TRADE WAR, SKRIPAL, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, by Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

© Mindaugas Bonanu

Like the rest of humanity, I have no way of identifying the instigator of the attempted assassination of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. But I venture some reasoning, just to clear the field of fantasies and focus on real problems.

It is true that personalities unwelcome to the Kremlin sometimes meet with serious and mysterious pathologies. One of the famous cases is that of Viktor Yushchenko, a candidate for the presidential elections of Ukraine in 2004, in an election campaign during which, inter alia, Putin travelled seven times to that country to support Yushchenko’s competitor Yanukovych.

Others include: Alexander Litvinenko, the exiled former official of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) and critic of Putin, poisoned to death with polonium in London in 2006; journalist Anna Politkovskaya, distinguished for her services on the war in Chechnya, gunned down in Moscow, also in 2006; Boris Berezovsky, the most influential of Russian oligarchs at the time of Yeltsin, another exile critical of Putin who died in unclear circumstances in London in 2013; and Boris Nemtsov, head of the Soyuz Pravykh Sil [Union of Right Forces] party, assassinated in 2015.

However, it is incomprehensible what interest Moscow could have in eliminating Skripal, risking an international crisis. Why kill an individual already regularly released in 2010, as part of an exchange of arrested “spies” with the United States? What other terrible revelations could there be eight years later and after having been questioned – immediately and at length – by the competent services?

And then, why eliminate him with such a sophisticated means as nerve gas, the origin of which could be traced? Would not it have been better to simulate a car accident? A tile on his head? Have a pistol shot or the classic arsenic, both so anonymous, perhaps gone out of fashion?

On the other hand, neither is it clear why Skripal should be eliminated by some “Western” service. There is no shortage of motivations for further increasing tension with Moscow and, if necessary, bigger and more emotional ones can be invented for public opinion.

The truth is that in cases like these the imagination can have free rein. Could Skripal have been poisoned by other players interested in increasing tension between Russia and the “West”?

Let us speculate: could those responsible not have been North Korean agents interested in neutralising Russian pressure towards an agreement with the United States, or agents of ISIS or of the Assad regime? Or Chechen separatists? Or also, why not, could it not have been the sophisticated killers of an occult “Spectre” of businessmen linked to the military-industrial complex who used the nerve gas?

Actually not only do I not have the means, but also I am not even interested in knowing who poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter. From the point of view of world history and the interests of ordinary citizens, this is irrelevant. I do not need a judicial truth to know that – if they so wish – States can act without scruples, kill and slaughter. Reason of state exists, but good States do not exist.

To give another example, I remember well that in July 1985 the French secret services blew up the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, which was protesting against nuclear explosions in French Polynesia, causing the death of a man. President then was “companion” Mitterand … of the Union de la gauche.

Two of the saboteurs of the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure were arrested by the New Zealand police, tried and sentenced to ten years. The French Defence Minister was forced to resign, but New Zealand, placed under economic blackmail by France, was forced into an agreement whereby the two assassins were first transferred under French custody, then released and finally given a promotion.

What happened to the Rainbow Warrior is crystal clear, unlike the Skripal case and in general of real historically relevant plots, which have the unfortunate characteristic of remaining secret in the phase of preparation, but of revealing themselves in implementation; coups d’état are an easy example of it.

So I willingly leave investigations to the competent bodies and conjectures to the devotees of spy stories and the conspiracy theorists of every sort, who already have the pre-packaged answer according to their personal paranoias and political sympathies.

The personalisation and Manichaean division of political players into good and bad – of course the villains are cunning and treacherous, although doomed to defeat – belong to a view of the world that is infantile and easily manipulated.

Something else is important in this filthy affair, whoever the instigators: the flurry of mass expulsions of Russian diplomats from NATO countries and of NATO diplomats from Russia. For many commentators, together with the looming trade war between the United States and China, this affair seems to be the prelude to a new Cold War.

However, care must also be taken not to arrive at hasty conclusions that can distract attention from the underlying issues.

It may be recalled that in 1986 the United States expelled 80 Soviet diplomats after the arrest of a Russian-American journalist in Moscow, and the Soviets, in turn, reciprocated. Nevertheless, the following year Reagan and Gorbachev signed the treaty on medium-range missiles and three years later the Second Cold War was officially declared over.

And then, in 2001, the United States and Russia expelled 53 diplomats each, but – despite other major problems – this did not prevent the two powers from continuing to collaborate in the “war on terror”, and Putin saying of the American president, during the celebrations of the anniversary of the foundation of St. Petersburg: “We have many points of coincidence of our views on many issues. And it is precisely these things that enable me to call president Bush my friend, not only personally – because personally I do like him a lot –, but as my counterpart and the President of a friendly nation”.

Of course, we need to contextualise … and this is the point.

The use of the term “Cold War” – without further qualifications – was very popular for the entire post-World War II period but also misleading, and the same applies to the current framework of relations between Russia and the “West”.

I think the periodisation proposed by Fred Halliday in his book The making of the Second Cold War is correct: it distinguishes the First Cold War (1946–1953), oscillatory antagonism (1953–1969), détente (1969–1979) and the Second Cold War (from 1980 and ending de facto with the Reykjavík summit between Gorbachev and Reagan in October 1986).

The phase of oscillatory antagonism was characterised by negotiations and repeated attempts to reduce tensions between the two sides, each of which failed due to events in part outside the control of the two powers, but which necessarily involved both and pitted one against the other.

It was therefore a phase that combined aspects of the Cold War with aspects of détente and which, unlike the latter, would be clearly defined more in retrospect than when it was in vigour.

Well, all in all, it is this that the relations between the United States and Putin’s Russia resemble: so much so that jihadist terrorism (and for Russia, in particular, Chechen terrorism) is a common enemy; and the energy flows from Russia to Western Europe would have been unthinkable during the First Cold War (these flows began during détente and were among the reasons for the postponement of Soviet reforms and the paradoxical “resource curse” still affecting the Russian economy).

There is also a fundamental reason why we must be very careful about likening contemporary relations between Russia and “West” to the Cold War, which was a contrast between different social systems: capitalist imperialism on the one hand and totalitarian pseudo-socialism on the other.

In the 21st century, neither Soviet nor Maoist “communism” exist any longer. We only have capitalisms, and those of Russia and China are also imperialisms (in the proper and structural sense that leaves aside a more or less aggressive policy; at least for Marxists, this should be obvious).

Posing the question as if it were the Cold War is a way to fuel tension and confusion. Or to create the consolatory illusion of reliving old “glorious” times: something even more erroneous when one considers – moreover – that Putin and Trump are both placed to the right of the political spectrum: traditionalists, nationalists, authoritarians, militarists and sexists.

However, it is since the Ukrainian crisis and the annexation of Crimea that the pendulum has tended towards the freeze: the current diplomatic crisis is part of the picture, but we cannot rule out the easing of tension. We will see.

As for the protectionist initiative of the Trump administration, this was long awaited.

So, coincidence between the two facts? Yes, most likely. Also because moving towards Cold War at the same time with Russia and China would be quite stupid, and it would be even more stupid to do this while threatening or actually undertaking a trade war with allies.

Can we speculate that behind the poisoning of Skripal there is the Machiavellian European Commission, which intends, in this way, to prevent Trump from kissing Putin’s cheek? Or that it is a ruse of the opponents of Brexit? The list of possible plots can be lengthened.

There is no doubt that there is negotiation with China and that in March it initially responded moderately to US tariffs, promising concessions; in the meantime, it appears that the European Commission and Gazprom are coming to an agreement to close a very expensive antitrust case dating back to 2011; the meeting in Washington proposed by Trump to Putin during the congratulatory call for the third re-election of the Russian president (so, two weeks after the poisoning of Skripal) remains to be defined.

In my opinion, the crucial question is that when well contextualised, far from being the result of the strategy of a director, the scenography of relations with Russia seems quite botched and susceptible to very different developments.

It is true, however, that this it is not just a question of fortuity. It is the kind of situation that highlights the inherent contradictions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

The protectionist impetus responds to demands of domestic legitimation – based on electoral promises –, but is in contrast with the international division of labour and the reproduction of US capital on a global scale. A conflict is taking shape between US international economic policy and its policy of alliances and national security.

Protectionism is also a way to avoid implementing serious socioeconomic reforms in the United States. Behind the contradictions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy is the latent conflict between it and the population of ordinary North American citizens, including the white male workers who voted for him.

For the world, this is much more important than stories of spies, arsenic and old ideological lace.

TEN REFLECTIONS AND A COMMENT: THE CYCLE OF FEAR IN THE MIDST OF THE ANTHROPOCENE, by Roberto Savio and Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

It is now clear that we are in a period of transition, even if we do not know where we are headed. It is evident that the political, economic and social system which has accompanied us since the end of the Second World War is no longer sustainable.

According to Amnesty International, exponentially growing inequalities have practically taken us back to the levels of Queen Victoria’s days: however, today on a global level. Ten years ago, 652 people possessed the same wealth as 2.3 billion people. Now they number just eight.

According to International Labour Organisation projections, the eighteen-year-olds of today will retire with an average pension of 632 euros.

Despite official statements, and surrounded by general indifference, we are reaching the limit of a 2 degrees centigrade increase in the temperature of the atmosphere since 1854, which is considered the limit beyond which our planet will suffer irreversible changes.

Finance has become detached from the economy creating a world of its own, the only one with no international control bodies, where financial transactions in a day are forty times higher than the production of goods and services around the entire planet. Since 2009, the major banks have paid over 800 billion fines as a result of illegal operations.

Political participation has fallen from an average of 86%, in 1960, to 63.7% today.

While an in-depth analysis of the situation would be extremely complex and involve all aspects of our life, it is possible to identify important – and at the same time simple – points of reflection on which to dwell together.

Reflection 1

The crisis has deep roots.

In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a global governance plan – designed to reduce inequalities among its members – known by the name of New International Economic Order. The plan was born with the support of the United States (even if launched by Mexico and Algeria).

The post-war international system – of which the United Nations is part, for example – had come about on the initiative of the United States, the main winners of the Second World War, which was interested in preserving peace and development after a war in which it lost 405,000 soldiers out of a population of 132 million people. Germany lost more than five million out of 78 inhabitants, of which over two million civilians, against 8,000 in the United States and nearly thirteen million in the USSR).

The United Nations was created with Washington’s commitment to contribute 25% to the budget, which illustrates the difference with today, when Trump is threatening to withdraw.

But until the 1981 summit in Cancún, which brought together the twenty-two most important Heads of State in the world (excluding the communist camp), we lived in the illusion of the end of inequality, based on a world democracy where the majority of countries decided the course to follow for the common good.

Newly-elected president Reagan took part in Cancún and announced that the United States no longer accepted being subjected to the rules of an abstract world democracy. The United States – he said – is not a country like the others, and would go back to deciding its own international and trade policy. Margaret Thatcher was also at the same meeting, becoming the European counterpart of Reagan.

A different vision of the world was born: “Society does not exist. Individuals exist (Thatcher); “It is not factories that pollute, but trees” (Reagan). Poverty produces poverty, wealth produces wealth. So the rich should be taxed as little as possible, because they distribute wealth.

Reflection 2

In 1989, a few years after Cancún, the Berlin Wall came down: it was the end of ideologies, the straitjackets that had led us to Nazism and Communism.

The core idea was that we must be pragmatic. Politics had to solve concrete problems, not pursue utopias. But the solution of a given problem without being part of a total vision of society – right or left, it does not matter – is actually called utilitarianism, and politics aimed at administration rather than at ideas distances political participation and increases corruption.

Without ideal programmes, the importance of the politician’s personality, possibly telegenic, increased and was measured on TV and not in public squares. Marketing, not ideas or programmes, became the main instrument for electoral campaigns.

Reflection 3

At the same time, neoliberal globalisation came into play as a single thought without alternatives (Thatcher’s There Is No Alternative – TINA; it is interesting to note that, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the term globalisation had never appeared in the media).

This globalisation was based on the socioeconomic and political model of the so-called Washington Consensus, the development paradigm imposed by International Monetary Fund, World Bank and US Treasury. It envisaged the adoption of the following reforms: macroeconomic stabilisation, liberalisation (of trade, investments and finance), privatisation and deregulation.

It eliminated national protection barriers everywhere, reduced non-productive expenditure (education, health and social assistance) and promoted free competition among States. It is famous the definition of it given by Kissinger: “The new paradigm of American supremacy”. Developing countries experienced it as submission to economic rules imposed by the North. But Kissinger did not see that once the way to free competition had been opened, China and other countries would emerge.

Reflection 4

The reaction of the left to the single thought was the “Third Way”, successfully proposed by Tony Blair: it was time to abandon the old ideas of the left and ride the globalisation, accepting the lack of alternatives.

Social democracy, from Blair to Renzi, seeks to transform itself into a transversal party which also embraces the centre, with an active policy on concrete facts and no outdated ideological cages.

In fact, in this way the left has lost its popular base, and the 2008 crisis, caused by the absence of controls on American banks and then come up to Europe (with the left in government almost everywhere), has eliminated its capacity to redistribute surplus.

Workers, middle classes in crisis and victims of globalisation seek new defenders and vote for Le Pen (France), Farage (Britain), Wilder (Netherlands) and so on, up to choosing Salvini and the Five Star Movement (Italy).

Reflection 5

Numerous historians believe that greed and fear have been among the main engines of change in history.

In his latest book, Nel nome dell’umanità, Riccardo Petrella argues that these engines were implemented using three “traps”: in the name of God, in the name of the Nation and in the name of Profit. There is no doubt that since the fall of the Berlin Wall the values of globalisation (competition, profit, individualism and exaltation of wealth), together with the disappearance of social justice (solidarity, transparency, equity, etc.) from political debate, have created an ethics based on greed.

And twenty years later, in 2009, the economic and financial crisis – first in the United States (on real estate speculation) and then in Europe (on sovereign bonds) – has opened up a second cycle: that of fear.

Reflection 6

The cycle of fear which is in full swing (without having abandoned greed and while the three “traps” are once again in use) has created a new right which is not about ideas, but is based on emotions.

Brexit and Trump are easy-to-see phenomena, but the real phenomenon is much deeper. We are in a liquid society that is not structured on ideologies or classes. And in this society it is easy for leaders who ride fear and greed to leap into the limelight.

The 2009 crisis joined up with mass immigration from countries invaded by the West to depose their dictators and automatically introduce democracy. (Nevertheless, the disintegration of Yugoslavia – a modern and European country – after the death of Tito should have been a warning.)

It is not democracy that is ushered in, but chaos, civil wars, blood and destruction.

In 2003, George W. Bush began the invasion of Iraq. In 2011, civil war broke out in Syria, becoming soon a clash among Arab powers, Europe, the United States and Russia (as a result: six million displaced and half a million dead). In 2013, Sarkozy pushed an invasion into Libya.

From the ruins of Iraq, ISIS was born – terrorism in the name of God, for a return to original Islam (Wahhabism, financed worldwide by Saudi Arabia with 80 billion dollars in the last twenty years). Fifteen years before, the veterans of the US-funded war against Russian occupation in Afghanistan had gathered under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden in another organization, Al Qaeda, making the first attack in history on North American soil, in 2001.

As El Roto, famous cartoonist of El País, says: “We send them bombs, and they send us migrants”.

Two “traps” are triggered on the arriving refugees: in the name of God and in the name of the Nation.

Now, in Europe, identitarian and sovereignty parties are the second political force, ahead of socialist parties. If European elections were held today, the radical right would gather forty million votes. It is in power in Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria, but it also conditions the governments of the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Germany itself (since Alternative für Deutschland won 92 seats).

In Hungary, Orbán has launched the so-called “illiberal democracy”, Poland has denounced the secularism of the European Union and called for a huge march with populists and sovereignists from all over Europe, to the cry of “In the name of God”. The Visegrád Group (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and now also Austria) has denounced the yielding of Europe to Islam and created an East-West rift of Europe, which joins the North-South rift on the vision of the economy: austerity or solidarity.

But there is something new: the United States intervenes in Europe openly supporting nationalist and xenophobic right-wing parties, which at the same time look not only to Trump, but also to Putin (who is also intervening in the European elections), considering him a point of reference.

As a result, in a rapidly aging Europe (in Italy, for example, young people between the ages of 18 and 25 account for only 3% of those entitled to vote), immigration has become a great populist and xenophobic right-wing banner.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund has launched a warning: Europe needs to absorb 20.5 million immigrants in the short term, so that it can support its pension system and maintain productivity levels. Statistics show that immigrants contribute to the system more than they cost; they constitute the great majority of new small businesses and their dream is to be quickly integrated into the European system.

But there is no debate on immigration and what categories of immigrants to welcome. They are now all seen as dangerous invaders, intent on destroying the European identity, on crime and as taking work away from European citizens, victims of intense unemployment. Even Trump, in a country made up of immigrants, has made immigration control one of his warhorses.

A tragic phenomenon is that young people, many less than retirees, are no longer politically active. In history, young people burst onto the political scene to change the world they find. If they had voted, Brexit would not have happened. But the political system – of the elderly – ignores them. In Italy, the Renzi government allocated 30 billion euros to save four banks. In the same year, the total in the budget for young Italians was two billion.

Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, we have risen from 2.5 billion inhabitants to 7.5 billion today. The growth will stop only in 2050, when we will number 9.5 billion. Either we find an agreement on governability and immigration that we need, or we will have to shoot immigrants, as some have already proposed.

CHINA AND RUSSIA IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S “NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY”, by Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

With this piece – which was preceded by “US foreign policy and Trump’s contradictions: questions of method” –, Michele Nobile begins to deepen the analysis of the Trump administration’s foreign policy starting from the recently published National Security Strategy. [the Editorial staff of Red Utopia]

INDEX: Foreword - 1. Defining the problem of national security - 2. The theory of democratic peace in previous administrations - 3. The worldview of 2017 NSS and critique of the theory of democratic peace - 4. China and Russia in previous NSS - 5. China and Russia in 2017 NSS: threats to national security - 6. Relations between China and Russia in American strategy - 7. Provisional conclusion

Donald Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping. Beijing, November 9, 2017 © Nicolas Asfouri

Foreword

At the end of 2017, the Trump’s administration published its National Security Strategy (NSS), the report that the President of the United States is required to present annually to Congress. It is legitimate to ask what interest a document such as an NSS can have since it certainly contains no military action plans, not even in general terms.

An NSS is the result of compromises within the administration and is often overtaken by unforeseen developments; on the other hand, the availability of the means envisaged for achieving stated objectives can also exceed the duration of the administration that produced it – and not just by a few years.

The doubts increase in the face of a president like Trump – contested by foreign and military policy experts in his own party – and the series of sackings or resignations of high-level staff, both as a result of disagreements with the president and imposed by the results of investigations.

Of the thirty 20th-century Secretaries of State, Rex Tillerson is one of the six who have remained in office for the least time, and in the post-Cold War period only Lawrence Eagleburger lasted less. The Trump administration is on its third National Security Advisor in just over a year, while in the space of eight years Clinton and Bush Jr. had just two and Obama three.

Besides, it cannot be said that the Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser appointed by Trump – Mike Pompeo, appointed as director of the CIA, and John Bolton, formerly ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush – are characters indicative of a moderate orientation: they are decidedly “hawks” chosen exclusively because of their political proximity to the president.

Furthermore, while all versions of the NSS pay a ritual homage to “American values”, it sounds strange to read in a document introduced by Donald Trump that “the United States rejects bigotry, ignorance and oppression” and that it is committed to defending the rights of women and girls (2017 NSS).

In more substantial terms, as widely predictable in some points, for example on Russia and on NATO, the 2017 NSS appears in contrast with the fears and hopes raised by Trump before his election. One can thus question the extent to which the document reflects the president’s thinking and therefore how reliable it is.

It is remarkable that Trump’s message preceding the latest NSS speaks of “rival powers” aggressive towards American interests in the world, but without naming China and Russia; then, in his speech of December 18, 2017 presenting the document, Trump cited the phone call from Putin thanking him for the intelligence that the CIA was able to provide concerning a major terrorist attack planned in St. Petersburg, but also said that the United States faces “rival powers, Russia and China, that seek to challenge American influence, values, and wealth”, specifying that, “based on my direction, this document has been in development for over a year. It has the endorsement of my entire Cabinet”.

It is not at all unusual for an NSS to be published beyond the terms prescribed by law, but this latter sentence appears as a superfluous clarification, a reassurance that seems to imply the opposite.

As for the rest, the discourse differs from the NSS only in its even more triumphalist tones and for the self-celebration of the presumed identification of the People with the president, elected with almost three million votes less than competitor Hillary Clinton:

“But last year, all of that began to change. The American people rejected the failures of the past. You rediscovered your voice and reclaimed ownership of this nation and its destiny.

On January 20, 2017, I stood on the steps of the Capitol to herald the day the people became the rulers of their nation again. (Applause.) Thank you. Now, less than one year later, I am proud to report that the entire world has heard the news and has already seen the signs. America is coming back, and America is coming back strong”.

Report on the national security strategy was established in 1986 by the Goldwater-Nichols Act: since then seventeen have been published. Well, if you compare 2017 NSS with those which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is clear that it is a very original document, almost on a par with the 2002 NSS of Bush Jr., who formulated the doctrine of “preventive war”.

While it is not possible to deduce from an NSS exactly what an administration will do and when, general indications can nevertheless be drawn about the perception of threats to national security and the attitude with which they are intended to be addressed.

The 2017 NSS contains relatively little about human rights and the promotion of democracy – a fact which may gratify the sympathisers of president Putin and North Korea’s supreme leader –, but the prospect it outlines, which in emphatic terms one might say grand strategy, is no less dangerous than the decision that led to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Perhaps even more so, in terms of relations with the nuclear powers of China and Russia and for reasons that are not only due to the constraints posed by the Congress, but are intrinsic to the concept of America First as defined by Trump.

The vision of the world contained in the 2017 NSS is substantially in line with that of Trump; however, in its realisation this same vision can lead to considerable fluctuations and confusion in the conduct of US foreign policy not only because of internal opposition, but because it is internally contradictory: this could be the reason for personal disagreements in the Administration, in which different parts push on the poles that constitute the contradiction.

The structure of 2017 NSS is made up of a message from Trump himself, an introduction and four chapters related to as many pillars of national security, plus a chapter that applies the strategy in the regions of the world.

Formally, each chapter presents some priority actions to achieve the objectives indicated, which is a novelty that appears to give concreteness, but which in reality is only stylistic; and also the four pillars or objectives – protecting the American people, promoting prosperity in America, preserving peace through force and advancing America’s influence – are banalities present in every NSS.

The peculiarity of this document must be sought in the way in which those objectives are concretely defined, above all in the definition of the problem of national security and threats.

1. Defining the problem of national security

The message signed by Donald Trump that serves as a preface to 2017 NSS is an arrogant revendication of the Administration’s alleged successes, including having “crushed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists”, which, however, was claimed by all the players involved just before Trump took office.

The list of problems inherited from the previous administrations is long: “rogue states”, international terrorism, aggressive powers, uncontrolled immigration, criminal cartels, unequal distribution of defence costs between the United States and allies, impropriety in economic relations.

Against this background, the successes boasted with a triumphalist tone are even more evident: the Trump administration is already “charting a new and very different course”. The president stands as a saviour of the Fatherland, as the one who restored confidence in American values and America’s position in the world – “after one year, the world knows that America is prosperous, America is secure, and America is strong” (2017 NSS).

However, a note of alarm is sounded both in Trump’s message and in the text of the NSS itself: “The United States faces an extraordinarily dangerous world, filled with a wide range of threats that have intensified in recent years”. Apparently it seems a contradiction, but the alarmist note performs several functions.

First of all, keeping the alarm about terrorism and the “rogue states” high is a necessity intrinsic to the doctrine of war and preventive military operations, which is now one of the options for action openly indicated by all US administrations, albeit with different formulas.

Formalisation of this doctrine is a distortion of jus ad bellum (the right to engage in war), with implications also for jus in bello (the rules regulating the conduct of war, for example concerning the treatment of prisoners and civilian populations).

Even in a very broad and very debatable interpretation of the norms of international law, one of the binding criteria – and not the only one – which can justify a military action that anticipates an enemy attack is that of the imminence of aggression.

However, no matter how far it is cloaked in formal references to the needs of self-defence, in the logic of preventive war formalised since 2002 NSS the concept of the imminence of attack is freed from specific temporal and material references, and therefore emptied of real meaning.

The main justification for war and preventive military operations has become the possibility and intention that entities defined as terrorist or “rogue state” procure weapons of mass destruction; this is also tantamount to affirming that for these entities the possession of weapons of mass destruction coincides with the certainty of their use in an indeterminate future and place. War or preventive military operations are thus justified a priori.

…

…

In Trump’s introductory message to the NSS, the unequal sharing of security burdens between the United States and the allies is indicated as one of the reasons that has encouraged opponents to take dangerous actions – the point is then reiterated in the document. Obviously, it is not at all the alliances themselves that are called into question, but the terms with which the other States contribute.

However, the list of faults does not stop here. It covers the whole of the 90s, including the Administrations of Bush Sr. and Clinton, and implicitly also those of Bush Jr. In 2017 NSS, criticism of the idea that US military superiority was guaranteed is fundamental, as is criticism of the Wilsonian (after Woodrow Wilson, president from 1913 to 1921) concept of “democratic peace” which, although articulated in different ways, has been at the centre of the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the end of the Cold War.

WHAT PROSPERITY FOR CENTRAL AMERICA UNDER US HEGEMONY?, by Marcelo Colussi

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Spagnolo)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Spanish)

What happens in the Northern Triangle countries … directly affects the security and economic interests of the United States and other countries in the region.
(Rex Tillerson, United States Secretary of State)

I

Between 50 and 60% of the inhabitants of the three countries of the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) live below the poverty line, and this structural and chronic poverty is compounded by alarming rates of delinquent violence (largely a product of this state of impoverishment).

In past decades, the entire region has witnessed bloody armed conflicts (Guatemala with 245,000 victims, El Salvador with 75,000 and Honduras serving as the base of operations for the Nicaraguan Contras), which has strengthened a culture of violence that has become “normal” to a very large extent, given that the respective States have not adequately dealt with the after-effects of war.

This explosive combination of poverty and violence, coupled with historic corruption and impunity by governments, make daily life so difficult that countless inhabitants of the region are taking the road to the United States in search of better conditions for survival.

Regardless of whether this migration is an authentic ordeal (of every three people who try it, only one reaches destination – the American dream; another is sent back being refused entry to US territory; and another dies in the attempt), once and if they reach the United States, these precarious workers – without papers, always hiding from the authorities and denigrated by the prevailing racism – send remittances to their respective countries.

In Guatemala these represent 12% of GDP, while in Honduras and El Salvador they represent 15%. Even knowing the martyrdom that constitutes the fact of being a “wetback”, governments try to ignore the problem, because that foreign exchange helps mitigate the precariousness of local family budgets to some extent.

There is no end to this migration, despite the bogging down of the US economy that has been dragging since the severe crisis of 2008.

In 2014, it erupted in a major crisis of unaccompanied migrant girls and boys, with more than 40,000 detained in their attempt to enter the United States. By the end of the following year, 21,469 people were being detained at the southern border of the United States.

In the face of all this, during the presidency of Barack Obama, Washington came up with the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle of Central America initiative as a purported solution to the migratory explosion.

II

These three countries – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – as dependent nations and located in an area especially important for the geopolitical strategy of the US imperial power – are part of what Washington considers its natural “backyard”. The southern border of the empire today passes through the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America; that is why US hegemony reigns in everything in that region.

It is for that reason, therefore, that a major – perhaps the main – actor in the national politics of the area is the US embassy. So much so, that recent Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla was able to say without embarrassment: “ … it is the United States which decides things in Central America … ”.

The United States, as a primordial world capitalist power, is not in the same position of absolute leadership as when the Second World War ended in 1945, when it alone accounted for 52% of gross world product, with an unquestionable currency and military supremacy over the rest of the planet, being the only country to possess the atomic weapon at that time.

However, even though today its economy is showing no clear sign of being on the rise, it is far from being an empire in decline. It is true that in the international arena it is now competing with other poles, mainly in the economic sphere, such as the European Union or Japan; but even more so, with the rising economies – and with the enormous political and military influence – of China and Russia.

These struggles mean that in this area, considered by the United States as its “private property”, it will protect its interests to the end. Hence, the Chinese and Russian appearance in the region is sounding alarms. In fact, the People’s Republic of China is present in Nicaragua through construction of the inter-oceanic canal being carried out by the Hong Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company, and the Russian Federation is expanding through its mining investments. In addition, both countries are showing a growing commercial and cultural presence.

Although the US economy is not the same locomotive as it was six or seven decades ago, Washington’s hegemony continues to prevail in the world, and even more so in the Latin American region, in Central America.

Its military power is enormous, with half of the military spending of the entire planet concentrated in its hands. Its economy is largely based on the war industry: 5% of its GDP comes from the military-industrial complex, which leads to wars all over the world (inventories must be renewed, naturally).

Despite some slowdown, it remains, in any case, a leader in science and technology, although now competing on equal terms with these new players. The cutting-edge industries, such as communications and everything that has to do with digital technologies, are controlled to a very large extent by the empire.

It is true that the dollar is gradually ceasing to be the international currency par excellence, but even the globalised financial system depends in good measure on the US economy. And even though its global hegemony is today qualified/threatened by the Chinese and Russian presence, Latin America continues to act as its reinsurance.

The continent south of the Rio Bravo continues to be its area of dominion, which is why it places special emphasis on maintaining it under its hegemony. For this reason, it has more than 70 military bases with state-of-the-art military technology that control the territory (land, water, air and cyberspace).

It is from this region that it obtains a very good part of resources for its economy, which is considered a strategic reserve for its project of global hegemony in the current century. Here it finds oil, fresh water, strategic minerals and tropical forest biodiversity. Unluckily for them, the countries of the Central American Northern Triangle possess many of these resources.

Although Central America does not represent a large market for the US economy (barely 1% of its foreign trade), it has a strategic value both as a reserve of resources and in political-military terms. That is why it is not neglected.

This may explain, for example, the way in which it sought at all costs to block presidential candidate Manuel Baldizón in Guatemala in the last elections, because although Baldizón was a wealthy businessman and clearly from the right in ideological-political terms, he opened the door to Russian mining investments.

It also explains how it supported the recent virtual coup d’état in Honduras, helping to establish a monumental electoral fraud to block an opposition social-democratic candidate like Salvador Nasralla, and backing neoliberal Juan Orlando Hernández – a character who ensures the continuity of pro-Washington policies, even supporting open repression – for the presidency.

The zeal of the empire is enormous, and its presence continues to be a determining factor in the political dynamics of these three countries.

III

Historical interference by the United States in the region, making these small countries virtual protectorates, has also been expressed in the advising, financing and even leadership of counterinsurgent and genocidal strategies during the wars fought decades ago – the effects of which are still present – in the framework of the Cold War, making the area one of the hottest areas on the planet.

The presence of imperialism in that Northern Triangle is openly manifested in its interventionist policy, demonstrated by the military occupation it maintains (with four bases in Honduras, one of them in Palmerola, with high technology capable of facilitating attacks on Cuba and Venezuela, and with the continued presence of advisors and military missions), trade and treaty impositions (such as CAFTA), and the overdetermination of economic policies established by organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank, all related to the geopolitical strategy of Washington. Or in the imposition of initiatives such as the recent Plan of the Alliance for the Prosperity in the Northern Triangle.

This Plan, at least theoretically, constitutes an effort by the US government to improve the internal conditions of the countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America, in order to avoid the flood of migrant population, which represents a social and political problem at home.

On paper – although the reality is something else – it basically focuses on addressing the structural factors that drive the continued exodus of the Central American population, ceasing to focus on containment and security initiatives, which have historically had a more punitive character and have had less to do with promoting development.

From this point of view, it could even be thought that this Plan represents a significant advance insofar as it could help alleviate the chronic poverty of the Central American region somewhat.

NEW YEAR … LET US UNITE AGAINST THE NEW OBSCURANTISM!, by Michele Zizzari

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

What can we say about the fact that we live in such an inhuman world … where even the most superfluous of personal whims, the smallest interest or private profit is enough to make us completely ignore others or consider them (especially if poor, or for some other reason) only with annoyance and disdain?

A narrow, widespread, often gratuitous, induced, unmotivated egoism … that we even try to justify invoking a banal and misunderstood sense of peaceful life … which then translates into an even less noble let’s mind our own business or who makes us do it?

The same so-called common sense which, at the beginning of 2017, to avoid getting our clothes wet or catching a cold, left a young African refugee to drown after he had plunged into the Grand Canal in thriving Venice, a centre of incomparable commerce, the same canal where luxurious cruise ships dock … almost as if to underline the bloody social contradiction in which we live.

This is indifferent selfishness that increasingly takes away our ability to reason, to observe things critically and at the same time to feel, to experience feelings – fed as it is by a set of negative and reactionary forces that have given and give life to a new obscurantism that risks blinding consciences – to the point of making us no longer see reality, the truth that manifests itself as gigantic to our eyes. While we turn a blind eye to the bigger picture, we bend over backwards to point to and deplore the smallest of faults in others.

We live a reality where economic and social policies, governments, international agreements, criminal pacts, religious beliefs, business and resources of all kinds, control and power systems, means of mass communication, manipulation of information and consensus, wars and conflicts, police forces and armies are downright promoted, activated and enacted (knowingly, with cynicism and unimaginable cruelty) … nothing less than denying bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, aid to those in danger of death, a hand to those in difficulty, a family or a community to the orphans of all, care for the sick, a home to the homeless, land to the landless, word to the wordless, dignity and life itself … Misery of wealth!

Not to mention all the undeniable liberties and rights, sacrosanct by birth – I would say are natural – which are denied in every corner of this tormented planet.

Just as well that we wanted to insert the common “Christian matrix” of European peoples into the European Constitution (if it is true, of course)! Who knows what Christian principles certain Christians are blathering about! I am an atheist, but you do not need to be, feel or proclaim yourself Christian to know that Jesus Christ would have thrown all the shop windows and stalls in Como’s markets to the wind!

The example of Como’s mayor denying a meal to the homeless in order not to disturb the Christmas shopping of the wealthy is just an infinitesimal pustule that surfaces to the skin of a system (social, political, cultural and economic, local and global, public and private) that has nothing more to say, promise or reveal other than human and environmental catastrophe.

A System that is slave to a logic and unbearable values that can no longer be accepted, without abdicating as humans from Humanity.

So, on the occasion of this new year, I just want to wish that everyone is able to remember who and what we are … to remind ourselves that we are children, co-inhabitants (together with other forms of life) and citizens of a single Community (the Human one), one Earth, one Sea and one Sky.

And that any each of us endowed with a minimum of awareness can no longer remain indifferent, to observe the systematic havoc of Humanity and Our Common Home without doing anything.

May not a day go by without trying to concretely construct Utopia (each with their genius and their heart, with their abilities and their imagination) … may there be no thought or project that does not take account of others … may no opportunity be lost for denouncing and fighting abuse, inequality, injustice, prejudice and racism wherever they occur. This is the wish I have for 2018.

I wish this for myself, for all people (companions, friends, relatives, acquaintances, colleagues of all kinds, people encountered along the difficult journey of life, of work and change, of ideals and feelings) with whom I shared even just one moment or idea, and ideally I wish it for everyone: let us try to transform our thoughts, our gestures, our words, our choices, our deeds, our commitment, our work into revolutionary actions and relationships! A harbinger of change … simply to reaffirm our humanity, to move towards a better world, to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror again … without spitting shame on ourselves!

May a renewed feeling of brotherhood and commonality unite us against this new obscurantism! May the joy of life invade our minds and our hearts!

I wish everyone all the good possible, and – why not – let us go back to thinking big, even in what seems impossible! Happy New Year!

‘TIMOCHENKO’ PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA?, by Marcelo Colussi

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Spagnolo)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Spanish)

Signing of the peace agreement between Juan Manuel Santos and commander
Timochenko. Cartagena de Indias, September 26, 2016 © Presidency El Salvador

Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, better known by his nom de guerre ‘Timochenko’, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), intends to run for the presidency of his country. It is difficult to predict what will happen in the next presidential elections in May 2018 but, if won by Timochenko, what might happen?

First of all, two considerations: 1) deepest respect for the struggle of an armed revolutionary movement such as FARC, and 2) this is no whimsical exercise in futurology.

This is to make it clear that in no way can the participation be called into question of a leftist force – until recently up in arms – in an electoral contest within the framework of the monitored and “drop by drop” democracies that the capitalist system can permit. In any case, this participation is a political manoeuvre, perhaps useful at this time (perhaps, even the only possible in the current circumstances), and it can in no way be judged. Political struggle, of course, allows for many variants.

At the same time, as another indispensable consideration for completing the above, in no way is continuation of revolutionary armed struggle being called for. It is patently obvious that, at this point in time, there is no political space for this to grow, differently from what happened in the Latin American context five decades ago.

Even more: there is not even the slightest space for it to come to life, but this is only valid at this precise moment, now that we are at the height of neoliberalism and demobilisation of the popular camp.

How will revolutionary struggle for social change continue in the future? We don’t know. Guerrillas are likely to rearm, why not? But today, there are definitely no possibilities for that to happen. Will hackers be an option, or electoral victory in local administrations, like city halls? It’s not clear. It will have to be invented.

What would happen if Timochenko won the elections?

This does not pretend to be an analysis of the personal figure of this Colombian guerrilla; it is, however, an attempt to interpret a complex reality, where the FARC’commander who becomes a politician within the framework of the current institutional system has limited – perhaps very limited – space for manoeuvre.

For now, the bulk of the commercial press is criminalising him. He is already being accompanied by a chorus of clichés about Castro-communism and the failure of Chavism.

However, what is important is looking at the limited space available to Timochenko. What can be modified within the capitalist institutional system? Is it possible to modify something? Is it worth attempting? Why enter the electoral contest as a political party more than the ruling class?

All these questions deserve long and complex analysis. Here the aim is not to be exhaustive, but to give some indications.

How far can something substantial be changed within the system of bourgeois political parties? Experience shows that there are insurmountable limits. Social democracy (capitalism with a human face, Keynesian policies, “humanist” regulations within the ruthless logic of the market) has achieved fairly balanced societies, but only in very few countries.

In fact, this presupposes an international division of labour where capitalist profit reaches a few places that can afford such “luxuries”.

Why are there no social democratic proposals in most nations of the so-called Third World? Because the exploitation and extraction of surplus value does not allow the product of social work (the wealth generated by work) to be distributed with equity, since that difference is the precondition for the offensive wealth of the ruling class.

Even if the wealth cake were to be shared by all, the system does not allow its equitable distribution, because it contains in itself that insurmountable negation: the rich are rich since there are poor, period.

If it was a matter of equitably distributing this wealth by achieving true social justice, the capitalist system cannot allow it, even if it wanted (and it does not want to!). The most it can aspire to is a scheme where the state plays a regulatory role, facilitating social policies that moderately benefit the majority. But it cannot go beyond that.

So the game of the political parties of the right cannot go beyond a relative regulation of the income generated by the working class. Really equating living conditions by empowering workers is absolutely impossible. This is socialism!

Put another way: bourgeois political parties are there to administer the system, not to change it. The FARC, like any revolutionary group that took up arms, tried to change the system, not to administer it with neat and measured correction, not with jacket and tie and being “well-dressed”, following the dominant logic. If Timochenko were to become president, could he change basic structures? Or … will he have to put on his jacket and tie?

History shows – unfortunately with much blood and pain in between – that real changes via ballot boxes are not possible. Every time an administration that emerged from a popular election within the framework of capitalism wanted to go beyond what the system allows – like Salvador Allende in Chile or Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala – it was hit hard. In any case, the system allows cosmetic changes, nothing more. Could Rodrigo Londoño ‘Timochenko’ change that?

DONALD TRUMP AND THE WAR INDUSTRY: NOTHING HAS CHANGED, by Marcelo Colussi

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Spagnolo)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Spanish)

He [Trump] talked about how during his administration the United States will witness the greatest military buildup in the history of the country. Who benefits? Well, the Pentagon benefits, defence contractors benefit and workers in particular states benefit.
(Donald Abelson, University of Western Ontario)

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump had the audacity (bravado?, stupidity?, bad political calculation?) to ask himself if it was convenient to continue the war in Syria and tension with Russia.

The idea probably crossed his mind of putting the emphasis mainly on stimulating a sluggish domestic economy, which is gradually lowering the standard of living of ordinary American citizens.

His feverish promises to bring back industry – dislocated to other parts of the world with cheaper labour – do not appear to have gone in vain. Less than a year after his administration took over, it can be seen how US foreign policy is still marked by the almighty military-industrial complex and wars continue unabated.

And the main and cheerful defender is the president himself.

On January 27, a few days after his inauguration as president, Trump issued the “Presidential Memorandum on Rebuilding the US Armed Forces”, a sign of clear determination to grant unlimited powers to the omnipotent military industry in his country.

Section 1 of this memorandum on “Policy” states that “To pursue peace through strength, it shall be the policy of the United States to rebuild the US Armed Forces”. The message is clear. Almost immediately after the signing of that memorandum, the big war industry business moved into action.

Military engineering companies such as Lockheed Martin (the Pentagon’s largest contractor, specialising in warplanes such as the F-16 and Black Hawk helicopters), Boeing Company (producer of B-52 bombers and Apache and Chinook helicopters), BAE Systems Inc. (aerospace vehicles, warships, ammunition, land warfare systems), Northrop Grumman Corporation (leading shipbuilder), Raytheon Company (manufacturer of Tomahawk missiles), General Dynamics Corporation (combat tanks and surveillance systems), Honeywell Aerospace (space industry) and DynCorp International (the giant company that provides logistics services and maintenance for military equipment) – all companies that recorded sales in 2016 of almost one billion dollars, an increase of 60% in profits compared with 2010 – exulted: the “infinite war” that had begun a few years earlier with the “battle against terrorism” seemed to know no end.

The perpetual need to renew equipment and all associated military paraphernalia promises huge profits. Everything indicates that this industrial sector continues to mark the pace of imperial policy.

There is no doubt that the strength of the US economy today is not similar to that in the immediate post-Second World War era and those first years of overflowing triumphalism (until the oil crisis of the 70s), when it was the untouchable superpower.

This does not mean that the American empire is finished, but a slow decline has certainly begun.

Hence, an all-encompassing military presence in the world can ensure the maintenance of its supremacy as a hegemonic power with the appearance of new actors casting shadows – BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and European Union –, while at the same time dynamise its own economy (3.5% of its gross domestic product is contributed by the military-industrial complex, generating huge amounts of jobs).

On February 23, a month after taking office in the White House, true to his style, Trump provocatively declared that the United States would be rebuilding its atomic arsenal, given that it had “fallen behind” with respect to Russia, and that it would be “best of all” to ensure that it stands “at the top of the pack” of nuclear powers.

To make his high-sounding declarations operational, he proposed an increase of almost 17% in the budget of the Armed Forces. This could be done by sacrificing social budgets with drastic reductions in sectors such as education, the environment, investment in scientific research, culture and international cooperation.

The current budget for the Armed Forces is 639,000 million dollars, which represents 9% more than the amount destined for military spending in the last fiscal year of former president Barack Obama. This huge figure is earmarked, basically, for the acquisition of new strategic weapons, thorough renewal of the navy and preparation of troops.

THREE MONTHS OF DONALD TRUMP: MORE OF THE SAME, by Marcelo Colussi

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Spagnolo)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Spanish)

© Dominick Reuter

More than three months have passed since the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the world’s leading capitalist power: the United States of America. Nothing has changed. If someone had thought that something could change with his arrival at the White House, they were mistaken from beginning to end. Why should anything change?

The rhetoric used by the tycoon during his presidential campaign could certainly have led one to imagine - mistakenly - some change of scenario. Given the current crisis experienced by the US economy, his programme appeared to be - at least in words - a promise to revive a downcast national industry.

But here comes the mirage. What is downcast is the purchasing power of America’s working class, while its companies remain prosperous, very healthy, managing the outlook with prospects for the future. While it is true that, in technical accounting terms, China’s gross output has surpassed that of the United States, the latter still remains the world leader in economic, political, technological and military terms.

Of the largest corporations in the world, the eleven largest have their headquarters in the United States, and 54 are the most capitalised among the first 100 on the planet. They continue to manage all domains: oil (ExxonMobil Corporation, ChevronTexaco Corporation), communication technologies (Apple Inc., Microsoft, Google Inc., Facebook, Inc., Hollywood), banking (Wells Fargo & Company, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Berkshire Hathaway Inc.), chemicals (Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble Co., Pfizer Inc.) and, of course, the military industry (Lockheed Martin, Boeing Company, BAE Systems Inc., Northrop Grumman Corporation, Raytheon Company, General Dynamics Corporation, Honeywell Aerospace, Halliburton Company. All these corporations of the industrial-military complex recorded sales of almost one trillion dollars in 2016, having also seen increases of 60% since 2010, a clear sign that the economic crisis does not count for them).

There is decadence and, as has happened with every empire in history, it seems to have reached the peak of its expansion and begun its slow decline. But it is far from being a defeated empire: it continues to set the pace in many aspects.

Immediately after the end of World War II, America was the great capitalist power dominating the scene. The only nation with nuclear power at the time, it accounted for 52% of the world’s gross product. At this point in time, it no longer holds a monopoly of the atomic bomb (at least Russia and China are its rivals in parity), and its contribution to global production has dropped to 18%.

Undoubtedly, it is not continuing to expand, as it did from the middle of the 19th century and throughout the entire 20th century. Furthermore, although it is beginning to be called into question, its currency - the dollar - remains largely the universal currency, and English is still the obligatory lingua franca. Hollywood, no matter what, is the cultural referent of the planet, as much as Coca-Cola or McDonald’s.