A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #464 - In the grip of geopolitics (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

There is no doubt that we are experiencing a crucial moment in the 
history of relations between states and world powers, and a systemic 
crisis (how irreversible?) of capitalism. These are phenomena that have 
their roots in the mid-1970s, with the end of the thirty glorious years 
following the Second World War. However, the Covid "storm," the outbreak 
of the war in Ukraine, and the escalation of the Palestinian question 
with the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli government seem to have 
accelerated the ongoing crisis. Trump's election to the White House 
seems to have thrown us into a vortex with no end or direction in sight. 
Geopolitical experts are therefore hard at work trying to understand 
what is really happening, how relations between the world's major powers 
are changing: primarily the United States, China, and Russia. There 
seems little doubt that the war in Ukraine is a reflection of the 
inter-imperialist conflict and that the Palestinian massacre is part of 
the upheavals seeking a new balance in an area crucial to global order. 
The prevailing interpretation of what is unfolding before our eyes is 
that the United States, a declining power, is attempting to maintain 
firm control of its "domains," to regain a struggling economic 
centrality-see the tariff issue-and to portray itself as the essential 
arbiter (despite still having the most organized and widespread military 
apparatus in the world) of international relations. Many commentators 
consider this attempt to be a difficult one. For its part, China, a 
rising power, appears to be patiently weaving a web of relationships and 
positioning that allows it to occupy a hegemonic position and is not 
averse to portraying itself as the center of the world of the near 
future. Finally, Russia, fallen from the glories of the Cold War, has 
ventured the invasion of Ukraine to warn everyone that it does not 
intend to play a secondary role in the imperialist arena, having at its 
disposal, among other things, a respectable nuclear arsenal: a deterrent 
manifested for what it is, a weapon of blackmail and bargaining. (But 
who can rule out the possibility that, as events unfold, a Dr. 
Strangelove might be willing to use it?) Then there are some supporting 
actors who are raising their voices and claiming their own weight, such 
as India and Turkey. But let's not forget that in this context, the 
European Union (including Great Britain, even if it is no longer 
officially a member) is also present, wavering between deference to US 
vassalage and an autonomy whose exacting nature is unclear, except for 
the arms race that is currently engulfing it. Among the most active and 
widely followed in raising the alarm about Europe's current 
inconsistency is Mario Draghi, former ECB president, former Italian 
prime minister, and now a permanent member of the European 
establishment. His recipe is simple and is outlined in his famous Report 
on European Competitiveness: focus on innovation and artificial 
intelligence, implement the ecological transition, and increase 
strategic security and defense to address the gap with the United States 
and China. Recently, at an award ceremony in Oviedo, Spain, he launched 
a rather cumbersome proposal on how to keep up with the times: create 
within the EU a coalition of the willing (following Macron?) to 
implement a pragmatic federalism "capable of acting outside the slower 
mechanisms of the EU decision-making process" on defense, energy, and 
cutting-edge technologies. In essence, he seems to be saying, more 
decisiveness and determination are needed, even at the expense of 
democratic processes: a trend that has many supporters these days.

In short, a reshaping of imperialist relations between rising powers, 
declining powers, and powers merely potentially emerging follows or adds 
to a capitalism that has reached its end and hopes to explore new 
avenues of exploitation to maintain the accumulation process intact: see 
the hopes placed in the two miraculous transitions, ecological and 
digital. What role would the subaltern classes and class conflict play 
in this plan? In the dominant narrative, of course, none, just inert 
matter to be molded for productivist purposes or cannon fodder to be 
thrown into the armed conflict, inevitable for the masters of the world 
in the ongoing transition. Thus, the geopolitics so learnedly dished out 
to us in the refined analyses of scholars and experts (in Italy, the 
positions of Limes stand out in this regard) becomes a straitjacket they 
want to pin us within to prevent any leap of imagination and social 
struggle. Today we must ask ourselves this: are we condemned to the 
competitive, capitalist, and imperialist logics that some Draghi 
propagates with a millenarian air, or can we find ways out of this 
reality rife with wars and exploitation?

Environmental historian Jason W. Moore, in his short essay "Imperialism, 
With and Without Cheap Nature: Climate Crisis, World Wars, and 
Liberation Ecology," published in the book Beyond Climate Justice (Ombre 
Corte), sees the current crisis as a potential for radical socialist and 
internationalist transformation. His thesis, summarized here, is that 
the climate crisis and the evolution of today's capitalism prevent the 
recurrence of the forms of exploitation seen in recent centuries; in 
short, we are facing what he calls the Great Implosion, in which the 
peasant and proletarian classes have the opportunity to regain control 
of their destiny while the ruling classes are unable to address the 
crisis. But, Moore warns us, none of this is a given. On the one hand, 
we should take inspiration from past history, and on the other, we 
should be wary of any compromise and ideological solution that disguises 
the coordinates of imperialist capitalism. Ultimately, he tells us, it 
will be "a question of global class struggle within the web of life, and 
its outcome will be decided by this struggle."

More simply and succinctly, we could conclude: it's time for revolution.

If we don't want to end up in the vortex of the Great Implosion, 
unpredictable but certainly fatal.

Angelo Barberi

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/2025/11/16/nella-morsa-della-geopolitica/
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