Why do we live in a perpetual state of war?

Ukrainian soldiers (Picture: President of Ukraine)

Donald Trump has thrown world diplomacy into chaos. According to liberal commentators, he has imperilled global security.

But the people of Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine knew little security even before Trump ripped up international treaties and conventions.

We exist in a perpetual state of war or preparation for war. These wars are not only rooted in the ambitions of political leaders—they are expressions of imperialism.

The term “imperialism” is often used to describe the likes of the Roman Empire or British rule in India in the past. The word is rarely heard in discussions of the West’s wars today, but it is necessary for any serious analysis.

For Marxists, imperialism is not a description of the past or a policy pursued by some parties or governments.

Imperialism under capitalism is not a powerful state dominating its neighbours. It is a global system of competition between capitalist states.

In the 19th century, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels described how competition for profits meant companies drove others to the wall then swallowed them up. The companies that survived grew into huge corporations.

The never-ending competition for raw materials, labour and markets also forced the capitalist class to expand beyond their own territories across the globe. 

The British East India company, with an army of 250,000, led the pillage of India before the British government took over control.

Private companies need nation states to defend their interests, so corporations and nation states become increasingly interdependent.

This led to intensifying global competition and the atrocities associated with the scramble for Africa in the 1880s. This is when Western states fought to plunder and exploit large swathes of the continent. “The capitalists partition the world not out of personal malice, but because of the degree of economic concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to get profits,” wrote the Russian revolutionary Nikolai Bukharin in 1915.

Another Russian revolutionary, Vladmir Lenin, explained that the First World War was an imperialist war.

A “predatory war of plunder on the part of both sides, it was a war for the division of the world”.

Imperialism is not just about stealing resources from poorer countries. It is also about establishing strategic advantage over rival powers.

Lenin described this essential feature of imperialism as “the striving for hegemony, for the conquest of territory”.

Imperialist powers may engage in military operations not to benefit themselves, but to weaken their adversaries.

Imperialism changes as capitalism develops. Competition between powers such as Britain, France, Germany  and Russia in the early 20th century led to the First World War.

The intensifying pressure to carve and protect empires led to the Second World War.

The Second World War led to the rise of two rival imperialist blocs—the West, led by the US, and the East, led by Stalinist Russia.

The collapse of Stalinist Russia did not lead to a to a promised new world of global peace under the leadership of the US.

The US fought to maintain its global position through a series of brutal wars in the Middle East, but suffered a series of defeats. 

Today we face the rise of new imperialist powers such as China and of multiple regional imperial powers, such as Israel, Turkey and Australia competing for regional dominance.

Trump wants to make deals with Vladimir Putin so he can focus on China, which is the main threat to US power.

The US president is locked into the same system as his rivals and his predecessors. 

No ceasefire, treaty or international organisation can put an end to the destructive power of imperialism.

But even the most militarily advanced powers are vulnerable to mass popular opposition. And wars provoke crises in which millions of working class people begin to revolt against capitalist barbarism.