences? What should be the anti-imperialist position in such conditions? Does the left have anything to say about the security situation in the world in the medium term? A roundtable discussion.

Michael Pröbsting - Several events in the past few years have provoked profound instability in relations between the imperialist Great Powers. It is therefore not surprising that ideologists and strategic thinkers of the ruling class are working hard to elaborate analyses and perspectives on how their respective Great Power can best respond to the challenges of the current period.

Against The Current - As Russia's invasion and its global impacts spread with ruinous impact, it’s high time for factual, political and moral clarity on what this war is about. That requires sorting out a great deal of ideological mythology on all sides.

Ernest Mandel - If we look at the problem of World War II from a more dialectical, more correct Leninist point of view, we have to say that it was in reality a combination of five different wars.

Chris Slee - Western imperialism certainly played a part in creating the context for the war. But it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who took the decision to invade, and he must be condemned for this.

David Camfield - As catastrophic floods in Pakistan and drought in Europe and China highlight the ecological crisis of fossil capital, a debate between Matt Huber and Kai Heron raises important issues for anyone concerned with understanding and responding politically to our times.

Simon Pirani - A look at the economic war being waged alongside the military conflict, the resulting disruption of energy markets, and their place in the broader social and ecological crises shaking capital.

Various authors - Those who now tolerate a Russian victory also tolerate a victory for both global and “domestic” fossil and commodity-based capital, which is closely intertwined with the Russian fossil and extractive sectors. Therefore, a new anti-militarist movement must uphold solidarity with the civil as well as armed resistance of the Ukrainian people, and with the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian leftists who oppose the Putin regime’s war.

Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard - For a time after the end of the Cold War, there were claims there was a US-centered “unipolar world”. What we see now is a multi-polar world in which the US is struggling to regain lost ground.