Author: Barry

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.

By Tings Chak

On the streets of Beijing, ‘the Beast‘ has been securing the motorcade route since last week, flown in by C-17 ahead of Trump’s arrival to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping. The international mainstream press is calling this a thaw between Washington and Beijing. Trump’s actions seem to speak otherwise.

Encountering a Different China

The last US state visit to Chinese soil was Trump’s own, in November 2017—at the start of the US-imposed trade war that would deepen under Biden and intensify in his second presidency. The China that received him then was still learning to respond to the aggressions. The China that receives him now has spent nine years diversifying its export markets, building supply chain autonomy, developing the technological leverage to push back, while turning towards Global South countries. Trump’s failed tariff war against China ended up hurting its own economy and people more than China’s, and Beijing’s export controls on rare earth elements ultimately forced Trump to back down. The eighteen US executives in the delegation, including Tim Cook, Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, have come because their companies cannot do without the Chinese market. The economic instruments of US containment have not produced the result Washington wanted.

The War on Iran

Since 28 February, the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran—which postponed this summit by six weeks—has killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and thousands of Iranian civilians. Meanwhile, more than 2,700 civilians have been killed in Lebanon, where US-Israeli strikes continue.

In retaliation against the US-Israeli aggression, Iranian missiles and drones have struck fifteen US military sites across Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—Al Udeid Air Base alone hit by 44 missiles and 8 drones, with 217 structures damaged or destroyed and an estimated $5 billion in repair costs. In its eleventh week, despite the US naval blockade and bombings, Iran has mounted sustained resistance and the war has not gone as Washington predicted. It has made unmistakable what anti-war movements across our region have long argued: the bases sold to host nations are not shields but targets.

In the days immediately before his arrival, Trump rejected Tehran’s peace proposal as ‘garbage‘. On 11 May—the eve of his departure—the US Treasury sanctioned twelve more individuals and companies over Iran-China oil trade, and the same day, a group of US senators urged Trump to approve a new $14 billion arms package for Taiwan.

Beijing has not been silent. On 2 May, in answer to an earlier round of US sanctions on five Chinese refineries, China invoked its anti-sanctions Blocking Rules for the first time since their introduction in 2021: the US measures “shall not be recognized, enforced, or complied with” within Chinese territory. The Chinese Foreign Ministry called them illegal and unilateral, without basis in international law. Though the defiance was not unconditional—Chinese banks have been quietly advised to limit exposure to the sanctioned refiners—the public position is clear. In the same week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi received Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in Beijing. China remains Iran’s largest trading partner and the principal buyer of its oil.

An Architecture of Containment

Iran is not the only war backdrop. Across the region, the architecture of US military presence is being expanded and accelerated. The same week of Trump’s visit, the largest joint military exercises in Philippine history concluded—Balikatan 2026, with seventeen thousand foreign troops from seven nations, Japanese anti-ship missiles positioned on Filipino soil, and a new US fuel depot in the south of the country. In central Luzon, the Philippines has granted 4,000 acres in New Clark City to the Pax Silica Initiative—a US-controlled high-tech zone operating under US common law and granted diplomatic immunity, on a lease renewable for 99 years.

On 28 April, the commander of US Forces in Korea, General Xavier Brunson, told the Japan Times that Washington is building a ‘kill web‘—a networked system fusing Korea, Japan and the Philippines into a single architecture against China, Russia and North Korea. In August 2025, Trump told reporters of the US base at Pyeongtaek that he would like to “get ownership of the land where we have a massive military base” in South Korea, a country where the US has 66 military bases. In Japan, military spending is being doubled—the largest rearmament since 1945—with 400 US Tomahawk missiles purchased, a project that has continued and accelerated under right-wing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. For Taiwan, Trump authorized $11 billion in arms in December, the largest package in history, and has told the press he intends to discuss arms sales—with Xi himself.

From Hyperimperialism to Hands off Asia

What is on display in Beijing this week is not a thaw, and the executives traveling with Trump are not a sign of moderation. The economic and military aggression against China are two halves of the same project of containment. This is hyperimperialism: an empire turning increasingly to force as its economic dominance erodes, with China and other Global South countries defending their sovereignty as the primary targets. Trump’s transactional style is not a departure from US imperialism but the form it takes when its economic instruments no longer deliver.

The Hands Off Asia campaign, launched on 30 April—the anniversary of the liberation of Vietnam—by the International People’s Assembly and partner organizations across our region, calls for the removal of foreign military bases from Asia, the cancellation of aggressive pacts like AUKUS and the Quad, and the redirection of military spending towards the needs of our peoples. The architecture being expanded across our region was not built to protect the people but to encircle China and discipline the rest of Asia. As Trump arrives in Beijing this week, no deal signed at the Great Hall will hide what his administration is building across our region—and the peoples of those places, from Okinawa to Subic, from Pyeongtaek to Tehran, see this war-mongering for what it is and oppose it, calling for: Hands off Asia.

This article was produced by Globetrotter and previously published here by Peoples Dispatch.

Tings Chak is the Asia co-coordinator of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and co-editor of Wenhua Zongheng: A Journal of Contemporary Chinese Thought. She is based in Beijing.

By John Ross

The entire peace movement opposed the US/Israeli war against Iran. Opposition went well beyond those normally opposing US actions. It is widely understood that resistance by the peoples of Iran, Lebanon and Yemen, together with the war’s unpopularity in the US, led to Trump losing the first rounds of the conflict.

Even the Wall Street Journal, a fervent supporter of the war, admitted this: “Trump screamed at aides for hours. The Europeans aren’t helping, he said repeatedly. Gas prices averaged $4.09. Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis… had been looming large in his mind, people who have spoken to him said.  ‘If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,’ Trump had said in March. ‘What a mess.’”

But it is a misjudgement to believe that because the US and Israel lost the first battle, therefore they have lost the war and are resigned to this. Instead, the peace movement must prepare for a prolonged struggle to defeat US and Israeli attacks on Iran.  

Some genuinely taking the right side in this war have written that the US has already suffered its biggest defeat since Vietnam, or even that this is a bigger defeat.

Unfortunately, this is a misanalysis. To prepare for the prolonged anti-war tasks to come, the situation must be seen accurately.

Precisely because if the US loses the war against Iran it would be its biggest defeat since Vietnam, it has no intention of giving up because it lost the first battle.

US ruling circles understand perfectly that US loss of the war would mean significant erosion of the credibility of its international threats, significantly weakening its global position.

They therefore simply conclude that the wrong tactic was chosen, and the US must change this to win the struggle. Even some forces in the US who believe launching the war was a tactical mistake believe that now it has started it must be won.

The Institute for the Study of War put it specifically: “Any US settlement or resolution of the conflict that enables Iran to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would represent a major US defeat.” As the Wall Street Journal summarised: “As the president said in his first term, the US shouldn’t start a war it doesn’t intend to win. His challenge now is to prove to Iran’s regime he meant what he said.”

The new US tactics to attempt to win the war can be clearly grasped if it is understood why it lost the first battle. Prior to the first military attack on Iran in June 2025, and the widespread assault launched in February, US policy under Trump had been to force Iran to capitulate to US demands by prolonged economic sanctions.

The US has now intensified this attack, after its defeat in the first round of the war, via its blockade of Iranian ships, with Trump claiming: “Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately… Starving for cash!”

Such sanctions genuinely damaged Iran’s economy, creating a priority for Iran to attempt to break out of them, while the US can return to bombing anytime it chooses.

Israel, and some in the US, considered sanctions strategically inadequate. Iran is a huge country, 80 times Israel’s size geographically, larger than the EU’s four largest countries put together. Iran’s population is 90 million, compared to Israel’s 10 million. In real economic terms, parity purchasing powers (PPPs), Iran’s GDP is three times Israel’s.

Faced with larger states, Israel’s policy has been, where it is unable to help create governments favourable to itself, to attempt to disintegrate and weaken them — as shown in Iraq and Syria.   
Israel, judging it unlikely there will be a compliant Iranian government, has long sought to disintegrate that country. Therefore, Iran faces an existential threat from Israel.

The US itself turned to a military assault on Iran, as opposed to sanctions, because of its and Israel’s victories in its genocidal attack on Gaza and also in Syria — where reactionary forces, which Israel and the US supported, came to power.  

Israel and the US miscalculated that they could now achieve the same in Iran. The US supplied thousands of Starlink systems and, as Trump publicly admitted, guns to demonstrators in Iran in December and January.

But not only did this fail to overthrow Iran’s government but when the US and Israel launched their full-scale military attack on Iran in February, as even Western media admitted, there was a “rallying around the flag” in Iran — in political terms, the great majority of Iran’s population, whatever their differences on other issues, or their attitude to Iran’s government, united in opposition to the US attack. This was the basis of the US defeat in the first round of the war.

But the US cannot retreat from this conflict due to the role west Asia plays in its strategy. A mistaken analysis was put forward a few years ago that because, due to fracking, the US has become self-sufficient in oil, it would be less interested in controlling west Asia.

The facts show the opposite. The US has waged more wars in the region — against Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iran.

The US is no longer being itself dependent on West Asia, but constantly waging wars there, has led some to claim that this is because Israel controls US foreign policy — that the tail wags the dog. Any analysis of the relation of forces between the two makes clear this is untrue. Israel cannot produce the weapons it relies on to carry out military terror; the US merely has to threaten to cut off arms and Israel would immediately be brought to heel.

This reality was made clear for all to see when Trump, for short-term tactical reasons, openly  enforced an end to Israel’s bombing of Beirut, declaring: “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the US.” The US does not support Israel because it is controlled by it but because the US finds Israel useful for its own strategy.

Although the US does not need west Asia’s oil for itself, its strategy is to be able to deny it to others, particularly China.

Because this is key for the US, it will not give up its attack on Iran, only the forms will change. Therefore, the peace movement must prepare for a prolonged struggle against US aggression against Iran.

John Ross is senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, and a member of No Cold War Britain.

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

By Tings Chak and Atul Chandra

On 30 April 1975, a tank crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace in Saigon, Vietnam, ending three decades of war. Vietnam had defeated the most powerful military force the world had ever known – at the cost of over three million Vietnamese lives and 7.5 million tonnes of US bombs dropped across Indochina. But this was not only Vietnam’s story. It was the culmination of a long tradition – stretching back nearly a century – of the peoples of Asia and the Pacific organising against US militarism and wars of aggression on our soil.

That tradition is now more urgent than ever. As the US-imposed New Cold War arrives in the Asia-Pacific – with an expanding architecture of military bases, missile deployments, and aggressive pacts designed not only to encircle China but to discipline any state that dares to defend its sovereignty – it is worth returning to the history of how Asian peoples have confronted this threat before, and won.

The Missing Peace

In October 1952, during the US war on Korea, over 470 delegates from nearly 50 countries gathered in Beijing, China, for the Asia and Pacific Rim Peace Conference. These delegates were trade unionists, teachers, women’s activists, monks, cultural workers, and internationalists of all kinds. Roughly one third were women. In the conference hall, Mexican communist muralist Diego Rivera’s monumental painting, Pesadilla de guerra, sueño de paz (1952) (Nightmare of War, Dream of Peace), depicted faceless soldiers persecuting civilians amid the wars then raging in Korea, Vietnam, and Malaya. On the opposite wall hung Pablo Picasso’s Dove of Peace (1949). Below the murals, delegates signed copies of the Stockholm Appeal (1950) against nuclear weapons.

The conference was chaired by Chinese revolutionary leader Song Qingling (Madame Sun Yat-sen), who traced the meeting’s political lineage to a secret anti-imperialist conference held in Shanghai in 1933, during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria – convened in a dreary building in a Shanghai factory district where delegates sat on the floor. Nearly 20 years later, what had been clandestine was now a mass gathering: Korean delegates presented evidence of US biological warfare; resolutions demanded an end to the rearmament of Japan and the withdrawal of foreign military bases from the region.

This conference has been quietly erased from history, and both the copy and original of Rivera’s painting have since vanished. But the 1952 gathering was a crucial precursor to the Bandung Spirit – it was a platform to articulate and amplify the ideas of peace from an Asian perspective, which was inextricably linked to the demands for self-determination, sovereignty, and dignity, and directed squarely at the US-led military presence that was reshaping the region.

A History of Resistance

What followed was decades of mass resistance against US militarism across the Asia-Pacific. In Okinawa, Japan, where roughly one-in-three civilians were killed during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, the US sent survivors to internment camps and seized their land for building bases without consent. When Okinawans returned home, they found that the old Japanese airfield had been replaced by Kadena Air Base – now almost 20 square kilometres, 1.3 times the size of Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.

The island never regained its sovereignty; instead, the US military administration formalised its occupation. By the 1950s, US soldiers were using tanks, bulldozers, and bayonets to force farmers off their remaining land. As Miyume Tanji documents in Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa (2006), the rent offered was less than two yen per tsubo – a fifth the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola – which 98% of landowners refused. Their slogan captured a truth that resonates today: ‘Money is for one year, but land is for ten thousand years’. Today, Okinawa represents 0.6% of the Japanese territory but 70% of its US bases.

Peoples across the Pacific – bearing the scars of 67 US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands alone, with a combined yield equivalent to 1.6 Hiroshima bombs detonated every day for 12 years – forged their own front. The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement, launched in Fiji in 1975, linked the struggle against nuclear contamination to the demand for sovereignty. At the 1980 conference in Hawaii, the movement added the word ‘Independent’ to its name, recognising that the demand to be nuclear free meant being free of the foreign military bases that bring weapons of mass destruction.

The most dramatic victory came in the Philippines. For decades, Filipino nationalists – led by senators Claro Recto, Lorenzo Tañada, and Jose Diokno – had argued that US military bases were instruments of neo-colonial control. As early as the 1950s, Recto warned that the bases would not defend the Philippines but could ‘become magnets for aggression instead’. Diokno, imprisoned for nearly two years under the dictatorial rule of Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law, founded the Anti-Bases Coalition in 1983. These decades of struggle converged in a single vote on 16 September 1991: the Senate of the Philippines rejected the US bases treaty, 12 to 11. The dissenters were later dubbed ‘The Magnificent 12’. Senator Aquilino Pimentel declared from the floor: ‘On this day, the day of our final deliverance, I hope, from the clutches of a colonial power, I say to those who threaten us with political oblivion or physical extinction for our vote of rejection: Go ahead, do your worst – because we will do our best!’

Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base were shut down and the Philippines became the first country in the world to force the US military out through a democratic process.

The New Cold War

Today, US militarisation is creeping across the region, fuelling a New Cold War that threats to engulf Asia.

Philippines. Under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the US and Philippines, signed by US President Barack Obama in 2014 and expanded under President Joe Biden in 2023, the US now has access to nine military sites across the Philippines – including bases in the Province of Cagayan, which faces the Taiwan Strait.

Japan. The Japanese government has doubled its military budget to 43 trillion yen ($269 billion) over five years, purchased 400 US Tomahawk cruise missiles, and continues construction of a new US Marine base at Henoko, Okinawa – despite 72% of Okinawans voting against it in a 2019 referendum.

Australia. Under AUKUS, Australia will host rotational deployments of US nuclear-powered submarines and B-52 bombers, at an estimated cost of over $250 billion Australian dollars ($178 billion).

South Korea. The US maintains roughly 28,500 troops in South Korea, anchored by Camp Humphreys – the largest US overseas military installation in the world, built at a cost of over $10 billion.

Taiwan. Washington has approved over $20 billion in arms sales to Taiwan since 2019, including 66 F-16V fighter jets, Harpoon missile systems, and Abrams tanks — arming the island to the teeth in its campaign of confrontation with China.

Indonesia. The world’s fourth-largest country is currently reviewing a US proposal seeking ‘blanket overflight access’ for military aircraft through Indonesian airspace.

This is the architecture of militarisation – designed to encircle China and punish countries for asserting their sovereignty, while subordinating the people of Asia to Washington’s strategic interests.

The illegal US-Israeli war on Iran has confirmed that hosting a US military base is not a shield but a target. Across the Persian Gulf, some 40,000 US troops are stationed at over 20 installations, from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain – the very infrastructure from which the bombardment of Iran and Lebanon has been launched.

In Gaza, Palestine, over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed by US-backed Israeli aggression since October 2023 – a reminder that the US military machine operates as a single system from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.

Despite US ambitions and aggression, Asia has a deep, resilient tradition of anti-base, anti-war organising to draw on – from the 1933 Shanghai conference to the 1952 Beijing gathering, from Okinawa’s farmers to the peoples of Philippines and the Pacific islands. Many of the organisations that carried these struggles still exist; what must be rebuilt is their mass character.

On the anniversary of Vietnam’s liberation, the International Peoples’ Assembly and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research are bringing together voices from across the region – Vietnam, Iran, the Philippines, Japan, China, and South Korea – to confront the reality of US militarism in Asia. The peoples of this region, through our difficult and hard-won histories of liberation, know the cost of war intimately. You can register for the webinar or watch the livestream here.

Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, in his appeal to the nation 60 years ago, said: ‘Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom’. Today, concrete freedom means freedom from US military intervention and aggression.

The above article was originally published here, as ‘The Eighth Asia Newsletter (2026)’, by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Tings Chak and Atul Chandra are the Asia co-coordinators of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

By Biljana Vankovska

A prefatory note:

This article was drafted on the eve of Hungary’s parliamentary elections (12 April 2026), before the final results were confirmed. Writing now, with the outcome known, the essential analysis remains unchanged.

The election has not produced a democratic breakthrough, nor does it signal a turn toward genuine pluralism or sustainable development. What we are witnessing is a recalibration of dependency: a shift from friction with EU disciplinary mechanisms toward alternative alignments that may unlock funds—but at the cost of deeper entanglement in geopolitical agendas, including the militarisation of Europe and the prolongation of the war in Ukraine. The structural constraints outlined in this text—the narrowing of political space, the absence of a credible left, the substitution of personnel for policy—have not been overturned. If anything, the result confirms them. There are no grounds for celebration. Only clarity.

* * *

It is probably of little importance to Hungary that one of its most significant parliamentary elections coincides with Orthodox Easter. Yet those of us on “the other side of the civilizational divide” (even if the author herself is not a believer) may still indulge in a metaphor: will Orbán manage to be reborn once again after sixteen years in power? Will Viktor remain victorious, or will his much younger opponent, will his much younger opponent, Péter Magyar (whose very name means ‘Hungarian,’ turning the contest into a symbolic duel: Orbán vs. ‘The Hungarian(s)’), emerge as the new national leader?” There is a symbolic resonance here, even though coincidental: the rival’s name itself becomes a rhetorical weapon; Magyar can position himself as the “true embodiment” of the nation against Orbán’s personalized rule.

The extraordinary international attention these elections attract in what, at first glance, is a small and seemingly insignificant European country is driven far more by external (geopolitical and geo-economic) factors than by democratic concerns. Orbán has long been branded in the West as a far-right autocrat. In principle, Hungarian elections should represent a “celebration of democracy,” a moment when citizens’ voices are heard and their will respected. Yet public opinion surveys and expert analyses suggest a different picture: while outsiders view Hungary as a battleground within an increasingly fractured transatlantic (and European) bloc, Hungarian citizens themselves are far less concerned with foreign policy. Like people elsewhere, they are preoccupied with the living standard, economic insecurity, migration, and corruption—in simple terms, with their everyday well-being.

From an external perspective, Hungary represents yet another example of internal fractures within the West. Orbán, alongside several other European leaders, has positioned himself as a kind of European echo of Donald Trump—a strongman, populist, and sovereignist. At times, he even cultivates the aura of a “dissident” or “peacemaker,” one of the few leaders willing to challenge Brussels over the escalation of the war in Ukraine. At the same time, he remains a close ally of Benjamin Netanyahu and a participant in Trump’s so-called “peace board.”

He can also be described as a skilled global political operator, capable of balancing Hungary economically between non-Western powers such as Russia, China, and India, while pursuing pragmatic economic diplomacy in the national interest. Yet after sixteen years in power and firm control over state institutions, it is hardly surprising if a leader begins to believe in his own omnipotence and drifts away from both public promises and the interests of those within the system.

There is much more that could be said about Orbán. But, judging from the experience of many countries with long-entrenched rulers, change itself can be good news. The more troubling question, however, is: is it real change—or merely replacement? Who is the successor, and what vision does he offer?

Based on what is currently known about the young Magyar, apart from his energy, charisma, and ability to consolidate the opposition into a single bloc (thereby reducing pluralism and turning the election into a two-camp confrontation), one can only conclude that he is a product of Fidesz itself, or better a political offspring of Orbán’s system, now breaking away to claim leadership. His ideological positioning is best captured in the slogan: “neither left nor right—only Hungary.” In other words, a marginalization of ideology in favor of national rhetoric. This closely mirrors Orbán’s own claim that his party embodies Hungary itself.

Both contenders thus compete on the same terrain (nationalism and conservatism), differing only in nuance. Magyar’s main weapon is his anti-corruption stance, coupled with clear signals that he would be a far more compliant partner within the EU and NATO. Presumably, this is tied to expectations that Hungary would regain access to EU funds, often restricted under Orbán. Yet how this “mathematics” will work—securing financial inflows while simultaneously committing resources to military purposes, including involvement in Ukraine—remains unclear.

Observers of Hungary’s electoral system already point to four possible post-election scenarios, as power distribution depends on a complex institutional mosaic. Magyar could win without real power—or the opposite. A “Bulgarian scenario” of prolonged instability and polarization is also possible. Much will depend on the well-known phenomenon of the “silent majority,” which often decides at the last moment and ultimately tips the balance.

What remains largely overlooked is the narrowed—almost non-existent—pluralist party landscape. While experts debate whether the elections are democratic or fair, few notice the deeper reality: Hungary has effectively become a “left-less country.”

Although I apply strict criteria when defining the left (and would not include social-democratic or liberal variants), the current contest is clearly between two populist, nationalist, conservative figures, with only a minor far-right party (Mi Hazánk Movement) hoping to pick up crumbs in potential coalition negotiations. The Hungarian Socialist Party has withdrawn from the race, while the liberal-left Democratic Coalition may struggle to cross the 5% threshold.

The differences between the main actors lie in age and nuance, not in any meaningful ideological or strategic divergence. Hungary will remain a pawn in larger geopolitical games, while the opposition will merely simulate dissent rather than offer a genuine alternative.

Partly due to historical factors, especially the discrediting of the old left, from which Orbán himself once emerged, and partly due to the systematic narrowing of democratic space, little is likely to change regardless of the electoral outcome. Elections, in this sense, lose their meaning—except perhaps for external geopolitical actors.

The phenomenon of “left-less countries” is becoming increasingly troubling, particularly in states that emerged from behind the “Iron Curtain” with deep hostility toward anything associated with socialism or communism. This is also evident in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland. In many other European countries, leftist forces are deliberately labeled “far-right” in order to discredit them or blur distinctions with the genuinely rising radical right.

The Czech Republic has gone furthest by banning far-left organizations and even communist symbols, equating them with Nazism. This is not new, but it is intensifying in a world increasingly teetering on the brink, where a genuine left would need the courage to openly support those who refuse submission—not only to Brussels or Washington, but to any hegemonic center.

Hungary thus stands as a case where democratic elections risk becoming a façade without real alternatives. Magyar, like others, looks to Brussels for funding—even as Europe moves toward rearmament, militarization, and industrial conversion for war.

In the Balkans, we have long captured this reality in a simple proverb: “Out goes Murto, in comes Kurto” (Sjaši Murto da uzjaše Kurto). An old comic (the famous Franco-Belgian comic series Iznogoud) from my youth told the story of the Grand Vizier constantly proclaiming: “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph.” That, ultimately, is what these elections may bring.

The West will remain divided—with or without Orbán—and Europe is structurally dependent (as my friend Ali Borhani has rightly named vassalallies/vassal-allies to the US), even if, by some miracle, it frees itself from Trump.

It’s the system, stupid. It does not allow real change—only cosmetic replacements.

By John Ross

Iran has won the first battle in the US war of aggression against it. But it is an error to claim, as some genuinely and rightly against the US aggression have done, that Iran has yet won the war. This is based on an underestimation of the strength and ruthlessness of US imperialism. The outcome of the next round depends on the result of the illegal US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. This result, in turn, depends not only on the resistance of the Iranian people but also on countries seeking an independent path of development, and the people of the US itself, refusing to accept the US claim to unilaterally control the high seas and blockade any country it wishes.

If Iran has indeed won the war against the US, this would be the greatest strategic defeat of the US since Vietnam, as some have stated—some have claimed, wrongly, that it would be an even greater defeat than Vietnam. But exactly because it would be such a strategic defeat for the US, US imperialism has no intention of giving up simply because it has lost the first round. It, instead, will change its tactics to attack Iran. As the Wall Street Journal bluntly summarised: “As the President said in his first term, the U.S. shouldn’t start a war it doesn’t intend to win. His challenge now is to prove to Iran’s regime he meant what he said.” Activity in solidarity with Iran must be redoubled.

The US has turned to an attempted blockade of Iran, rather than bombing, precisely because Iran clearly won the first round in the US/Israeli war of aggression against it. The reason for the US ceasefire, and the substitution of an attempted blockade, is that the US concluded that it could not domestically withstand the political cost that would have resulted from the almost complete destruction of oil and gas production in the Persian Gulf, and the years-long increase in oil prices in the US that would have followed from it, which would have been the inevitable result of Iran’s military retaliation in the Gulf against a US attack on its power supply and energy production.

Therefore, due to Iran’s military capacity for resistance, the US decided it could not carry out its threat to bomb Iran’s power and energy infrastructure and Trump’s threat that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. The US, therefore, chose a different form of escalation—to launch a more prolonged strategy of a war of attrition to try to grind Iran down financially by blocking its oil exports. This policy, however, due to the inevitable months-long high oil and energy prices it would create, attacks in a prolonged way not only Iran, but the economy of every country and the population of the US itself. For this reason, even the US’s closest allies, for example in Europe, have refused to support the blockade.

As the US has switched, for the moment, to an economic war of attrition against Iran rather than a direct bombing attack (this could change at any moment), a key measure is going to be the oil price, as the higher the oil price goes, due to the effect of this in lowering living standards, the greater will be the discontent and opposition in the US to Trump’s war.

At the time of writing, the oil price has risen by 45% since 27 February, the day before the US attack on Iran—the peak since the beginning of the war was 69% on 7 April, before the US and Iran agreed a ceasefire. Due to the oil price increase the US consumer price index rose from 2.4% in February to 3.3% in March—a painful shock for the US population, which largely explains the President’s current low opinion poll ratings. According to the latest YouGov poll, only 39% of the US population was “satisfied” with the President, while 67% believed the country was “on the wrong track”.

But while this energy price increase is extremely painful for the US population it is not by itself enough to cause a deep crisis in the US economy. This is why US financial share markets have not fallen in any major way. This situation is in line with my analyses, published in Chinese at guancha.cn, that the key to the situation in the US is not the economy itself, which at 2% year on year GDP growth, on the latest data is slow, but relatively stable, and not facing a deep crisis, but it is the political impact of these economic processes— see my articles 躁郁症式”分析不可取：什么是决定中美竞争胜负的关键？[‘Bipolar Disorder’ analysis is inadvisable: What is key to determining the outcome of US-China competition?] and 美元低迷就是总统执政失败，特朗普能否打破魔咒？[A weak dollar has signified a crisis for US presidents; can Trump break the curse?]

The political configuration, which faces the US administration, as a result of its latest policy of blockade is therefore the following. The US is attacking Iran, the economies of all countries in the world, and the living standards of the people of the US itself. The more these forces understand their common interests and coordinate their actions, the more certain it is that this US aggression against Iran, but also against them all, will be defeated. Solidarity must be redoubled in that framework.

No Cold War Statement on the War Without End فارسی / Farsi