How to End the Wars of the World
The U.S. is occupying the world with over 750 military bases in 80 countries. 1
It is now undertaking a massive re-vamping of its already dominant world nuclear arsenal making it a more powerful and efficient killing machine. World peace is the furthest thing from its mind. The U.S. goal is to take control of the world by any means necessary—by brute military force, by assassination, mass destruction, starvation and/or occupation—whatever helps it win, even if what it wins is a wasteland.
If this were not true, then why are they willing to spend $108,000-per-minute of U.S. tax dollars for the next three decades to build a new, more streamlined and powerful nuclear arsenal?
According to an October 10, 2024, New York Times Opinion piece by W.J. Hennigan with photographs by An-My Lê titled, “The Price:”2
“…the United States is set to spend an estimated $1.7 trillion over 30 years to revamp its own arsenal. The spending spree, which the government began planning in 2010, is underway in at least 23 states—nearly 50 if you include subcontractors. It follows a decades-long freeze on designing, building or testing new nuclear weapons. Along with the subs, the military is paying for a new fleet of bomber jets, land-based missiles and thermonuclear warheads. Tally all that spending, and the bill comes to almost $57-billion-a-year, or $108,000-per-minute for three decades.”
The U.S. capitalist class has no intentions of planning for a peaceful future because war is a way of life for them, and the way of death for us, for we are their cannon fodder.
The political parties of the capitalist class have one thing in common—to preserve and strengthen U.S. military domination of the world.
Edward Wong, in a September 30, 2024, New York Times article titled, “U.S. and Allies Sound Alarm Over War Ties Among Axis of Adversaries,” outlines the current balance of power among U.S. partner nations and their adversaries in the world today:
“Leaders of U.S. partner nations are quick to point out the growing threats. In an interview with The New York Times at the United Nations last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine denounced the shipments of arms to Russia from North Korea and Iran. Sitting next to him, the prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, said, ‘This is a global issue, because the closer cooperation between North Korea, Iran and Russia is a challenge for all of us, of course, including the U.S., and with China helping one way or the other.’
“… But coalitions are not as hardened as they appear, which the United States discovered in the sprawling conflicts of the 20th century, sometimes belatedly. And today they are based not so much on a shared ideology—communism was a unifying factor for much of the Cold War—as on opposition to U.S. power rooted in each autocratic nation’s specific interests. Analysts say the partnerships now are marriages of convenience or pragmatism. For instance, the theocratic leaders of Iran obviously have a different ideological perspective than do the leaders of Russia, China or North Korea, known formally as the D.P.R.K. [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] ...which all share a communist history.” 3
These alliances are precarious because no matter what,the U.S. has the most military power well-placed around the world, and they will make and break alliances any time it benefits them, just like they do in big businesses—and war is its biggest, most profitable business.4
Bourgeois democracy—maintaining capitalism’s power—the easy way
At this time, the U.S. government along with their allies, are trying to accomplish world military hegemony the easy way—by keeping the masses of workers everywhere convinced that capitalism U.S.-style is the pinnacle of human social evolution—that the socialist solution has been tried, and failed, and that the world would be much better off if the U.S. had control over the whole planet and all of its resources.
But for us, the masses of the world, the only road we are on, is the road to nuclear annihilation—and we’re the ones expected to build this road and pay for it!
It is we who get shot, bombed, and lose limbs—and ironically—it is we who do the shooting, bombing and the killing. Meanwhile the capitalists profit from the domination of as much “territory” (read natural resources) as possible.
Through war, they gain wealth at the expense, not only of our lives, but of our environment.
Fascism—maintaining capitalism’s power—the hard way
The U.S. capitalist class, if they feel the need to resort to fascism, will do so in the name of the Democratic or Republican Parties or any other of their political representatives. One bourgeois political party alone cannot immediately establish a fascist government through elections any more than we can win a socialist revolution through elections.
The fundamental nature of capitalism is a confrontation of a tiny minority against those who outnumber them on a massive scale and who produce the wealth the capitalists steal from the product of our labor. So, the capitalist class—to maintain their dictatorship over the working class and the wealth we produce—must convince us that our enemies are among us—not them.
If they keep us divided against each other and, looking to them (any one of them) for solutions, they will continue along their present and successful path of tricking us into thinking we are part of the decision-making process in a so-called democratic society, when we choose between capitalist politicians.
But if they feel they must, the capitalist class will resort to fascism and declare war against any workers who begin to resist them and their wars.
The capitalist politicians will change the laws they made previously and try to turn the military loose on any who resist their rule.
But that presents a profound problem for them because the military is made up of working-class people—it will be their own families resisting impoverishment and repression that the troops will have to confront. It will be their own spouses and kids in need of food and shelter as the economy pours more and more of our resources into wars that benefit only the wealthy.
Inevitably resistance to war and the toll it takes on the lives of the working class will grow.
What’s not inevitable is a worker’s victory over capitalism and its wars. That takes massive planning and organization in opposition to capitalism and for a socialist alternative.
We must do all we can to encourage this growing awareness of the capitalist trajectory of never-ending wars and how they are devastating the world—burying tens-of-thousands of poor and working-class people under rubble—just to increase profits for themselves.
That ultimate control will never be willingly forfeited by the capitalist class, and neither will they give up the class structure of society that enslaves us to the needs and wants of capital.
The single most important message of the struggle for a socialist world, is that we can’t expect the slaveholders to voluntarily turn over the wealth they have stolen from us. They are at war against us—against a united working class who are just beginning to realize the real power we hold over them—they are powerless without our willing cooperation.
There can be no partnership with capitalism
Capitalists don’t know how to build a single thing—they hire us—from unskilled labor to highly skilled scientists and engineers—to accomplish those tasks. Without our labor they are helpless—and they know it. That’s why they play this charade of differences between Democrats and Republicans. It’s orchestrated and designed intentionally to convince us that there is a real, meaningful difference between them, but there isn’t.
Ultimately, they all agree that capitalism must be preserved at all costs—hence the build-up of the most powerful military complex in the world, and in the history of humanity.
The power of the working class united
We, the workers of the world, are the only ones who can transform society into one that turns capitalism on its head by producing for the needs and wants of people based upon equality and justice for all—not profit for the few. A world where there is no need for weapons of mass destruction—a world that can bring an end to war.
The evils of capitalism are so expansive and so terrifying in their potential of universal annihilation that we can’t see the forest for the trees—we can’t see the power of unity and solidarity among the “makers”—the working class and our allies—to create a world of universal democratic decision-making and cooperation which will enable a rational and carefully planned economy that leaves no one hungry and, yet, maintains a vibrant and healthy, non-toxic environment to benefit all life on earth. A world where each one of us can develop to our full potential free of poverty and strife—with a universe of possibilities to explore.
This is not idealism. This is the natural, instinctive, collective road to human cooperation and social organization—it is natural social evolution. It is what capitalism tries to beat out of us from cradle to grave—and to the grave capitalism leads the world—and to the grave it needs to go.
1 The United States has around 750 military bases in at least 80 countries: Japan has 120 bases; Germany has 119; South Korea has 73.
https://globalaffairs.org/bluemarble/us-sending-more-troops-middle-east-where-world-are-us-military-
2 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/10/opinion/nuclear-weapons-us-price.html
3 References to Communism were removed in the North Korean 1992 and 1998 constitutional revisions to make way for the personality cult of Kim’s family dictatorship and the (admittedly reluctant) North Korean market economy reform.
4 Read “Stop Profiting Off Genocide,” “50+ U.S. Lawmakers Hold Military Stock,” and “Israel’s Economy Fueled by Genocide” elsewhere in this magazine.