By Riccardo Petrella*
“The only war worth fighting is the fight against poverty” – Jan Tinbergen, Nobel Prize winner for economics
JUSTICE, SOLIDARITY AND DEMOCRACY NEED PEACE. Is this possible today? How to make this happen?
Summary. War will be defeated when its rejection in the minds of citizens is stronger than its inevitability in the minds of the dominant. The macroscopic example of this evidence is the United States in a permanent state of war. The struggle to banish war continues. The role of scientists
War is in the heads of the dominant
Article 11 of the Italian Constitution (which came into force in 1948) states that Italy repudiates war. In these 74 years, the country’s powerful groups have never acted in obedience to Article 11. They have regularly spoken of peace but have practised wars in obedience to the politico-military imperatives of their main ally (the United States) and the doctrine of Atlanticism, Italy being a member of NATO since the creation of what has become over the past twenty years the most powerful military organisation in the world, in a permanent state of war.
War, as the main means of conflict resolution and governance of international relations, is niched in the brains of the dominant, especially the most powerful, today the United States and NATO member states (such as France, the United Kingdom). Then there is the Russia of Poutine and the nostalgic of the tsarist and Soviet-Stalinist era, to close the list with the other nuclear powers such as China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea…,. Remember that one of the cornerstones of the political culture of the US leadership is ‘Peace through Strength’, a modern, stronger version of the belief in vogue in imperial Rome ‘Si vis pacem para bellum’.
A dramatic example of this is the new phase of global warfare taking place in Ukraine, on the one hand, by the US and NATO members against Russia in order to take advantage of the collapse of the USSR in 1989 to reduce Russian military and economic power once and for all. On the other hand, by Russia against the former with the unacceptable and criminal invasion of Ukraine, which became the sacrificial pion of Russia’s will not to yield to the aggression of the US and NATO members. For decades, Russia has been the main rival and obstacle to the total military and political world supremacy of the United States. Of course, it has been so for reasons of opposing power and certainly not to defend and promote democracy and justice worldwide.
In this context, the most ardent opponents of the ceasefire in Ukraine are the United States through the intermediary of NATO, whose Secretary General repeats in full voice that the war must not be stopped at all but continued until Russia is efeated. The same words and the same music from the President of the European Commission, the former German Federal Minister of Defence (during his tenure, Germany became the fourth largest arms exporter in the world). In third position comes the Ukrainian president brought to power by the 2014 coup d’état carried out with massive US support. The new Ukrainian government represents nationalist anti-Russian, as well as traditionally anti-Soviet, far-right groups. Thus, the Ukrainian people, the main victim of this deadly game, became a totally dependent people, bought and exploited to the tune of tens of billions of dollars by the US-NATO to become a huge thorn in Russia’s side. Last but not least, but no less ardent than the former, we find Russia’s current leaders who think of nothing but defending the regaining of their lost power by presenting themselves as a symbol of resistance and struggle against US domination of the world. Russia openly accuses the US of trying to destroy the security of the Russian Federation and the Russian people and of wanting to maintain their planetary supremacy at any cost, by force and war.
In this respect, Russia, as well as China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Vietnam, and even, very loosely, certain European countries and Taiwan China are not wrong to think so, because the facts bear this out. The latest of which is the recent (7 October 2022) declaration of technological and economic war by the United States against China. But let us proceed in order.
War has been on the minds of the US ruling groups since the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ (1823)
The facts tell us that war has been on the minds of the US ruling groups for 200 years, following US President James Monroe’s proclamations that became the ‘Monroe Doctrine’. In his State of the Union address on 2 December 1823, James Monroe stated that the United States would not tolerate any meddling in American affairs by any other state. The entire American continent, he stated, was an area of strategic interest to the security of the United States. Any interference would have been deemed a threat to their security. Monroe’s declarations were the basis for the development of US imperialism and their self-proclaimed legitimacy to assert their absolute sovereignty and supremacy over the American continent.
When, after World War II, the world supremacy of the US and the West was more than evident, two corollaries were added by the Americans themselves. The first (1950s) stated that ‘What is good for the United States is good for the World’. The second, ‘With us or against us’, an axiom typical of an imperial culture. The real great extension, however, in the substance and political-military scope of the Monroe Doctrine, occurred in the 1990s during a profound redefinition of the strategic conception of US security, Georges Bush and Bill Clinton presidencies.
The extension was the result of the aweness that in a world increasingly marked by the artificialisation of life in all its forms, technology driven and dominated by the values and criteria of the capitalist market economy over everything else, economic security (i.e. independence and autonomy in matters of ownership, production and use of resources and processes, products and services essential to life) constitutes the strategic key to a country’s security tout court,
In this sense, the militarisation of the economy, according to which military security is essentially economic security, has made the power to dominate and control knowledge technologies (in particular, Artificial Intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology and rare materials) the marrow substance of security and supremacy. Overwhelmingly, this security is played out, even more so than in the ‘mythical’ past of 19th-century Haute finance, in the immense halls crammed with computers and their human prostheses (the traders) where algorithmic finance works to the thousandth, or even the millionth of a second, of billions of transactions whose value is no longer connected to the real economy. In this context, formal political power and ‘public’ politics have lost much of their fundamental function. The ‘lords’ who inhabit government palaces, as well as parliamentary halls, have less and less influence on the course of the world game.
The new US strategic doctrine of American and world security has logically inspired the profound change in NATO’s purpose and role. From being an Atlantic military alliance of defence in the event of a military attack suffered by a member state, NATO has become a global military alliance of intervention, even as a preventive measure, to safeguard the security (in the new sense mentioned above) of the member states, evidently of the most powerful among them, the United States.
On this see the interesting document prepared by the CNAPD, Belgium, a month ago https://www.cnapd.be/publications/outils-pedagogiques/lotan-partisane-de-paix-ou-de-guerre
The other global war is underway. The technological war against China
It is in this context that on 7 October, during a visit to a Volvo factory in the state of Maryland, president Biden declared the US technological/economic war against China .
A decision taken unilaterally without consultation and agreement of NATO ‘allies’. It came as a surprise, especially to the financial world, but it was in the air. A few days later, on 12 October, Biden officially presented the ‘new’ ‘national’ security strategy as a ‘world power’, centred on ‘economic and technological warfare’ (the ‘one war’, say the US leaders) in particular and above all with China, considered by them as the only power that can change the world order .
See https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/12/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administrations-national-security-strategy/
This is a US power war against China. It is neither a war of China against the US nor a war provoked by China. The United States has formally declared in recent years that China is its systemic enemy (a statement echoed by the President of the European Commission a few months ago). But this does not give them the legitimacy to unleash a technological war on a global scale and a harbinger of very dangerous developments for the world economy and community.
Under the pretext that the United States is very concerned about the fact that according to them China is preparing to attack Formosa China (an American accusation that is regularly repeated every five to ten years), which would therefore represent a serious attack on American security, the reasons for Biden’s statement are clearly stated in the above-mentioned document. They are mainly due to the realisation, and fear, of their loss of world ‘leadership’ (as they call it) precisely in the field of technologies that are today of the highest strategic importance for ‘national’ security,. such as those of semiconductors and advanced fleas, with infinite applications in all fields.
Let us come to the facts, which show that the US technological war against China is a paroxysmal example of the insanity of war in the head of the current principal system of world domination.
First. President Biden announces that he has approved a series of measures related to banning the export to China of any kind of fleas that can be used for artificial intelligence, defence, and high-capacity equipments.. Now, fleas are everywhere: in cars, telephones, heart implants, animal farms, legume culture, nuclear warhead missiles, shows, hospitals…In addition, the measures establish greater control over sales to China of instruments that enable the manufacture of semi-conductors. The measures are very heavy when one considers that China has to import 80% of the electronic components needed by its industries . In 2019, it spent more than 200 billion, which is more than it spends on oil.
Second. Over the past 30 years, US semiconductor companies have shifted their production abroad. In the 1990s, the US accounted for 37 per cent of world production, today just over 12 per cent. In early August 2022, Biden vowed a $52 billion plan to bring production of the next generation of semiconductors back home.
The future will be made in America “,” he said. https://www.wallstreetitalia.com/semiconduttori-il-nuovo-piano-di-biden-per-ridurre-la-dipendenza-dalla-cina .
Third .very important fact: the banning measures do not only apply to US economic actors .but also to all companimessave was,es in other allied and non-allied countries. Were the Europeans not consulted? Well, the Americans ’ message was, let them obey. This injunction stems from the fact that the US sees itself as ‘a world power with worldwide interests’. so their security is at stake in all parts of the world because they are an Indo-Pacific power, a Mediterranean power, an American continental power, etc. etc……
Fourth. Within a week of the announcement, the major semiconductor and advanced logic fleas groups saw more than $250 billion in stock market valuation vanish. They did not react by hoping to quickly recoup their losses due to the surprise. But this highlights the fact that among the main players in the technology war, a decisive weight will be played by global finance. which is not certain that the outcome will be favourable to cooperation, justice, solidarity, and effectiveness in the interest of all.
Fifth. By attacking China, the US is now in open conflict simultaneously with Russia and China. A bit too much, in truth. How to interpret this rapid multiplication of global wars provoked by the US? Unconsciousness, premeditated calculation (‘one war’), a sign of a loss of self-confidence on the part of a hegemonic power, a flight forward by a dominant seeking to retain its former power, a tactical domestic political manoeuvre to take away Trump’s electoral arguments?
It is not the task of this article to delve into the subject. Suffice it to point out that whatever the reasons, which are undoubtedly varied, the fundamental reason is one, just one: to prevent China from challenging their economic, military and world political supremacy. For this goal, the US is prepared to disrupt the world and endanger the future of humanity and life on planet Earth.
The US leaders care little about the present and future of Afghans or Iraqis, Russians as well as Ukrainians, Europeans, Central Africans, Venezuelans or Brazilians, or the Formosa Chinese. Nor are they interested in the sustainable development of the world and the survival of life on Earth, social justice, peace. Everything confirms that they are interested above all in their power, their domination, their ‘well-being’ and, consequently, they do not want to change the system that has allowed them to become the dominant ones.
What can be done? Avoid three traps.
Apparently, it is difficult to think that anything can be done, in particular the most urgent thing: to bring the war in Ukraine to a halt and begin negotiations for a political resolution of the conflict. Added to this today is the imperative to make the US attack on China stop.
This is very difficult because the war has also entered the minds of the majority of citizens in almost all countries, even in the traditionally anti-war Scandinavian countries. Of course, the peace movement exists and is very active in many countries of the world and has also recently achieved some very important results such as the International Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which has been ratified by more than 50 states and thus entered into force in international law. Of course, no nuclear power has approved it, not even Italy, which constitutionally ‘repudiates war’. As much as the peace movement has been making itself increasingly felt in recent weeks, its political influence on public opinion remains limited.
The refusal to openly and solely condemn Russia by an important number of countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia is certainly an encouraging factor This means that many non-Western states do not want to condemn the US and the West because they consider them to be directly co-responsible for the war in Ukraine. This, however, does not mean that the majority of the population of these states have changed their feelings about the war to such an extent that they are mobilising to stop the war.
The culture of the inevitability of war is still very much ingrained in people’s minds. This explains why, so far, resolutions adopted by national parliaments against war, all wars, have been rare; weak and uninfluential are the declarations of trade union organisations once again operating in scattered order, and poorly co-ordinated worldwide. The demonstrations in favour of peace by thousands of civil society associations and movements, the stances of hundreds of Nobel prize-winners, the appeals of personalities from the world of music and art, and the continuous and strong appeals of Pope Francis have all been of little use.
That being said, the solution does not lie in weapons, much less in leaving the way open for the experimentation of a ‘small’ tactical nuclear war whose feasibility and usefulness is entering the heads of the dominant ones accompanied by a certain resignation on the part of the citizens.
The situation makes it necessary to intensify everywhere demonstrations of condemnation and repudiation of war in order to raise awareness that we cannot live together with sabre in hand and pistol in our belts, let alone missiles on our doorstep. To this end, three traps must be avoided.
The first trap, already in place, is to accept the logic that there is a war of the good guys, who must be defended, helped, armed, against the bad guys. who must be punished, defeated. No peace negotiation can be founded on such a basis. The cease-fire proposal must contain an accurate formulation of the agreed outcome that is to be achieved. A formulation not for winners and losers but to build another political agenda in the interest of all parties ” and the world. To this end, two or more personalities of high moral and professional standing appointed by the UN Secretary General should be part of the negotiating team. Their task would consist in suggesting, when necessary and requested, contributions of solutions acceptable to all in the interest of humanity.
The second trap consists in limiting the objectives of peace negotiations to the relative optimisation of the interests of each belligerent (Ukraine, Russia, the United States, NATO, the European Union). Since the belligerent countries are at the origin of so much human, social, environmental and economic destruction and damage, the negotiations must also serve to oblige them to make precise commitments not only to reconstruction and repairing the damage for the belligerents themselves, but above all for the Earth’s community of life and humanity. Those responsible for the global war in Ukraine have destroyed the capacities of the Earth’s inhabitants to learn to live together accumulated in the 1950s-1990s. They have made us lose some 50 years of history that could have been fairer, more supportive, more peaceful, happier. To this end, we citizens must not remain prisoners of their game of trying to get out of the war having saved their interests as much as possible. We must demand of our elected representatives that negotiations set the foundations (principles and rules) and put in place the appropriate global institutions of humanity to safeguard and defend the security and well-being of all the Earth’s inhabitants. If this did not happen, the peace negotiations would turn into a new cruel world farce.
Such an outcome is avoidable. Among the opportunities on offer, one seems to me to be of great significance. I am thinking of the scientists’ revolt. Today, we all recognise it, our existence and the life of the planet is increasingly shaped, or rather ‘created’ by our scientific knowledge and technological capabilities, and by the way we govern and use that knowledge. If warfare is possible in the forms known to us today (tanks, fighter planes and aircraft carriers, submarines, missiles, nuclear weapons, drones, bacteriological weapons, lasers, powerful communication and information media, satellites, etc.), it is due to myriad factors. this is due to millions of scientists, technologists and war managers. For different reasons, scientists have been trapped in situations and statuses that, in their vast majority, nevertheless make them satisfied and serene (high social status, prestige, income, security, important influence on decision-makers, supposed or real….). This is the third trap, which needs to be blown (and which does not only concern the category of scientists). It has so far been rare for scientists, as a profession and as a collective subject, to carry out actions of dissent, of political criticism, of revolt against the ‘lords’ of politics and economics, an exception made for individual cases or small groups. . The most macroscopic case of this trap is represented by the IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change), a UN body created in 1988 to provide decision-makers with assessments on climate change and its consequences on the Earth’s living conditions. It is a body founded on cooperation between thousands of scientists, whose work is subsidised by governments It represents an exceptional opportunity for participating scientists and research centres in terms of prestige, funding, honours, and work of great interest and importance. They must, however, sign a condition that is rather well accepted by them in the name of so-called scientific neutrality: they must agree not to make any assessment of current policies or any proposals of a political nature, not to propose political-economic solutions or recipes, and not to make any individual or group public statements that could be used for partisan political purposes.
In the light of 35 years of experience, one must and can ask oneself whether such a formula is in the interest of the world population and of the effective capacity of science to help society find the necessary solutions to the problems?
What is the point of producing report after report, tens of thousands of pages, of data, tables, graphs, and constructing alternative scenarios if the scientists themselves accept that the decision-makers will do nothing and they themselves will stand by and watch from the ends of their splendid laboratories and offices without intervening? In the face of the dramatic nature of the situation, not only in the environmental dimensions of life, (purported) scientific neutrality can no longer be an instrument of convenience for politicians and scientists alike. Moreover, scientists are the only social group that can change and reorient scientific research and the uses of the knowledge produced.
Fortunately, a few weeks ago a group of scientists decided to take action, gave themselves an eloquent name, ‘Scientist Rebellion’, and launched a letter calling for citizen mobilisation to put an end to climate change. It has also peacefully occupied premises at the University of Munich. It plans stronger action at COP27 in Egypt, which will take place from 6 to 18 November.
See https://scientistrebellion.com/
To date, more than 500 scientists have signed the letter, including some, very few, members of the IPCC. Personally, I will join “Scientist Rebellion” and hope that its members will quickly multiply to thousands.
For the time being, ‘Scientist Rebellion’ is only mobilised to stop climate disasters. I hope that quickly the fight will be extended to actions against the global war in Ukraine and the US technological and economic warfare operations against China, for which scientists are ‘mobilised’ in the front line. I am confident that the scientists’ revolt, in addition to and in support of the citizens’ revolts already underway, can have an important and lasting effect in defeating the war and creating a responsible humanity.
If scientists find an incentive to revolt to ‘save the life of the Earth’ from mass extermination over the next 100 years, why not also do so +INANT NEto ‘save humanity from war today’?
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* Professor emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain, and member of Agora of the Inhabitants of the Earth. The author expresses himself in a personal capacity