The Cold War re-heats
According to Clausewitz, the oft-quoted 19th century general and
military strategist, war is "the continuation of policy by other
means." The recent brief - if brutal - conflict in the Caucasus is yet
another example of the everyday nature of capitalism continuing by
other means.
The conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which appears to have
claimed thousands of lives has been a rare eruption, exposing the
tectonic-like political and economic pressures shifting below the
surface.
These recent events have been a wake-up call to those still deluded
into thinking that the ending of the cold war (which was never an
ideological battleground anyway) would mean an end to stand-offs
between superpowers, with the ultimate potential for World War 3.
The Cold War has just been re-heated then: but this time round the
battle-lines are clearly not drawn on grounds of some supposed
ideological differences. There are no great ideological or moral issues
at stake here. The protagonists (US and Russia) and their allies are
simply rival capitalist economies, eager to secure strategic advantage,
access to resources and regional influence.
In particular, in attempting to diversify its oil sourcing away from
troublesome regions such as the Middle East, the US is relying on a new
pipeline via Georgia which taps into relatively secure sources in
Central Asia while avoiding Russian territory.
There are other considerations however. The failure of the centralised
command economy version of capitalism as practised by the Soviet Union
till its demise almost 20 years ago did not end the cold war, it merely
changed the front. As the economic and political basis for the Warsaw
Pact crumbled, the regional military pact NATO (the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation) has been expanding far beyond its original "north
Atlantic" scope, with the states of the former Soviet Union
strategically-attractive targets of its recent recruitment drive, as it
expands its sphere of influence.
Military conflict is an unavoidable consequence of the everyday
conflict of property society. In capitalism all productive resources ,
most explicitly oil production and distribution , have to be owned and
controlled by someone. Modern warfare , with all the waste, devastation
and atrocities it brings in its wake , is a problem of capitalism. In
contrast, in a moneyless, wageless, classless and stateless socialist
society no-one will own any productive resource to the exclusion of
anyone else. There will be no laws, rules or coercive forces to
administer or police such monopolisation.
The World Socialist Movement is unique as a political movement in
clearly and consistently expressing its opposition to war throughout
the last hundred years. This is not selective: we oppose all wars, and
have done so from World War 1 to Gulf War 2. Our opposition has a
simple basis: war is fought over issues of interest to employers,
landlords and bosses - the capitalist class, in short - while it is
workers, in uniform or civilian clothing, who are the cannon-fodder.
The overwhelming majority, the members of the global working class -
whether from Georgia (Caucasus) or Georgia (USA), have no interests at
stake worth shedding a drop of blood over.'
From Socialist Standard September 2008