A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #468 - What's the way out? - Wars and Geopolitics (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

There's no doubt that we are experiencing a historical period of 
profound global upheaval. Future historians will study these years as 
those of a shift in the balance of global power, the rise of a new 
empire in global hegemony. But it would be the same old story: one that 
analyzes macrophenomena, the dynamics of power, while ignoring the 
subtleties of events, the minute social and political dynamics, and, 
above all, conceives of the popular masses as inert material to be 
shaped and directed according to the needs of the only dimension that 
matters: power. And war expresses this representation of reality in an 
almost banal way. The new war fomented by the United States and Israel 
against Iran, yet another episode in the Great War, the endless war, the 
piecemeal Third World War-as our times, which have seen a proliferation 
of military conflicts since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of 
the Soviet bloc, have variously been defined-is fully part of the 
ongoing inter-imperialist conflict, regardless of the contingent 
motivations and ideological cover-ups put forward by governments and 
states. The Iranian nuclear threat, the need to overthrow a brutal and 
liberticidal regime, Israel's efforts to weaken or even annihilate its 
historic enemies in the Middle East, the objectives or miscalculations 
of Trumpian America. All these reasons or hypotheses capture partial 
aspects, but fail to provide a general understanding of the broader 
context. They tell us little about the extreme motivations for the 
upheavals underway, and, primarily, impose an absolutist and 
necessitating view of events, a spiral of history that can only have one 
evolution: that of inevitable conflict, of imperialist succession, of 
the perpetuation of capitalist and competitive development.
There has been much discussion in recent weeks about the nature of this 
war, the weight of the use of artificial intelligence, the spread of new 
instruments of death, drones first and foremost. But ultimately, the 
attack against Iran, to which Israel deemed it necessary to add 
Lebanon-since it was there!-is unfolding like all wars, past and 
present, in the sense that it presents elements of continuity and 
discontinuity: the use of new technologies (and this too is nothing 
new), the constant massacre of defenseless civilian populations (as well 
as soldiers, it goes without saying). Perhaps these discussions serve to 
give war a statute, that is, to include it among the admissible things. 
But then every argument is immediately debunked; Ukraine was written as 
harking back to the wars of the 20th century, those fought inch by inch; 
now the use of drones is emphasized, then it's said that complete 
control of the territory can only be achieved with the deployment of 
troops on the ground. Will the Marines about to arrive in the area be 
used for this? Beyond everything else, what is certainly worrying is 
that after years and decades spent by states and elites exacerbating 
conflicts and disagreements, this war, or some incident of it, could 
spark a more generalized or direct clash between powers: in short, we 
are walking on the edge of the abyss and perhaps we don't realize it or 
don't want to. However, precisely because the issues are becoming 
increasingly tangled, we must try to gain clarity on the fundamental 
dynamics driving events.
First of all, it would be misleading to think that the deterioration of 
the situation can simply be blamed on Trump's initiatives. Certainly, 
the American president's peculiarities are undeniable, but holding him 
almost solely responsible, alongside Netanyahu or Putin, for today's 
complex events isn't very helpful; it only serves to postpone the 
problems. That Trump, instead, falls within the framework of US policy 
over the past decades is clearly expressed in the editorial of last 
February's issue of Limes, which, after reviewing the policies of 
various American presidents in the Middle East-from Bush to Obama to 
Biden-concludes: "Trump is, in short, the latest, most disruptive 
epigone of a tendency toward the massive and systematic use of military 
power that very different administrations tend to consider a saving 
Gordian sword."
However, even this interpretation-of a profound crisis in American 
capitalism and society-is partial because it reproduces and accepts 
existing dynamics, adopting the unshakeable rules of authoritarian, 
competitive economies and societies founded on profit and exploitation. 
It's not just American capitalism in crisis, but a global system of 
relations centered on competitiveness, aggression, and violence, aimed 
at the hoarding of widespread resources and energy. Empires, states, and 
economies are headed for a clash.

However, even this interpretation-of a profound crisis in American 
capitalism and society-is partial because it reproduces and accepts 
existing dynamics, adopting the unshakable rules of authoritarian, 
competitive economies and societies, founded on profit and exploitation. 
It is not only American capitalism in crisis, but a global system of 
relations centered on competitiveness, aggression, and violence, aimed 
at the hoarding of widespread resources and energy. Empires, states, and 
economies are thrust into constant political, economic, financial, and 
military conflict for access to increasingly scarce resources, in a 
degraded and limited environmental and natural context.
It might also be correct to say that the geopolitical conflict between 
the United States, China, and Russia is the driving force and the 
framework within which the new global order is being defined, so the 
attack on Iran is also a way to slow China's advance by striking one of 
its energy sources. However, this vision erases the complexity of 
reality, seeing only the perspective of strength and the strongest 
(Trump interprets this with frightening consistency, yet even he, with 
his about-faces, is forced to reckon with reality), and it confines us 
within a single, homogenizing dimension.
But we know that if we do not want to succumb to the abyss of endless 
wars and violence in which we now find ourselves immersed, we must open 
ourselves to multiplicity, diversity, and experimentation, activating 
and reactivating those energies of humanity, but also of awareness, that 
last September and October enlivened the streets of the entire world. In 
particular, those young energies that some have called the Gaza 
generation, which a tired political system seeks to force into an 
institutional and accommodating fold: just look at the statements of the 
leaders of the Italian parliamentary opposition following the outcome of 
the referendum on justice. To do so, however, we must first dismantle 
the geopolitical narrative that justifies the existing and views the 
world as an indifferent and aseptic game of Risk.

Angelo Barberi

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/2026/05/12/qual-e-la-via-duscita/
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