The Labour led government is about to sign up to uncle Sam and line up to sacrifice its people in the war against China that the US is planning. The US wants the war in Ukraine to spread to Taiwan because its main global rival is China. The US officially recognises Taiwan as part of China, but cynically plans to make China’s sovereignty a pretext to go to war with it. This would be crazy if it were not for US desperation to stop China taking its place as the most powerful imperialist country in the world.
Historically, when a dominant imperialist power is in decline, or suffers defeat, it goes to war against its main rivals. There is no doubt the US is losing its world hegemony. Its successive recent wars have been defeats. The Western Alliance is starting to break up. Japan the 2nd largest industrial power cannot survive without breaking the US ban on importing Russian gas. Macron leader of a fading European power is on a mission to China about France leaving NATO and its megalomania in extending the war in Ukraine to a war over Taiwan at the expense of collapsing the NATO economies.
The rush to build a NATO+ in the Asia Pacific is being pushed feverishly with US delegations rushing to all the Pacific countries to shore up its alliance. At the same time this alliance is being undermined by economic reality. To survive nations cannot risk everything in a war between great powers over who rules Eurasia and the world. Everywhere there is a flood of third world nations away from war to the prospect of a world where economic survival is the game and not the laying waste of country after country in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ to plunder the diminishing scarce resources.
Not only that, US warmongering has led to the strengthening of the Russia and China bloc which is advancing its own security agreements, new alliances and putting plans in place for a new reserve currency as an alternative to the $US. The doubling of the size of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) with new members and prospective members including Iran, Saudi, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey, and Venezuela, proves that the Western alliance around the US is falling apart.
Why should NZ jump on a US bandwagon which is sinking? For what? A promise that the US can defend us from a rampant China? Does that mean becoming a servile new state of the US like Hawaii? Ask the Taiwanese if they want to risk a war over their relationship as part of China. They know that China has no need to go to war because it is now the industrial powerhouse of the world and 50% of their trade is with China. Why as Pacific Islanders who have no interest in tying our future to either the Western or Eastern blocs in the Asia Pacific should any of us agree to joining a drive to WW3 that could end life on the planet?
NZ out of all military alliances in the West and the East!
For self-determination of a Socialist Aotearoa in a federation of Asian Pacific socialist republics!
NZ workers join forces with workers and working farmers of the Asia Pacific to coordinate strike action to oppose our governments signing up to WW3!
The workers of the world want a future where we are not all drafted to kill one another in the interests of the capitalist ruling classes, but build a global socialist community!
Our only war is the class war! Our only enemy is the class enemy!
Dave Brownz is TDBs Guest Marxist, because every left wing blog should have a guest Marxist.
Actually there was a NATO+ from 1954 to 1977 called SEATO.
“….US desperation to stop China taking its place as the most powerful imperialist country in the world.” Dave Brownz
(The only way that China could replace the US as the most powerful imperialist country in the world is by force).
Good on you Dave, thank you for acknowledging the fact, that China as well as the US is an imperialist country.
But the US is not the only superpower with feet of clay. I doubt the Chinese people will be too happy for their elites to drag them into an imperialist conflict. Any aggressive moves by the Chinese imperialists to replace the US as ‘the most powerful imperialist country in the world’ will likely be greeted as it was in Russia with protests at home, but potentially on a much more explosive scale.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/30/the-guardian-view-on-the-future-of-chinas-unrest-more-complex-than-it-seems
No. China does not need to make war to overtake the US, it is doing so by means of its economic productive power.
Has war been necessary for China to become so powerful today?
No, its power comes from a revolution in 1949 that kicked out the Western invaders and created a highly centralised bureaucratic state and economic plan.
This plan allowed it to end its colonisation by the West and create the conditions for growth.
But given its isolation from capitalist competition the plan reached a limit to that growth by failing to increase labour productivity.
Its leadership therefore moved to restore the capitalist market from 1978 onward.
Because of its strong centralised state it was able to manage the return to capitalism by preventing its former imperialist masters from recolonising the economy.
China’s rapid growth since is the result of returning to the world market (the law of value) and managing it to its advantage.
It was able to retain much of the surplus value created by its own workers while allowing the US, Japan etc to extract a share provided they shared their technology.
The success of its strong state monopoly capitalism is what scares the US and drives it to militarily contain it.
But as I pointed out. Most nations capitalist leaders have an interest iin tapping into China’s strength is in its economic growth. They would rather benefit from that, rather than fight it.
China doesn’t care how other states are run, its only interest is to benefit from investing in growth that allows it to profit from that investment.
But it has emerged in the 21st century as imperialist because its growth is based upon the extraction of surplus value from workers not only at home and on every continent.
This makes it one of the oppressor nations that exploits others and prevents them from taking control over their own lives.
That is why it does not need to go to war to compete successfully with the fading Western imperialist powers.
But provoked into war its leadership will retaliate to defend the interests of its ruling class.
That is why it is in the class interests of workers in China, the US and the Asia Pacific – the whole world in fact – to overthrow all the imperialist ruling classes to stop the drive to WW3 create a socialist world.
The world revolution will probably begin in China where billions of workers once mobilised and organised have the power to topple the regime and begin the process of socialist revolutions everywhere.
Not sure about last two paragraphs, apart from that a good appraisal.
Good analysis and agree up to the last bit about socialism. Tried and failed every single time.
NATO doesn’t need money or material or whatnot. Nato needs our reputation. First John Key, then Jacinda. Thanks to them New Zealand has a very large international media footprint compared to new Zealand’s population. It’s like Norway who?
Today’s USA is a very frightening and dysfunctional place.
I’m far more fearful of the harm it can and is doing to NZ than I am of Russia or China.
New Zealand has had a longstanding relationship with NATO, going back at least as far as 2001. Successive Defence Ministers, Foreign Ministers and Prime Ministers have attended various NATO meetings. These were about Afghanistan and then ISIS. Now Ukraine.
None of this would be a surprise to anyone who actually follows this policy area. The great majority of New Zealanders approve New Zealand supporting Ukraine, and it is the Ukrainian issue which is at the forefront of the upcoming NATO meetings.
As for China, New Zealand’s position is much more nuanced than David Brownz pretends. We are not part of AUKUS except at the margins. None of our relationship with AUKUS would surprise China. After all, they are well aware of New Zealand’s long standing security connections with Australia, the UK and the US. However, by and large, New Zealand does not buy into the anti Chinese rhetoric that emanates for the more extreme parts of the US foreign policy machine. The Australian government has also toned down its approach to China.
As for New Zealand getting out of all military alliances, it is fanciful. New Zealand’s only formal ally is Australia. If New Zealand abandoned that commitment, our relationship with Australia would go into a deep freeze. No more preferential entry of New Zealanders into Australia. The probable end of CER. I can’t imagine many New Zealanders would think that would be sensible.
Reactionary,
There are no NATO forces in Ukraine, and neither will there be. The NATO commitments extends only to weapons supplies, military training taking place in Poland and the UK, and financial aid and support. So your fears about “NATO needs bodies” are unfounded.
Wayne, how would you respond to this joker?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018885769/senior-ukrainian-defence-advisor-in-new-zealand
We may have a “nuanced” approach to China Wayne, but I’m certain that China regards us as a US vassal.
Kia ora Dave as one Marxist to another.
At the top of your post is the meme which asks: “Why are we perpetually at war?”
And answers: “The industrial military complex doesn’t make much money from peace”
The industrial military complex makes money, but it also costs money. This cost is born by the taxpayers both business and working people, the MIC is in fact a net loss to the capitalist economy.
The Industrial Military Complex is an expense and a loss to the capitalist economy, sure it makes money for the private contractors who benefit from lucrative government arms contracts to manufacture and equip the MIC with weapons, guns, bullets, tanks bombs jet fighters etc. But overall, the MIC runs at a loss. In a system that is based on making profits the MIC is an outlier.
The answer to the question, why do we have endless wars? is not because the MIC makes no money from peace. This answer may be true to an extent, but it is incomplete.
A better question is: “Why do we have an industrial military complex in the first place?”
An even better question is:
“Why does every country have some form of an industrial military complex?”
The simple answer is that the MIC is an arm of the state.
But what exactly is the MIC and why does every state have one?
Regarding the coercive armed forces of the capitalist state, police, courts, prisons, standing army, etc. Engles wrote
….it [for our purposes the MIC] is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society,….
….this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it…
Basically the MIC is a coercive armed force protecting and advancing the interests of the capitalist state. Like the standing body of armed men that protected the feudal lord from the serfs and also from other rival feudal lords, the reason the modern MIC exists is to forcefully protect and advance the interests of the capitalist state against any challenge to the power of capital at home and abroad. This could mean putting down strikes and insurrections on the home front, to invading or defending against other capitalist competitors for domination and control of natural resources, cheap labour, trade routes and export markets..
A deeper answer to the question of “Why are we perpetually at war?”; Is because Capitalism is an economic system that must continually expand or go into recession. Capitalism as Marx said seeks to spread into every corner of the globe. Others more bluntly have likened capitalism to a cancer.
Predatory expansionist Imperialism is built into the DNA of capitalism.
But as the environmentalists like to point out – infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. Sooner or later you are going to run into barriers to that growth.
“Historically, when a dominant imperialist power is in decline, or suffers defeat, it goes to war against its main rivals.” Dave Brownz
Historically it has been when an imperialist power is ascending that it goes to war against its main rivals.
The first country in the world to fully develop a capitalist economy was Britain. The early capitalist economy of Great Britain was wracked by frequent economic recessions and collapse, That is until Britain began exporting its crise to other countries. And so the British Empire the biggest world spanning empire in Human history spanning a quarter of the surface of the globe and ruling over almost half a billion people.
America and France quickly followed also becoming major global capitalist powers, The world was still a pretty big place, and these three major imperialists could still expand without coming into direct conflict with each other.
Countries like Japan, Italy and Germany, slower to develop, were not so lucky. The world had already been divided up. To get a slice of the imperialist carve up, these ascending powers had to challenge the existing powers of France, Britain and America.
Italy began its imperial expansion into Abysinia. Japan invaded Manchuria. Germany invaded Poland.
Before 1939 the British Empire had 300, thousand troops of the British Expeditionary Force stationed in Europe to contain German expansion. In the face of the German invasion the BEF had to flee Europe escaping pretty much intact from Dunkirk.
Sure, in 1939 the imperialist powers were poised to rip each others throats out. But history rightfully records that Germany was the aggressor for invading Poland. Just as history will record that Russia is the aggressor for invading Ukraine.
Just like Germany in 1939, the Russian Federation is the ascending imperialist power.
What amuses me about those who claim that the Russian Federation is not imperialist\, is actually as ludicrous as claiming that the Russian Federation is not \capitalist.
We all know it is.
“Historically, when a dominant imperialist power is in decline, or suffers defeat, it goes to war against its main rivals.” Dave Brownz
That’s a pretty bald statement there Dave.
I wonder, can you cite an historical example of an imperialist power in decline going to war against its main rivals?
The most prominent example of an imperialist power in decline, that I can think of, is the British Empire. The British Empire didn’t go to war to war against its main rival. It took up the role of junior partner to its main rival the US. Historically, it’s an ascending imperialist power, not a declining one, that is more likely to go to war against its main rivals.
Ignore this reality at your peril.
“Pat+O’Dea April 13, 2023 at 11:39 pm
Kia ora Dave as one Marxist to another. ..”
Specially for the grouchy marxists, here’s some lennonists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3glcY2LQIk ally
“….China has no need to go to war because it is now the industrial powerhouse of the world…” Dave Brownz
Qué?
Reality is in exact opposition of this above statement
At one time Britain not China was the “Workshop of the World”. It was because Britain was the ‘Workshop of the World’ that Britain became a predatory imperialist power.
It was through the industrial revolution and the development of capitalist production that Britain was flooded with manufactured goods that the home market could not absorb. This led Britain to penetrate foreign markets, sometimes peacefully, sometimes forcibly when those countries resisted.
The invasion of India to seize raw materials and cash crops to feed British production and the deliberate penetration and destruction of the Indian textile industry by the British Empire to force India to buy British manufactured textiles is well known. The forcing of opium into China to break the Chinese trade embargo on British manufactured goods and trade is common knowledge.
Because China is now ‘the industrial powerhouse of the world’, is the reason that the Chinese imperialists will launch a predatory war against their foreign rivals over territory and resources in the Pacific.
What is hilarious ; The apologists for modern Chinese imperialism, in a bizarre denial of reality, will blame Chinese aggression against Taiwan or any other Pacific country on the US imperialists. And probably even truly believe it.
The US officially recognises Taiwan as part of China, but cynically plans to make China’s sovereignty a pretext to go to war with it. Dave Brownz.
Dave, I like how you can turn China’s intention to retake Taiwan, into an act of aggression by the US. It’s very creative.
“Mission accomplished” So said arch US imperialist George W. Bush, after the invasion of Iraq, but before the rise of the popular war of resistance to the US occupation, that caused the US military its greatest losses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
The Mission Accomplished speech (named for a banner displayed above the speaker) was a televised address by United States President George W. Bush on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003.
Bush, who had launched the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq six weeks earlier, mounted a podium before a White House-produced banner that said “Mission Accomplished”. Reading from a prepared text, he said, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed” because “the regime [the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein] is no more”.[2] Although Bush went on to say that “Our mission continues” and “We have difficult work to do in Iraq,”[2] his words implied that the Iraq War was over and America had won.
Bush’s assertions—and the sign itself—became controversial as the Iraqi insurgency gained pace and developed into a full-on sectarian war. The vast majority of casualties, U.S. and Iraqi, military and civilian, occurred after the speech.[3] U.S. troops fought in Iraq for eight more years.
Now would you believe it, another imperialist warlord is claiming Mission Accomplished. Also echoing George Bush, saying combat operations must continue.
https://vownownews.com/wagner-boss-yevgeny-prigozhin-claims-russias-mission-is-complete-in-ukraine/
“if Russia gets to the bottom, it will push off from there … and float up again like a big sea monster, destroying everything in its path, including America’s plans. “
There is something else that floats up.
As empty political slogans with no practical application; You couldn’t get emptier than these.
#1 “NZ out of all military alliances in the West and the East!” Dave Brownz
I am all for that, but how do we achieve it is the question?
Absolutely no doubt about it, the NZ capitalist state is firmly imbedded with Western bloc led by the US. To break this link won’t be easy. It certainly won’t be easy when imperialist states are running rampant across the face of the earth. The whole imperialist system needs to be challenged.
As a lesson to all imperialists that your time is coming to an end – First and foremost the immediate task of the socialist international movement is to see the Russian imperialists get their arse kicked. The people of the world will no longer tolerate imperialist incursions and invasions and destruction of cities and infrastructure and the mass slaughter of civilians as your way of doing business.
For self-determination of a Socialist Aotearoa in a federation of Asian Pacific socialist republics!
Good grief! What could this empty slogan mean in the current reality of imperialist alliances? Switching from a Western Alliance to a Chinese one?
NZ workers join forces with workers and working farmers of the Asia Pacific to coordinate strike action to oppose our governments signing up to WW3!
First of all the trade unions on New Zealand need to agree to campaign for open borders, between us and our Pacific brothers and sisters, similar to the one we have with the other white settler state in this region, Australia. Before the arrival of the European powers, the indigenous people of this region roamed the whole face of the Pacific. No more should our pacific brothers and sisters be bound by the artificial borders imposed on them by the imperialist powers. Borders that keep them locked in cantons as a pool of cheap indentured labour, only allowed to leave and move around the Pacific with our permission. No longer should they be brought here bonded contracts to one employer and treated as second class citizens, correct that not even as second class citizens with equal rights as the resident workforce, but no citizen rights at all.
This system for controlling the free movement of workers was forced on the people of the Pacific by the imperialist carve up of the Pacific by the European empires of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
The workers of the world want a future where we are not all drafted to kill one another in the interests of the capitalist ruling classes, but build a global socialist community!
No draft has been imposed on the workers of New Zealand or on our Pacific neighbours. Sure, if a draft was ever attempted, it would need to be opposed.
On your second point ‘building a global socialist community.
Dave you really need to show your workings on how to get from the current state affairs to building a global socialist community. Without that this is just another empty slogan. I have made a few suggestions. But taking the side of one imperialist bloc against another isn’t going to cut it.
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