Imperialist Tensions Grow—World War Inevitable

In his first few weeks in office, imperialist-in-chief Donald Trump has shown his willingness to serve the U.S. ruling class’s murderous war machine. From putting Iran “on notice” to openly threatening to block China’s expansion into the South China Sea, Trump is desperate to project the appearance of strength in an ever-weakening U.S. empire. He has escalated Barack Obama’s murderous war in Yemen (see page 2) while continuing to amass troops on Russia’s doorstep, inching the world closer to World War III.
The U.S. ruling class and its massive military, once the world’s leading superpower, now operate in a world where the Russian and Chinese imperialists are challenging U.S. bosses for control over resources and profits. All three imperialist powers understand that Eurasia—the gigantic landmass composed of Europe and Asia—is the key to global supremacy. To control it, they are willing to slaughter the world’s working class.
Russia’s bosses continue to test their U.S. rivals on multiple fronts. In the space of one week in February, Russia secretly deployed an intermediate-range cruise missile in violation of a Cold War-era nuclear forces treaty; stationed a spy ship 30 miles off the coast of Connecticut; and sent four aircraft to buzz a U.S. destroyer in the Black Sea. In the face of disarray in the Trump administration, and the steady weakening of the U.S. empire, the Russian bosses are growing bolder by the day.  
These incidents came on the heels of a wave of anti-Russia warmongering. Democrats first fanned the flames of this hysteria after it was alleged that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee to disrupt last fall’s presidential election. Ever since, the bosses’ media has been in a frenzy to intensify it.
Bosses Doubting Trump
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has sent out a tangle of mixed signals on both Russia and China, provoking concern within the dominant finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class about the new president’s reliability. Trump’s leadership has been openly questioned by two main-wing insiders, General Tony Thomas, head of the U.S. military’s Special Operations Command, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor under President Jimmy Carter. A third ruling-class mainstay, Senator John McCain, told international leaders at the Munich Security Conference that the administration was “in disarray.”
In an Op Ed piece in the February 20 New York Times, Brzezinski attacked “the sometimes irresponsible, uncoordinated and ignorant statements” of Trump’s team. He also gave voice to the bosses’ concern that Trump was slighting China and thereby increasing “the danger that China and Russia could form a strategic alliance.” The U.S. bosses know that China is their most dangerous long-term rival. They also know they aren’t yet ready to go to war with the Chinese rulers. It’s no accident that Trump reaffirmed his support of the “One China” policy on February 9, less than two months after he threatened to abandon it—a stance that was unacceptable to Beijing.
On February 14, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared that Trump now expects Russia to “de-escalate violence in Ukraine and return Crimea” to Kiev. But in the next breath, Spicer said: “At the same time, he fully expects to and wants to get along with Russia” (Reuters, 2/14). In the midst of this posturing and confusion, the New York Times revealed that Trump sent two emissaries to broker a backdoor “peace plan” that could enable Crimea to be “leased” to Russia for up to 100 years (2/20). For its part, Russia has shown no signs of backing down. For the Russian ruling class, exerting their influence in Ukraine and waging war in Syria are ways to validate their superpower status and extend their global reach.
The bosses are doing their best to surround Trump with people it trusts, like Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and weed out the people they don’t. On February 13, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced out by a barrage of leaks over his pre-inaugural discussions with the Russian ambassador on possible relief of U.S. sanctions. Trump was apparently persuaded or pressured to replace Flynn with General H.R. McMaster, a ruling class-approved strategist who has long sounded the alarm over Russia’s increasing military capability.
McMaster is “the opposite [of Flynn]—a careful scholar and successful general who’s well-regarded in the Washington foreign policy establishment” (Vox, 2/20). But the bosses still worry about the influence of rogue advisors like Stephen Bannon, the white supremacist and former Goldman Sachs banker who now serves as White House chief strategist, with a seat on the National Security Council:
In practice, it’s far from clear how much influence McMaster will actually have over a president who seems deeply skeptical of people outside his immediate circle and information that troubles his basic worldview (Vox, 2/20).
NATO Instability
At this point, it’s impossible to be certain about Trump’s worldview and where it will lead. His slamming of the European Union and NATO (which he has called “obsolete”) has unsettled U.S.-European relations more than at any time since World War II. Mattis initially told NATO allies that if they didn’t pay their fair share, the U.S. might not come to their defense. He later reassured NATO leaders of U.S. commitment to the alliance, calling it “a fundamental bedrock for the United States and for all the transatlantic community” (reuters.com 2/15). The U.S. ruling class’s wavering commitment to its European alliances reveals a deeper crisis within the center of U.S. imperialism.
To calm U.S. allies in Europe, Mattis has rejected closer military ties with Russia. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, despite his recent ties to Russia as Exxon’s CEO, also reassured foreign leaders that the U.S. will remain firm with Russia. But there is little the U.S. can do to counter Europe’s growing internal instability. Once solid allies like Turkey have threatened to leave NATO and join the Chinese and Russian imperialists in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. A Russian pipeline deal is drawing Germany closer to Moscow’s orbit. These tremors in post-World War II alliances reflect the intensification of inter-imperialist rivalries and the greater likelihood of wider wars.
Workers Rising Up
For decades the bosses have worked tirelessly to destroy working class consciousness. Since the reversal of communism in the Soviet Union, this “dark night” has left the working class vulnerable to Trump’s anti-immigrant racism and “America First” nationalism. After decades of low wages and terrible working conditions, many are susceptible to his promise that “America will start winning again.” Trump sells nationalist rhetoric and conspiracy theory to misguide the anger of an alienated working class whose lives have been destroyed by capitalism.
Millions of workers, however, are rising up to oppose the bosses’ murderous agenda. In Belarus, thousands have taken to the streets to stage one of the largest protests there in years against a “parasite law” that imposes a tax on unemployed workers. The wave of anti-Trump and anti-fascist uprisings around the world presents us with opportunity, and also a duty to continue sharpening PL’s anti-racist and anti-imperialist politics. The inability of the U.S. bosses to recruit masses of our Black and Latin youth and students to fight and die in imperialist wars reveals the limits of their ideological hold on the working class. Armed with PL’s politics, these workers can begin to understand that capitalism can never serve their needs, and that we can fight back and win.
But to be successful, struggles must be carried out on the job and in mass organizations. We must organize multiracial committees that can lead on-the-job fights centered around anti-racism and anti-sexism on behalf of all workers. We must connect on-the-job struggles to the intensification of inter-imperialist rivalries. We must organize our base around the Party’s line to shut down the bosses’ racist profit system. Through struggle we can win our base to Challenge reader’s groups and ultimately to the Party, to become fighters for communism.

YEMEN

The bosses’ have used the recent wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism to ramp up calls for war in the Middle East. Trump’s recent ban of refugees and immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries includes Yemen, a country that has been terrorized by a U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign. The proxy war between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the pro-Saudi/U.S. regime has killed thousands of workers. Given Iran’s alliance with Russia and Yemen’s invitation to Russia to use its ports and airbases, tensions are rising between U.S. and Russian imperialists.
Trump’s first major decision as imperialist-in-chief, which was planned under the Obama administration, a botched raid on Al Qaeda in Yemen, killed at least 30 civilians, including nine children and eight women. The White House insists this slaughter was a “success.” Following the U.S. strike, the Yemeni government withdrew permission for U.S. ground raids, showing that even smaller bosses are willing to buck the U.S. ruling class.
For the U.S., maintaining access to oil has made its alliance with Saudi Arabia essential. Since 2009, the U.S has sold the Saudi government over $100 billion in weapons, making them the largest recipient of U.S. arms sales in the world (motherjones.com 9/21/16). Even so, the Saudi ruling class has been building closer ties with U.S. imperialist rival China, which is now the largest buyer of Saudi oil.  
Over the past two decades, oil wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen have destabilized the region and the world. These wars have created more than 65 million refugees. Ultimately, this is a crisis of capitalist unemployment. The bosses need to destroy the capital and productive capacities of rivals to survive their perpetual crisis of overproduction. With much of the infrastructure in Yemen and Syria leveled by imperialist war, masses of unemployed workers have no choice but to become refugees. The laws of capitalism are driving the desperate posture of U.S. imperialism and intensifying rivalries with China and Russia that will ultimately lead to World War III.