Author: Barry

By Vijay Prashad

On June 23, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel released one of the most devastating reports ever produced by a UN investigative body on the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Its title is almost unbearable to read: The Essence of Childhood Has Been Destroyed. Behind the title lies an accusation of extraordinary gravity. The Commission concludes that Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children and that these actions amount to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, alongside war crimes in the occupied West Bank.

The report is not an emotional appeal. It is a painstaking legal document built upon witness testimony, forensic evidence, satellite imagery, military analysis, medical records, and years of documentation. What it presents is not merely another catalogue of civilian casualties. It argues that the killing, maiming, starvation, detention and psychological destruction of Palestinian children cannot be explained as collateral damage. Rather, the Commission concludes that children themselves have become deliberate targets of Israeli military policy. The implications of such a finding reach far beyond Gaza. They raise fundamental questions about the future of international law itself.

A Report of Extraordinary Gravity

The Commission estimates that since October 2023, at least 20,179 Palestinian children have been killed and more than 44,000 injured. Approximately thirty per cent of all Palestinians killed have been children. These figures alone place the Gaza war among the deadliest conflicts for children in modern history. Yet the report’s importance lies not simply in the numbers but in its conclusions regarding intent.

It documents repeated instances in which children were shot by snipers, attacked by drones, struck while seeking food or water, or killed despite posing no military threat – as should have been obvious. It examines the repeated use of high-yield explosives in densely populated civilian areas long after the predictable consequences for children had become undeniable. It details attacks on maternity hospitals, neonatal wards, schools, orphanages and shelters. It also examines the blockade of food, water and medicine, showing how starvation, disease and the collapse of medical services have become instruments of war directed against an entire civilian population whose youngest members are the most vulnerable.

The Commission investigates Israeli detention practices involving Palestinian minors. Children arrested in Gaza and the West Bank describe torture, sexual violence, degrading treatment and disappearance into detention facilities without information being provided to their families. Such abuses, the report concludes, form part of a broader system of collective punishment directed against Palestinian society across generations. The UN Commission report is not novel on this, even though the findings are devastating. They corroborate previous reports by Save the Children (Palestinian Children in Israeli Military Detention Report Increasingly Violent Conditions, 29 February 2024) and, long before this genocidal campaign that began in 2023 by UNICEF (Children in Israeli Military Detention, February 2013). In his recent book, Survivors of the Darkness, the Palestinian journalist Wesam Afifa documents the horrendous violence of the Israeli concentration camps set up for Palestinians, including children.

Perhaps the UN report’s most chilling conclusion is that the destruction extends beyond physical death. Childhood itself has become a battlefield. Psychological trauma, orphanhood, repeated displacement, hunger, interrupted education and permanent disability together amount to what the Commission describes as the destruction of ‘the essence of childhood’.

A Pattern Long Documented

The Commission’s findings did not emerge suddenly. For nearly two years, Palestinian journalists have documented children pulled from collapsed buildings, infants dying in incubators without electricity, families wiped out in airstrikes and children shot while attempting to retrieve food or water. Many of those journalists paid with their own lives. Gaza has become the ‘deadliest conflict ever for journalists’, reported Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Yet, despite extraordinary danger the journalists continued documenting events that much of the world preferred not to see.

International human rights organisations reached similar conclusions long before this recent UN report. Save the Children repeatedly warned that Gaza had become one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a child. Defence for Children International–Palestine documented repeated shootings of children in circumstances that raised serious questions about military necessity. Human Rights Watch investigated attacks on schools, hospitals and refugee camps. Amnesty International examined repeated strikes that appeared to violate the principles of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law. UNICEF repeatedly warned that children were being killed and injured on an unprecedented scale. None of these organisations described isolated accidents. They identified recurring patterns that demanded independent investigation. The new UN report effectively consolidates this vast body of evidence into a single legal assessment.

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice found that South Africa’s case alleging genocide by Israel was plausible and ordered provisional measures requiring Israel to prevent acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, preserve evidence, and facilitate humanitarian assistance. Subsequent orders strengthened these requirements as conditions in Gaza deteriorated. Although the Court has not yet ruled on the merits of the genocide case, it has repeatedly recognised the grave risk faced by the Palestinian population and the continuing obligations imposed upon Israel under international law. The new Commission report provides further evidentiary material that will inevitably shape future legal proceedings.

The Silence of the Israeli State

Perhaps equally striking has been the nature of Israel’s response. Rather than seriously engaging with the evidence assembled by the Commission, Israeli officials once again dismissed the report outright, describing it as politically motivated and fundamentally biased. They rejected its conclusions in their entirety without offering substantive rebuttal of the specific incidents, witness testimony, or forensic evidence presented by investigators. Every state has the right to defend itself against allegations. But serious allegations require serious answers.

If children were not deliberately targeted, the burden rests upon the Israeli authorities to explain why thousands of children have died in circumstances repeatedly documented by journalists, humanitarian organisations, medical personnel, and now a UN Commission of Inquiry. Why have hospitals, maternity wards, schools and refugee shelters been struck again and again? Why have humanitarian convoys repeatedly come under attack? Why have children continued to die even after ceasefire arrangements? Why have military investigations produced so little accountability? Simply repeating accusations of institutional bias cannot substitute for factual explanation. The refusal to engage with evidence has itself become a disturbing feature of this war.

International humanitarian law rests upon the principle that states are accountable for their conduct. Accountability becomes impossible when every investigation is dismissed before its evidence is even examined.

Justice S. Muralidhar and the Duty of the Judge

The findings of the UN Commission also remind us of the importance of judges who understand that the law is not merely a technical instrument but a defence against arbitrary power. Few Indian judges have embodied that principle more consistently than Justice S. Muralidhar, who as UN Commission on Human Rights, chaired this new report’s committee.

Justice Muralidhar earned a reputation over decades as one of India’s most respected constitutional jurists, particularly in cases involving civil liberties, communal violence, and the protection of vulnerable communities. He was one of the principal judicial voices in implementing accountability after the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, insisting that impunity could not become the norm merely because the crimes were politically inconvenient. His commitment to constitutional duty became internationally known during the communal violence in northeast Delhi in February 2020. As hospitals struggled to treat victims trapped by the violence, Justice Muralidhar and Justice Anup J. Bhambhani convened an extraordinary midnight hearing at Justice Muralidhar’s residence. The Delhi High Court ordered the police to ensure the safe passage of the injured to hospitals and directed immediate emergency medical treatment. Later that day, Justice Muralidhar sharply questioned the failure of the Delhi Police to register cases against political leaders whose inflammatory speeches had been widely circulated, reminding the authorities that the country could not permit ‘another 1984’.

Within hours of these hearings, the Government of India notified Justice Muralidhar’s transfer to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, although the recommendation for his transfer had formally been made by the Supreme Court Collegium earlier that month. The timing generated widespread concern among lawyers, retired judges, and civil society organisations, who regarded the episode as raising troubling questions about judicial independence.

Justice Muralidhar’s career illustrates an essential principle of the rule of law. Courts do not exist to ratify the conduct of governments. Their function is to examine evidence without fear or favour, especially when the victims are those with the least political power. The same principle animates the work of the UN Commission of Inquiry. Its conclusions may be contested, but they cannot simply be dismissed because they are politically inconvenient. The proper response to serious evidence is serious engagement. That is the first obligation of any state that claims to respect the rule of law.

The Test Before Humanity

The UN Commission’s report is ultimately not only about Israel or Palestine.

It asks whether the international legal order created after the defeat of European fascism still possesses the moral authority to defend children from organised violence. If more than 20,000 children can be killed while the institutions of international diplomacy continue largely as normal, then the promise embodied in the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child stands gravely diminished. The report will not end the war. It cannot restore the lives already lost. But it establishes a historical record that will become increasingly difficult to erase. Long after governments change and military campaigns conclude, this record will remain. History remembers those who committed atrocities. It also remembers those who looked away.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).

By Bandile Mabuza

In the southern region of Africa, nestled between South Africa and Mozambique, lies the small kingdom officially known as the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland. Though often marketed internationally as a peaceful cultural monarchy and tourist destination, beneath the surface exists one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies — a political system where power is concentrated almost entirely in the hands of the king, while the majority of citizens endure poverty, unemployment, political repression, and democratic exclusion.

Furthermore, this is the only country in Africa which has no diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China but instead with Taiwan. This creates huge problems for Swaziland’s economy, meaning it cannot participate in the trade and investment with China which is a mainstay of development of the overwhelming majority of African countries. Instead its absolute monarchy prefers to gain subsidies from Taiwan. But this financing of the regime by means totally in contradiction to the country’s interests is entirely in line with, and buttresses, the ultra-repressive domestic character of the archaic regime.

For decades, the people of Eswatini have struggled to assert their political voice against an entrenched system that combines royal absolutism, legal repression, economic inequality, and militarized control. Despite repeated waves of resistance, the kingdom remains isolated from meaningful democratic transformation, and dissent continues to be criminalized.

The Structure of Absolute Monarchy in Eswatini

Eswatini is Africa’s last absolute monarchy under King Mswati III, who ascended to the throne in 1986 following the death of King Sobhuza II. Unlike constitutional monarchies where kings or queens serve ceremonial functions, the monarch in Eswatini exercises direct executive, legislative, and significant judicial influence.

The roots of this system can be traced to the infamous 1973 Decree issued by King Sobhuza II. On April 12, 1973, the king repealed the independence constitution, dissolved parliament, banned political parties, and vested supreme powers in the monarchy. The decree declared that political parties were “incompatible with the Swazi way of life.” From that moment onward, democratic political organization became effectively illegal.

Although the country adopted the 2005 Constitution decades later, many hoped it would initiate democratic reforms. Instead, the constitution largely consolidated royal authority while creating the appearance of constitutional governance. Political parties remain effectively excluded from participation in elections, and executive power remains centered around the king.

The monarch appoints the prime minister, cabinet ministers, judges, army leadership, police commissioners, members of the Senate, and numerous strategic officials. Parliament itself functions within severe limitations, lacking meaningful autonomy from royal authority. Chiefs loyal to the monarchy continue to exercise considerable control over rural communities, land allocation, and local governance.

The electoral system, known as Tinkhundla, is officially portrayed as a grassroots democratic model. In practice, critics argue that it depoliticizes society by prohibiting organized ideological competition and reducing elections to individual personalities rather than political programs. Citizens vote for individuals rather than parties, while the monarchy remains above political accountability.

Royal Wealth Amidst Mass Poverty

One of the most glaring contradictions in Eswatini is the coexistence of immense royal wealth alongside widespread poverty among ordinary citizens.

King Mswati III is known internationally for his lavish lifestyle. The monarchy maintains multiple royal palaces, luxury vehicles, private jets, and extravagant ceremonies funded directly or indirectly through public resources. Annual cultural events such as Umhlanga and Incwala receive substantial state attention and expenditure, while public hospitals frequently face shortages of medicine, understaffing, and deteriorating infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Eswatini consistently records some of the highest unemployment and poverty rates in Southern Africa. Youth unemployment remains catastrophic, particularly among graduates and rural youth. Many citizens survive through informal labor, subsistence farming, or migration to neighboring South Africa in search of employment.

The crisis is especially visible in rural areas where access to healthcare, sanitation, quality education, and economic opportunities remains deeply unequal. In many communities, families struggle with food insecurity while elites connected to the monarchy accumulate wealth and political influence.

This inequality has fueled growing frustration among young people, workers, students, and pro-democracy activists who increasingly question the legitimacy of a political order that concentrates national wealth and power in the hands of a small royal elite.

Repression and Criminalization of Dissent

Political repression remains one of the defining characteristics of governance in Eswatini. Activists, journalists, trade unionists, students, and opposition figures have long faced surveillance, intimidation, detention, torture allegations, exile, and imprisonment.

Central to this repression is the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008, a law widely criticized by human rights organizations for its vague and broad definitions of terrorism. The law has repeatedly been used against pro-democracy activists and organizations demanding political reforms.

Under this legislation, groups associated with democratic struggle have been labeled terrorist organizations, enabling the state to arrest individuals for political association, slogans, publications, or activism. Critics argue that the law effectively criminalizes dissent rather than protecting public safety.

Prominent activists and Members of Parliament have faced arrest and persecution over the years. Others have fled into exile due to fears for their safety. Journalists operating inside the kingdom work under intense pressure, with self-censorship becoming common due to fear of state retaliation.

Security forces — including the police and army — are frequently accused of excessive force against protesters. Demonstrations are often dispersed violently, and emergency-style policing has become normalized whenever mass mobilization emerges.

The judiciary itself has faced criticism for lacking full independence, especially in politically sensitive cases involving activists or constitutional challenges against royal authority.

The 27 Demands and the Rise of Modern Resistance

The democratic struggle in Eswatini has evolved across several important historical moments.

One of the most significant early milestones was the 1996 mass workers’ uprising and the “27 Demands.” Organized largely through trade unions and civic organizations, the demands called for democratic reforms, labor rights, freedom of association, constitutional reform, and an end to political repression.

The protests represented a major challenge to the monarchy’s authority and demonstrated growing dissatisfaction among workers and ordinary citizens. Although the state resisted fundamental change, the movement laid the foundation for modern pro-democracy organizing in the country.

The 27 Demands became symbolic because they connected economic suffering with political exclusion. Protesters argued that poverty, unemployment, and underdevelopment were inseparable from the absence of democratic accountability.

Waya Waya 2012: “Enough is Enough”

Another defining chapter emerged during the 2011–2012 uprisings commonly referred to as Waya Waya — meaning “we are going.”

Inspired partly by global protest movements and worsening economic conditions, students, workers, youth, and political activists mobilized against austerity, inequality, corruption, and authoritarian rule.

The movement exposed the depth of frustration among the population, particularly young people facing hopelessness and unemployment. Calls for multiparty democracy intensified, while state security forces responded with arrests, intimidation, and suppression.

Although the movement did not overthrow the system, it significantly reshaped political consciousness among a new generation of activists. Social media, underground organizing, and civic mobilization became increasingly important tools of resistance.

The 2021 Uprising: Bloodiest Crackdown in Modern History

The most explosive confrontation between the state and citizens occurred in 2021, during what became the bloodiest unrest in modern Swazi history.

The immediate trigger involved demands for political reforms and the right to submit petitions calling for democratic change. Tensions escalated rapidly after the death of university student and activist Thabani Nkomonye under suspicious circumstances, which many citizens believed symbolized broader state impunity and injustice.

Mass protests erupted across the country, particularly among youth. Demonstrators demanded democratic reforms, an elected prime minister, accountability, and an end to authoritarian rule.

The state responded with overwhelming force. Soldiers were deployed into communities, live ammunition was reportedly used against civilians, and numerous reports emerged of killings, torture, beatings, and arbitrary arrests.

Human rights organizations estimated that over one hundred people lost their lives during the crackdown, though exact figures remain contested due to restricted information flows and fear among witnesses. Many activists were forced into hiding or exile, while others were detained.

The 2021 unrest fundamentally altered the political landscape. For many citizens, it shattered the image of Eswatini as a peaceful and stable monarchy. Internationally, the uprising drew renewed attention to the kingdom’s democratic crisis.

A Nation at a Crossroads

Today, Eswatini stands at a historic crossroads. On one side remains a deeply entrenched absolute monarchy determined to preserve centralized authority. On the other stands a growing democratic movement driven largely by workers, students, youth, civic organizations, and political activists demanding accountability, dignity, and political participation.

The struggle in Eswatini is not simply about replacing one ruler with another. At its core, it concerns the fundamental question of whether citizens should possess the right to determine their political future, organize freely, criticize power without fear, and participate meaningfully in governance.

Despite censorship and repression, the voices calling for democratic transformation continue to grow louder. Yet many citizens remain trapped between fear and hope — fear of state violence and persecution, and hope that one day the country may transition toward a more democratic and socially just society.

Africa’s last absolute monarchy remains a kingdom marked by contradiction: immense royal authority alongside widespread suffering; cultural pride alongside political exclusion; silence enforced by fear, yet resistance sustained by generations unwilling to surrender the dream of freedom.

By Biljana Vankovska

These are difficult times for anyone who has consistently criticised NATO. From the era of ‘defending the Free World’ against communism, through the age of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and the ‘Global War on Terror,’ to today’s supposedly existential struggle against almost the entire non-Western world, the Alliance has repeatedly reinvented the narratives that justify its existence. The language changes; the underlying logic does not. NATO remains indispensable, and every new enemy (whether discovered, exaggerated, or actively produced) becomes further proof of its necessity.

For decades, critics coming from anti-militarist, anti-hegemonic or left perspectives had to work hard to deconstruct this mythology against the combined efforts of political elites, mainstream media, academic institutions and security experts. The intellectual task itself was never particularly difficult. The contradictions, hypocrisies and devastating consequences of NATO’s interventions have remained visible long after the bombs stopped falling. What required courage was speaking against the prevailing consensus.

Ironically, today the Alliance’s own leaders have become its most effective truth-tellers. Donald Trump has repeatedly stripped away the moral language that traditionally surrounded NATO. Mark Rutte, the Alliance’s Secretary General, has become equally candid, while Germany’s Chancellor and France’s President increasingly speak with remarkable openness about Europe’s military future. Yet the privilege of telling the truth about what NATO has become belongs only to those in power. As the repression of protest movements ahead of the Ankara summit demonstrates, citizens may know the truth about this military giant—but they are not expected to organise against it.

The Ankara Summit has not even begun, yet its conclusions are already known. The phrase ‘historic summit’ has become so overused that it has almost lost its meaning. Some observers expect the ‘Europeanisation’ of NATO, with European allies assuming greater responsibility for financing and leading the Alliance. But this remains largely rhetorical. Europe cannot replace the United States as the Alliance’s military backbone. It can, however, willingly tighten the noose around its own neck—and perhaps around the world’s. While Atlanticists remain preoccupied with the Washington-Brussels relationship and whether Trump truly intends to reduce America’s commitment, a more significant transformation is taking place within Europe itself. New military coalitions are emerging inside NATO. The Baltic states and Poland increasingly pursue their own security agenda, driven by historical grievances and profound Russophobia. Sweden and Finland, once symbols of neutrality, have rapidly embraced militarisation, with Helsinki now even permitting the deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory (American weapons, naturally, making these states ever more deeply integrated into Washington’s strategic architecture). Similar regional military configurations are quietly taking shape in the Balkans, where Croatia, Albania, Bulgaria and Kosovo increasingly speak of strengthening their own defence cooperation: NATO within NATO.

What truly distinguishes NATO 3.0, however, is not merely its willingness to name Russia and China explicitly as strategic adversaries or to proclaim its global ambitions. Rutte himself has explained that NATO is indispensable because it enables the United States to project power globally through Europe. Europe, in other words, functions as both a platform and force multiplier for American global strategy (as shown by the Epic Fury operation).

More revealing still is the language in which NATO now describes itself. Rutte proudly speaks of a ‘defence industrial revolution.’ The expression is revealing. Just as the First Industrial Revolution transformed production through factories and mechanisation, NATO 3.0 seeks to reorganise military production on an entirely new scale, not primarily for defence, but for permanent profitability. Behind the rhetoric of ‘collective security,’ ‘strategic autonomy,’ and ‘deterrence’ lies a far simpler reality: NATO increasingly functions as a mechanism for transferring unprecedented amounts of public money into private corporate hands.

Hence NATO 3.0 represents yet another mutation: an alliance whose principal historical mission increasingly appears to be the permanent militarisation of Western economies, and most probably, a new war with Russia.

The timing is remarkable. For decades, governments insisted that public finances required austerity. Hospitals, universities, pensions and social welfare supposedly had to accept painful budget discipline. Suddenly, none of these fiscal constraints apply to military expenditure. Deficits that were politically impossible for healthcare or education have become entirely acceptable for weapons procurement. Defence spending is no longer presented as a burden but as an investment strategy and an excellent possibility for job openings (they don’t mention the expanded graveyards that usually go along with warfare).

This raises further profound questions. If cloud computing, artificial intelligence, satellite communications and autonomous weapons are increasingly developed by private technology corporations, who ultimately controls national security? If governments become structurally dependent upon commercial providers, where does democratic accountability remain? When military procurement begins to resemble venture-capital investment, who actually benefits from permanent insecurity? These questions receive surprisingly little attention.

Instead, we hear only the language of emergency. Europe must rearm immediately. Industrial production must accelerate. Procurement rules must be simplified. Military investment cannot wait. Yet history teaches us that emergencies rarely remain temporary. Exceptional measures gradually become permanent forms of governance. Under conditions of continuous perceived threat, extraordinary military spending begins to appear normal, while demands for investment in education, healthcare or social justice suddenly become fiscally irresponsible.

Security colonises politics. What emerges before our eyes is a model in which war itself becomes increasingly privatised. Private defence contractors, technology firms, logistics companies and AI developers become indispensable actors within the military ecosystem. Even warfare itself becomes increasingly remote. Artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and digital infrastructures allow military operations to be outsourced, automated and commercialised in unprecedented ways. War does not necessarily require mass mobilisation; it requires investment portfolios.

For small member states that expected welfare instead of warfare, the implications are particularly sobering. Increasing defence budgets is presented as solidarity with the Alliance, but in reality, it often resembles compulsory participation in a vast military-industrial investment scheme. Citizens finance weapons they neither produce nor control, purchasing protection against threats that are frequently amplified by the very geopolitical logic that sustains the system.

NATO has never been merely a military alliance within the UN-based international order. It has always been an expression of the Western strategic worldview. Today it is becoming something even more complex: a system where security policy, industrial policy, technological power, and capital accumulation increasingly merge. The Ankara summit will not only discuss defence and deterrence; it will reveal how deeply the future of capitalism, technology and organised violence has become intertwined. It will be yet another chapter in the political economy of permanent mobilization for warfare.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter. Biljana Vankovska is a professor of political science and international relations at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, the president of Synergia Orbi: Institute for Global Analysis in Skopje, and the most influential public intellectual in Macedonia. She is a member of the No Cold War collective.

Last week, a set of important reforms to Cuba’s economic and social fabric were presented, debated and approved by the Communist Party of Cuba’s Central Committee and by the National Assembly of People’s Power, Cuba’s parliament, both in extraordinary sessions. All in all, it concerns a package of broad-ranging economic and social transformations, with 176 reforms across 23 sectors.

No Cold War is of the opinion that to know and understand the measures adopted, and the multiple reasons and motivations behind them, it is important to read the extensive closing speeches delivered at both extraordinary sessions by Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic of Cuba.

They make clear that the objective of the operation is “to change what needs to be changed” in an increasingly complex and challenging international situation, in order to concretely improve people’s lives, while safeguarding and strengthening Cuba’s socialist construction.

Miguel Díaz-Canel’s speech to the Extraordinary Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party can be downloaded (PDF) here.

Miguel Díaz-Canel’s speech to the Third Extraordinary Session of the National Assembly of People’s Power can be downloaded (PDF) here.

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¡Viva Cuba Libre! Long live Free Cuba!

¡Viva el heroico pueblo cubano! Long live the heroic Cuban people!

¡Viva la soberanía de la nación cubana! Long live the sovereignty of the Cuban nation!

¡Socialismo o Muerte! Socialism or Death!

¡Patria o Muerte! Homeland or Death!

¡Venceremos! We will win!

By Vijay Prashad

The Iran–US Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) emerged not from reconciliation, but from exhaustion and strategic failure by the United States and its allies. It was the product of a war that had reached its political limits. Washington and Tel Aviv presented their illegal war of aggression as a necessary response to Iran’s nuclear energy programme, missile capabilities, and regional alliances. Yet behind this language of security lay a broader objective: to weaken Iran decisively and restore a regional order centred on unquestioned US and Israeli dominance.

For more than two decades, successive US administrations had sought to contain Iran through sanctions, diplomatic isolation, covert operations, cyberwarfare, and targeted assassinations. The recent war represented the most intense expression of this strategy. The assumption in Washington and Tel Aviv was that overwhelming force would cripple Iran’s military infrastructure, fracture its state capacity, provoke internal instability, and perhaps open the way for political transformation.

That expectation was not fulfilled. Iran suffered extensive damage to military facilities, infrastructure, and economic assets. Civilian life was severely disrupted. But the Iranian state did not collapse. Its command structures continued to function, its armed forces retained retaliatory capacity, and its leadership preserved enough cohesion to withstand the assault. Despite the murder of several key  leaders of the Islamic Republic, it remains in authority and its legitimacy has in fact been strengthened.

Equally important, Iran demonstrated that it could impose costs beyond its own borders. Missile and drone attacks reached Israeli territory and threatened strategic infrastructure across the Gulf Arab states. The conflict imposed by the US and Israel ended up with disrupted shipping routes, raised insurance costs, unsettled energy markets, and reminded governments across the world that instability in the Gulf cannot be contained within the region.

As the war continued, the gap between military power and political achievement became increasingly visible. The United States and Israel possessed overwhelming military superiority, but they could not convert battlefield pressure into decisive political outcomes. Iran remained intact; regime change did not occur. The Axis of Resistance – from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea – was weakened but not eliminated. Continued escalation promised greater destruction, but not strategic victory. Due to this fact, the MoU is not a final peace treaty. It is a provisional framework designed to halt direct hostilities, reopen channels of negotiation, and prevent the conflict from spreading further.

Its first and most immediate provision is a temporary cessation of direct military operations. The framework establishes a 60-day period during which the parties are expected to negotiate the terms of a more durable settlement. This pause does not resolve the underlying conflict, but it creates space to prevent accidental escalation and reduce the immediate risk of a wider regional war.

Second, the MoU centres on the Strait of Hormuz. This is the agreement’s most economically significant feature. Roughly one-fifth of globally traded petroleum passes through this narrow waterway. During the war, threats to shipping demonstrated both Iran’s geographic leverage and the vulnerability of the global economy to instability in the Gulf. The MoU treats maritime deconfliction not as a technical matter, but as a central pillar of regional and global economic stability.

Third, the agreement establishes a process for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear energy programme. Crucially, it does not impose immediate dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Instead, it opens discussions on enrichment levels, inspection mechanisms, monitoring arrangements, and the possible return of international technical oversight. This marks a shift from coercion to bargaining: Iran is not being treated simply as a target, but as a state whose consent is required for any durable nuclear arrangement.

Fourth, the MoU includes discussions on sanctions relief, oil exports, and the possible release or mobilisation of Iranian financial assets. The details remain contested. But the principle is clear: economic strangulation did not produce surrender. A sustainable settlement will require some degree of economic accommodation.

Fifth, the agreement reportedly includes regional deconfliction mechanisms, particularly around Lebanon. This reflects the fact that the conflict was never only bilateral. Iran’s regional alliances, Israel’s military operations, US security commitments, and the fragile balance in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and the Gulf are all connected. Any agreement that ignores this regional architecture will remain unstable.

The most revealing aspect of the MoU is what it omits. It does not demand regime change, it does not require Iran to abandon its missile programme, and it does not force Tehran to withdraw entirely from regional political and security affairs. In short, the agreement recognises Iran as a regional power whose interests must be negotiated, not simply bombed away.

The MoU exposes important differences between the strategic priorities of the United States and Israel. For Israel, the war was an opportunity to reshape the regional balance of power. Israeli policymakers have long regarded Iran as the principal obstacle to their strategic ambitions in West Asia. The weakening of Hezbollah, the fragmentation of resistance networks, and the isolation of Tehran were seen as necessary steps toward a regional order more favourable to Israel. The United States shared some of these objectives but operated under broader constraints. Washington had to consider not only military outcomes, but also oil markets, global trade, Gulf allies, domestic political pressures, and the risk of wider international involvement. As the costs mounted, US calculations increasingly diverged from Israeli maximalism.

The result is an agreement that many in Israel are likely to regard as insufficient. The war did not eliminate Iran as a strategic actor. It did not produce regime change. It did not destroy Iran’s capacity to influence events beyond its borders. Most importantly, it ended not with capitulation, but with negotiation. This outcome reveals a deeper problem for Israeli strategy. Military superiority can inflict enormous damage, but it cannot by itself produce political legitimacy or regional acceptance. Israel can strike targets across West Asia, but it cannot determine the political future of societies beyond its borders through force alone.

For the United States, the MoU represents the recognition of another reality: military dominance no longer guarantees political obedience. This lesson has been learned repeatedly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and now once again in relation to Iran.

The Gulf Arab monarchies are among the most important observers of this agreement. Throughout the conflict, Gulf governments were caught between competing pressures. They remain dependent on US security guarantees and have expanded overt or covert relations with Israel. At the same time, they understand that any regional war with Iran places their own economic and social stability at risk. The disruption of shipping routes and threats to regional infrastructure made this vulnerability unmistakable. The Gulf states possess immense wealth, but their economies depend on secure maritime trade, stable energy exports, foreign investment, and the confidence of global markets. A prolonged war endangers all of these.

The likely conclusion for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman is pragmatic rather than ideological. They will continue to work with Washington. Some will maintain or deepen relations with Israel. But they will also seek channels with Tehran and avoid becoming direct platforms for escalation. This trend was already visible before the war. The Saudi–Iranian rapprochement facilitated by China in 2023 reflected a growing recognition that regional stability cannot be achieved through permanent confrontation. The war has reinforced that conclusion. The Gulf monarchies have learned that neither Iran nor the United States is going away. Their future depends not on choosing one side permanently against the other, but on managing the contradictions between them while protecting their own interests.

Whether Iran has won depends on how victory is defined. If victory means avoiding destruction, Iran did not win. The country suffered severe economic losses, infrastructure damage, military degradation, and human costs. The burden of the war fell heavily on ordinary Iranians. But strategic outcomes are not measured only by damage suffered. They are also measured by political objectives achieved or prevented.

The central objective of the United States and Israel was not merely to damage Iran. It was to fundamentally weaken Iran as an independent regional actor. On that measure, the campaign fell short. Iran remains sovereign and the government of the Islamic Republic remains in power. Its military capabilities have been reduced but not eliminated. Its diplomatic relevance has been strengthened by the fact that negotiations now revolve around securing Iranian consent rather than imposing foreign dictates. In this sense, Iran achieved what many states facing overwhelming military pressure have sought throughout history: survival. Survival is not romantic. It is often costly, brutal, and incomplete. But in international politics, survival can be the most important measure of strategic success.

The larger significance of the war lies elsewhere. The conflict demonstrated once again that destruction is not the same as power. Military force can demolish infrastructure, kill combatants, and impose suffering. What it cannot always do is produce political transformation. The United States and Israel possessed vastly superior military capabilities, yet they could not secure the political outcome they desired. The Iran–US MoU is therefore not a story of decisive victory by either side. It is the story of a war that revealed the limits of coercion. Iran emerges battered but standing. The United States and Israel emerge powerful but unable to dictate terms. The Gulf states emerge more conscious of their vulnerability. The region enters a new phase in which negotiations, rather than battlefield victories, will determine the next chapter of West Asian politics. That is the deepest political meaning of the MoU: military power can destroy, but it cannot always rule.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter and No Cold War. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).

By Gisela Cernadas, David Vine and John Bellamy Foster

U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed a $1.5 trillion military budget for the fiscal year 2027, which would increase by 44 percent the acknowledged budget for 2026. While a roughly $500 billion increase would be unprecedented in modern U.S. history, the idea that the military budget only recently hit $1 trillion is incorrect. U.S. military spending has exceeded $1 trillion for many years. Adding $500 billion (and potentially $200 billion more to fund war in Iran), as the president has proposed, would take the total military budget up to $2 trillion to $3 trillion.

A new report from the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), written by David Vine, John Bellamy Foster and Gisela Cernadas, argues that this widely reported number dramatically understates the true cost of maintaining the U.S. military. Using five different methodologies, the report estimates that total military spending in 2025 was between $1.5 trillion and $1.8 trillion and could be as high as $2.3 trillion when interest payments associated with military-related debt are included. The report concludes that the United States has been spending well above $1 trillion on military activities for many years, contrary to the common perception that this threshold was only recently crossed.

According to the analysis conducted by the POGO, the Hartung/Smithberger methodology produces the highest base estimate at $1,766,172,000,000, followed by the Wheeler approach at $1,727,634,000,000 and the figure reported by USAspending.gov at $1,717,989,509,643. The Cernadas/Foster and National Priorities Project methodologies yield comparatively lower base estimates of $1,494,236,125,000 and $1,477,081,000,000, respectively. When interest is incorporated, the totals increase substantially, ranging from $1,713,283,160,060 under the National Priorities Project methodology to $2,284,383,842,468 under the Cernadas/Foster approach. It should be noted that the National Priorities Project figure focuses on discretionary spending and excludes mandatory forms of spending; were the latter included, this estimate would align far more closely with the others.

Whether intentionally or otherwise, Congress, presidents, and the Pentagon have hidden the true size of the U.S. military budget for decades. Journalists, think tank analysts, academics, and other experts have, with rare exceptions, perpetuated the problem by reporting only a portion of true military spending; most are unaware of the costs they’re overlooking.

The problem with most conventional reporting is that there are hundreds of billions of dollars in military spending outside the Pentagon’s annual budget appropriated by Congress. Even a generally authoritative source of global military spending data such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) underestimates U.S. spending by overlooking significant sums outside what Trump calls the Department of War and related budgets. 

One major example is nuclear weapons spending, which represented around $33.5 billion in net spending for FY 2025. Although nuclear forces are controlled and deployed by the U.S. military, a significant portion of the budget for maintaining and modernizing the nuclear arsenal is allocated through the Department of Energy rather than the Pentagon.

Another large category of hidden spending involves veterans and military retirees. The costs of pensions, health care, disability benefits, survivor assistance, and other long-term obligations are primarily funded through the Department of Veterans Affairs and other federal accounts. These expenditures are direct consequences of maintaining military forces and fighting wars, yet they are typically excluded from military budget calculations.

Beyond veterans’ benefits and nuclear weapons, military-related spending can also be found within the budgets of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and several other agencies. Programs ranging from military aid to foreign governments to certain homeland security functions contribute to national military capacity but often fall outside official defence budget totals.

A major significant issue is debt financing. Since the wars launched after 11 September 2001, the United States has relied heavily on borrowing rather than taxation to finance military operations. For this reason, some refer to the post-2001 wars as ‘credit card wars’. While analysts disagree on how much of the national debt should be attributed to military activities, including these costs pushes 2025 military expenditures well above $2 trillion under some methodologies.

Despite differences in definitions and data sources used by the authors, all five methodologies arrive at a similar conclusion: the commonly cited military budget substantially underestimates what the United States actually spends on war, military forces, and related activities. This suggests that the issue is not a matter of partisan interpretation but rather the result of longstanding budget practices that disperse military costs across numerous federal agencies.

Understanding the true scale of military spending is essential for democratic accountability. Citizens cannot effectively debate national priorities if they are presented with incomplete information about how public funds are allocated. If major expenses associated with military activities are distributed across multiple departments, the public may struggle to compare military expenditures with spending on other priorities such as education, housing, infrastructure, health care, or climate resilience.

If the United States is already spending between $1.7 trillion and $2.3 trillion annually on military-related activities, proposals for additional increases should be evaluated against that broader fiscal reality rather than against the narrower Pentagon budget alone.

Unfortunately, there remains ambiguity about the full scale of military spending given the poor state of Pentagon accounting practices, including its inability to pass a financial audit. Members of the public and members of Congress need a full accounting of the military budget to analyse, discuss, and debate the proper size of military spending both on its own and in relation to other non-military funding priorities.

To provide accurate spending figures, Congress should reform its budgeting practices and provide a true total military budget that combines all forms of military and war spending in one place and one true total figure. Congress also should stop appropriating, and thus hiding, money for the military in other agencies’ budgets. Until Congress begins reporting accurate numbers, members of the media and other analysts should stop repeating incomplete congressional spending data and tell the public what the country is really spending on the military and war.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter and No Cold War. Gisela Cernadas is an economist at the Centre of Economic Development Studies, National University of San Martin, Argentina, and a Member of the No Cold War collective. David Vine is a fellow at the Transition Security Project and former professor of anthropology at American University. John Bellamy Foster is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Oregon.

By Bert De Belder

Healthcare, not missiles; pensions, not F-35s; schools, not tanks. That is the message from the 12,000 people demonstrating in Brussels last Sunday June 14th for Welfare, not Warfare, against militarization and for social progress – at a moment when European governments have committed €800 billion to rearmament. Linking up the fight against austerity measures and social cuts, that the large majority of the people are starting to feel in their daily lives, jobs, salaries or pensions; with the fight against militarization and increased military spending, proved a successful formula. People reject the capitalist establishment’s logic that there would be no money for education, social security or public services, while overnight billions can be found for arms and destruction.

The truth is simpler: the same governments that claim there is no money for our social security suddenly find billions for weapons. The same political leaders who want people to work longer, roll out the red carpet for Lockheed Martin, Rheinmetall, and other arms dealers. The same ministers who cut spending on the sick, unemployed, and pensioners write blank checks for the war economy.

In Belgium, the trade-off is concrete. The De Wever government is pursuing a major budget consolidation, cutting up to €14 billion from public services and €3 billion from pensions. Unemployment benefits are capped at two years, affecting 184,000 people. Once the pension reform is full effect, workers will lose an average of €318 per month in pension income — with women bearing seven in ten of the losses. Belgium’s military budget, meanwhile, is being accelerated to 2 per cent of GDP this year, requiring €4 billion in additional annual military spending.

People came from all over Belgium to the demonstration, in response to the call from the Belgian Stop Militarisation platform, but also from across Europe, led by the Stop ReArm Europe coalition. Among them were many young people and students, workers and trade unionists, teachers and academicians, healthcare workers, and lots of activists from peace movements, climate action groups, human rights defenders, NGOs, the feminist movement, the anti-racist movement. This diversity and broadness also literally showed in the colorful, dynamic and energetic ways the various groups walked the streets of Brussels.

They were all united in saying no to the militarisation of society that De Wever [Prime Minister], Bouchez [President of the MR, French-speaking neoliberal party], Francken [Minister of Defence] want to impose at the Belgian level, the likes of Macron, Merz, Starmer and von der Leyen at the European level, and of course Donald Trump and his ilk on a world scale.

They were also united in their rejection of the current ongoing wars and armed conflicts, united in a firm ‘No’ to Trump and his wars, which are setting the world ablaze, from Iran to Cuba via Palestine.

And at the same time, they shouted ‘No’ to an imperialist Europe, that is planning to arm itself to the teeth to give itself the operational capacity to intervene from the Sahel to the Persian Gulf to guarantee the profits of their own ‘European champion’ multinationals and gain greater access to the critical minerals and other natural resources in the Global South. Imperialist Europe is about cobalt, lithium, uranium, gas, oil, and supply chains. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces roughly 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt; the EU has signed strategic mineral partnership agreements with the DRC and Zambia to secure supply chains, while simultaneously deploying military training missions across Central Africa and the Sahel. It is about the old colonial reflex in a new uniform. The names change and the technology evolves, but the power structures remain recognizable: Europe is building a new imperialism, led by an ever-growing German military apparatus.

A society preparing for war also changes from within. It grows accustomed to orders, distrusts criticism, and applauds to the rhythm of the war drum. Pacifists are dismissed as naive, trade union members as irresponsible, and opposition parties as allies of the enemy. Militarization abroad always goes hand-in-hand with militarization at home: branding opponents of war as the domestic enemy, restrictions of democratic space, and the normalization of authoritarian reflexes.

Albeit grim and determined to fight the militarist-imperialist monster, at the same time the Brussels demonstration was, in a way, cheerful and hopeful. People showed their desire to supplant war and death with peace and life, to replace a society for the few super-rich with a society for and of the many. They illustrated this optimism with dance and theatre, music and creatively self-made banners, songs and hugs.

The June 14 demonstration was a crossroads of European resistance. From Italy comes the experience of unions and peace movements that have organized major actions in recent years against war, arms deliveries, and military escalation. Dockworkers, trade unionists, peace activists, and social movements have repeatedly refused to let the Mediterranean become a logistical corridor for war. From the United Kingdom comes the strength of a peace movement that, together with unions and anti-racist organizations, has brought masses of people onto the streets against war policy, against the genocide in Gaza, and against the complicity of European governments. From Germany come the youth who quit their classrooms to reject a future as cannon fodder. Their school strikes against conscription and militarization show a generation that refuses to accept that their schools are deteriorating while the Bundeswehr advertises everywhere. The resistance of German healthcare workers, doctors, and hospital staff against the militarization of the health sector is also an important signal: hospitals should heal people, not be transformed into components of a war infrastructure.

The demonstration was followed by a general assembly of the Stop ReArm Europe platform, to exchange and discuss the next steps. This was just the beginning of rebuilding and reviving the peace movement. It will continue to grow in the months and years to come, to promote and make real a different path: that of a Belgium and a Europe (and world) of peace, dialogue, understanding, common security and social progress. For the countries of the Global South — which did not choose this war economy and are already bearing its costs in fuel prices, food insecurity, and military encirclement — there is no greater urgency.

Bert De Belder is at the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PVDA-PTB), as head of its Department of International Relations.

By Vijay Prashad

In the southern Iranian city of Minab, where the heat rises from the earth in shimmering waves and the reality of imperialism lingers in every port and military installation, a missile struck a school on 28 February 2026. The strike killed 156 people, notably 120 schoolchildren, which the Iranian government immediately called a ‘blatant crime.’ The United Nations called the attack ‘a grave violation of humanitarian law.’ The names of the murdered children have not circulated through the centres of global power with the same force as the names of generals, weapons systems, and technology platforms. The dead Iranians remain largely anonymous to those who debate the future of artificial intelligence (AI), which was used by the United States—as it turns out—on this strike.

The murder of the children has opened a window into one of the central questions of our age: who bears responsibility when a machine enters the chain of violence? What role AI played remains unclear. Press reports indicate that the US military’s Maven Smart System, which incorporates AI tools including Anthropic’s Claude model, was involved in military operations against Iran. Investigators continue to examine whether AI-assisted systems contributed in any way to the targeting process. The available evidence remains incomplete.

What is remarkable is that the leaders of the AI industry are no longer standing outside the machinery of war. They are inside it. When asked about the strike, Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei said that he did ‘not know exactly’ how Claude had been used in this strike, which he described as ‘mistakes’ that are ‘really, really terrible.’ However, Amodei reiterated, the attack on the school was ‘a use case that doesn’t even violate our red lines.’ This was because a human warrior ultimately made the final decision to strike the school. Amodei’s answer deserves careful attention.

For decades, the architects of technological power have developed a language that distributes responsibility so broadly that it dissolves. The engineer builds the tool, the contractor integrates the system, the military analyst reviews the output, the officer authorizes the strike, and the politician approves the war. The result is a chain in which everyone participates, and no one is accountable. The language of ‘human in the loop’ belongs to this tradition. Of course, humans make the final decisions. Humans also made the final decisions during the Western colonial wars that devastated Asia and Africa. Humans made the final decisions when the United States bombed villages in Vietnam. Humans made the final decisions during the illegal US invasion of Iraq. The presence of a human signature at the end of a process does not tell us much about the structure of power that produced the outcome.

The more important question is this: what role does AI play in shaping the field of decisions available to those humans? Modern military systems are not merely calculators. They organize information, prioritize possibilities, identify patterns, generate recommendations, and shape attention. They influence what commanders see and what they do not see. Even when a human retains formal authority, the architecture of perception may already have been constructed by machines. This is why the discussion cannot end with the phrase ‘a human made the final decision.’

The crime in Minab arrives at a moment when technology companies increasingly present themselves as guardians of ethical boundaries. Anthropic, in particular, has cultivated an image of caution (this is evident in the Constitution of Claude). It has spoken about safety, alignment, and limits. It has distinguished itself from more aggressive visions of technological deployment. Yet every institution eventually reveals itself not through its principles but through the situations in which those principles are tested. The deaths of children at a school represent such a test.

If a company cannot determine how its technology was used in a military operation, what does oversight mean? If executives lack visibility into deployment, then claims about safeguards become difficult to evaluate. If a system contributes to military processes whose consequences include mass civilian casualties, can responsibility be confined solely to the final human actor? These are not questions for Anthropic alone. They confront the entire emerging alliance between Silicon Valley and the US national security state. Throughout history, periods of technological transformation have produced new partnerships between capital and military power. Railways, telegraphs, aviation, nuclear physics, and digital networks all followed this path. Artificial intelligence is now walking the same road. Its advocates promise precision, efficiency, and fewer mistakes. Yet every generation hears similar promises.

The twentieth century was filled with claims that new technologies would make war cleaner, more rational, and more humane. The historical record offers little support for such optimism. Technology often expands the scale and speed of violence even as it promises to restrain it. The children of Minab did not encounter AI as a philosophical debate. They encountered it as part of a military system whose consequences arrived in the form of explosive force. Whether Claude played a significant role, a minor role, or no role at all in the targeting process remains to be determined. Investigators must establish the facts, journalists must continue asking difficult questions, and citizens must demand transparency. But even before those facts are fully known, the episode reveals something important about our political moment. The question is no longer whether AI will be integrated into war. That integration is already underway. The question is whether societies will permit decisions about life and death to be increasingly shaped by systems that even their creators struggle to monitor, explain, or control.

The schoolhouse in Minab stands as a warning, not only about a single strike, or a single company, or a single war. It warns of a future in which technological power advances faster than public accountability. And in that future, the distance between the engineer and the battlefield grows ever smaller with AI and drones, even as responsibility becomes harder to find amongst the humans who send the machines out to kill for them.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).

The above article was produced by Globetrotter and No Cold War.

By Maggie Simpson and Bob Oram of No Cold War Britain

Faced with mounting military expenditure in Europe, cuts in social spending to finance it, and political attempts to whip up war fever spreading across Europe to justify it, a major European international demonstration under the slogan: “Welfare not Warfare — Invest in Life, Not in War” is taking place in Brussels on June 14.

It is being organised by the European campaign Stop ReArm Europe, in conjunction with the Belgium campaign Stop Militarisation. There will be a special international bloc to show the strength and unity of the movement at a European level. Delegations and individuals are invited to attend. The demonstration will be followed in the evening by a Stop ReArm Europe General Assembly.

Stop ReArm Europe (SRE) was founded last year. It has the support of more than 800 national and local organisations across Europe and has been campaigning against the EU’s “ReArm Europe” project — which calls for an additional €800 billion military spending.

Last year SRE led a campaign calling on members of the European Parliament to reject the EU’s proposed 2026 budget and to move money from war to peace. This year SRE is again campaigning in the run up to the vote on the EU’s 2027 budget vote this October.

The European demonstration in Brussels has broad support, reflecting widespread concerns about Europe’s orientation to preparations for war rather than attempts to achieve peace. Already Europe is experiencing its biggest military conflict since World War II in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, whose underlying cause was the militarisation of Europe with attempts to expand Nato into Ukraine.

With currently no end in sight to the war, Nato, which arms and supports Ukraine, is not trying to create peace but instead for a military build up to continue the war.

Such a militarisation of Europe is shown by Nato calling for a vast increase in military capacity across Europe. The US is taking the lead in this. It is increasing its deployment of nuclear weapons. Six Nato countries have already been approved to host US nuclear bombers — Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and Britain — and the US is discussing additional expansion of its nuclear deployments to central European and Baltic states.

While the US is committed to leading Nato, it itself is prioritising its military resources for its war drive and military build-up against China. So, European Nato states understand the US expects them to contribute far more to continue the military build-up and war preparations against Russia.

Most European Nato states are shifting large resources into this war drive, cutting welfare spending and public services to do so. To attempt to avoid the unpopularity and resistance this creates this requires stepping up their pro-war propaganda to persuade their populations of the supposed need for war.

All the European Nato states except Spain and Slovenia have agreed to Donald Trump’s proposal to raise their combined direct military and military-related spending to 5 per cent of their GDP.

European Nato states’ rearmament is proceeding at a pace. Germany, which already has the largest military budget, is undergoing huge additional military expansion and is introducing conscription. It and the other European states are co-ordinating their rearmament programmes with the US.

In addition, the European Union is assisting an upgrade of military infrastructure and regulations across Europe, so the road and rail systems etc can handle a large-scale military mobilisation against Russia, across the EU’s “Military Schengen” area. The requirements of Nato plans include the ability to transport up to 800,000 German, US and other troops eastward to the front line with Russia.

Britain’s current policy is locked into the US war-drive. It is increasing its military spending. It already actively assists both the US/Israeli military actions in west Asia and the US-led build up against Russia.

Despite most European government leaders strongly supporting a continuing Ukraine war, the polls and elections showing mounting opposition among the populations in key Nato countries to this war drive. Significant parts of the populations in the six countries (Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) that YouGov polls about Ukraine prefer negotiating peace with Russia rather than more war. This ranges from 29 per cent in Britain to 56 per cent in Italy.

In most of the six countries this “pro-peace” view has greater support than a “pro-war” view of prolonging the war. Even In Britain and Denmark, the only two countries out of the six where the “pro-war” view currently has greater support (46 per cent and 49 per cent respectively), the “pro-peace” view now has significant backing (29 per cent and 32 per cent).

In Europe, the US/Israeli war on Iran is drastically unpopular. Ipsos’s recent poll, covering 11 European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden), found the overwhelming majority of people take the view that their country should avoid getting militarily involved that conflict.

Trump’s war on Iran, because it has cut global supplies of oil and related products, is driving a wave of inflation through Europe, affecting entire populations. People are increasingly aware they are having to pay for this war.

In Europe, the overwhelming popular opposition to the war on Iran, alongside significant support for a negotiated peace in Ukraine, provides a basis for building broad mass movements against the war drive. The European anti-war demonstration in Brussels on June 14, and the wide support of organisations for Stop ReArm Europe which made it possible, is an indication of the progress being made.

Also this month, the Stop the War Coalition is organising an International Conference Against War in London on June 20. It is crucial to build and co-ordinate this rising opposition across Europe to war.

The above article was originally published here by the Morning Star.

By John Ross

Most world attention has recently naturally been focussed on the U.S./Israel war against Iran. But simultaneously, if less widely noticed, in Europe an increasingly serious military situation has been developing around Ukraine, the dynamic of which seriously threatens the risk of escalation from a “regional” conflict to a general European war.

This is not only a major development itself but, together with other developments, shows that the U.S. is escalating its international military aggression despite its setbacks in the first round of its war against Iran.

The immediate origins of this very dangerous dynamic in Europe can be traced to a May 2024 decision by NATO states to sanction the use of missiles they supplied, and also drones, for long distance strikes into Russia. In reality, such long-range strikes cannot be launched without NATO countries’ military guidance and intelligence system systems actively aiding Ukraine’s command and control functions. Therefore, NATO, in fact, is participating in, and essential to, carrying out military attacks deep inside Russia – as serious military analysts know.

The claim that this escalation is only by European countries and not by the U.S. will not stand up to serious examination, The entire military command and control, satellite surveillance, intelligence and targeting system of NATO is operationally under the control of the U.S.. Ukraine could not carry out these attacks without direct involvement of NATO, and NATO, in turn, could not act without the participation of the U.S.. Claims to the contrary are fiction.

Initially, after the May 2024 decision, fortunately, possibly because military production of missiles and drones in NATO countries had not yet been ramped up, these long distance strikes were little more than pinpricks, which Russia could in practice ignore. But in recent months the scale of European weapons production, and of these attacks, has been ramped up in terms of attacks on Russian cities, ports and production facilities. Such attacks are now taking place in Central Russia (Ryazan, Kapoitnya, Nizhny Novgorod, Syzran, Yaroslavl), in Urals (Perm) and increasingly in North-Western Russia (Kirishi, Tuapse, Novorossiysk, Grushovaya).  

These latter attacks have aroused particular discussion in Russia as St Petersburg, the centre of the region, is 1,600 kilometres from Kyiv. It is argued there, and outside, that it is not possible for Ukrainian drones to fly 1,600 kilometres across Russia without being detected, and they are instead being permitted to fly across Poland and the Baltic states before entering Russian airspace. This being true, would make those countries direct participants in the war.

The Baltic States have admitted that drones involved in the attacks on Northwest Russia have been in their airspace but have argued that they did not give permission for this. Whatever view is taken of the truth of such claims and counter-claims, it has inevitably led to an extremely tense situation in Northwest Russia, with the governor of the Northwest region of Leningrad, Alexander Drozdenko, declaring that the region has become a “frontline” one.

Jeffrey Sach has even stated that he regards the situation which this creates with the Baltic States as the “most dangerous place” in the world – an apparently extreme claim, but the logic of which is considered below.

In addition to these increasing attacks, Ukraine has made a number of threats and actions which can only be regarded as extreme provocations.

One was a threat by Zelensky to attempt to militarily attack the 9 May parade in Moscow celebrating the victory over Nazi Germany. To realise the significance of that, not only is 9 May the most solemn day in the Russian calendar but it is the day it is known with certainty that both Vladimir Putin and foreign leaders will be in Red Square.

The Russian Ministry of Defence replied by taking the extreme step of publicly warning foreign diplomats and citizens to evacuate Kyiv, threatening a massive, immediate retaliatory missile strike on the centre of the Ukrainian capital if the Moscow parade was attacked. This Ukrainian provocation was so extreme that even the US de facto explicitly vetoed it by forcing Zelensky to declare a ceasefire covering 9 May.

Even more shocking to Russian public opinion was on 21-22 May an attack on Starobilsk, a city in the Russian-speaking part of the Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 21 people, the great majority of whom were young women students. This led to an inevitable Russian retaliation against Kyiv, reportedly led by its Oreshnik hypersonic missile.

The extremely dangerous escalatory logic of the May 2024 NATO decision to strike deep inside Russia, after the initial delay in its implementation, is therefore clear, widely discussed inside Russia and increasingly outside. This is that it is militarily irrational for Russia to stay passive while NATO countries produce and pass unhindered increasing quantities of weapons to Ukraine to attack inside Russia, and that it is more logical and effective to militarily attack not only Kyiv’s military launching centres but the European countries weapon production facilities. That is, the passing of NATO’s attacks deep inside Russia from pinpricks to a mounting campaign is creating the risk of a general European war.

Sergey Karaganov, Honorary Chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, and a foreign policy advisor to Putin, Yeltsin, and Gorbachev, has argued that Russia, to prevent these attacks on it, must launch attacks against European infrastructure and military production facilities, that is against NATO countries, and that Russia must lower its threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons.

The disastrous decision to expand NATO eastwards, and to try to include Ukraine in it, always created the strategic risk of a general war in Europe. NATO’s current actions are turning that strategic threat into a short-term one.

Turning to the general context, in parallel with this dangerous escalation of the war against Russia, the U.S. is stepping up its threats against Cuba. In short, as regards the international situation, the U.S. has suffered a defeat in the first rounds of the war against Iran. But it is intensifying its military aggression internationally.