Abstract of a report by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos to an international conference on NAM, organized by the Paris I Sorbonne and Havres Universities, on 20-22.2.2021
War, expansion and imperialism have been some of the main paths used by the western capitalist system, in order to overcome its crises and impasses, as proved by colonialism and WWI and II. For a century, we have also been witnessing a clear totalitarian tendency inside Western capitalism leading to war, in perpetual antagonism with other, more moderate tendencies. Behind the supposed “anti-war”, “anti-establishment” profile cultivated by Donald Trump, we can easily discern the representatives of the pro-war tendency.
It is true that the appearance of the nuclear weapon deeply modified war tactics and strategies, but it did not abolish the above stated truths. The quest for crushing nuclear superiority, ultimately permitting winning a nuclear conflict, without having to suffer unacceptable cost as a result of retaliation, continues unabated to our days. Most people believe a nuclear war is not possible, or at least probable. But this is not true, and a nuclear conflict represents a very real risk. As technology becomes more and more complicated and uncontrollable and all sorts of social and international conflicts get more and more serious, the risk of a catastrophic war tends to increase, not to decrease.
Only the belief in the possibility of being able one day to launch a nuclear war (or to threaten with such a war) and the desire to do so can explain why the USA took the initiative to dismantle nearly all the arms control structures established during the Cold War (ABM, INF, Open Skies Treaties). Trump followed a very aggressive nuclear policy, as he moved from Obama’s “never-ending-wars” to the preparation of “cataclysmic” wars. Behind this supposedly pacifist, isolationist, pro-Russian president, it is easy to find the most extremist and even irrational powers Western capitalism and imperialism has produced (Netanyahu, Neocons, Pompeo, Bolton, Christian Zionists, Extremist Zionists, Johnson, Bolsonaro, European Far Right etc.). Ii is not the first time in history that the international Far Right is hiding its real programme behind a pro-peace, anti-establishment mask. Adolph Hitler was also elected as a “Socialist” and he pretended quite successfully to be a friend of Moscow. Such illusions were not dissipated until June 22nd 1941.
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