For nearly three years, NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has been defined by constant NATO escalation yet also military stalemate. Whilst Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory on 5 November has exposed the tactical splits within and between the Western imperialist ruling classes over the future of the war, the need to confront Russian imperialism is a given. On 17 November, outgoing US President Biden authorised Ukraine to use NATO-supplied cruise missiles against Russian territory. US and British missiles were fired at Russia in the following days. The NATO imperialists are prepared to risk nuclear conflagration to achieve a dominant position in the negotiated settlement that is becoming increasingly likely. GEORGE O’CONNELL reports.
Seconds to midnight
Until November 2024, Ukraine could only fire NATO-supplied cruise missiles into Ukraine and Crimea. Their use depends on navigation data provided by NATO satellites and NATO personnel to programme the flight paths. Hence Russian President Putin warned in September that their use against Russian territory ‘will mean nothing less than the direct involvement of NATO countries’. NATO’s decision is therefore a dangerous escalation.
Both Britain and France had been lobbying the US to end the ban on firing them into Russian territory for some months, with British Prime Minister Starmer leading the efforts, fulfilling the Labour government’s role as one of the most aggressive powers within the NATO alliance.
On 19 November, Ukraine fired six US ATACMS missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region. British Storm Shadow missiles followed the next day. The Russian ambassador to Britain said: ‘Britain and UK is [sic]now directly involved in this war’. On 21 November, Russia fired new, experimental, hypersonic ‘Oreshnik’ missiles at Dnipro in Ukraine. In a national address, Putin declared that ‘We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.’ Such hypersonic missiles would evade early-warning systems and existing anti-missile defences.
Russia updated its nuclear doctrine on 19 November to treat an attack from a non-nuclear state as a joint attack if supported by a nuclear armed state. This means a Russian response to continued NATO escalation could include nuclear strikes on Ukraine and NATO states, with unimaginable consequences.
Forced to the table
Both NATO and Russia are attempting to bolster their positions ahead of any negotiated settlement to the conflict. Ukraine’s imperialist backers have failed to contain Russia economically and militarily. Sweeping economic sanctions imposed following the invasion in February 2022 have not significantly damaged the Russian economy and war effort, nor produced regime change. Ukraine’s military is increasingly desperate for manpower and munitions despite the flow of arms from its imperialist backers. Western media picked up on a 26 November report from independent Russian news group Agentsvo that Russia is advancing at its fastest rate since the start of the conflict in 2022, taking 600 sq km in November.
Ukraine’s imperialist backers are increasingly anxious that a continuation of the war will allow Russia to capture more territory, strengthening its hand in any settlement. On 20 November Ukrainian President Zelensky was forced to publicly concede the impossibility of restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders through military means, stating that Ukraine’s revised aim is to ‘bring Crimea back diplomatically’.
The US and Britain are aware that NATO missiles will not reverse Ukraine’s military predicament, nor halt the Russian advance. The number of missiles available is very limited, as is their ability to evade Russian air defences. Their use is a bargaining chip, one which carries enormous risk.
Ukraine: an expression of global inter-imperialist rivalry
The Biden administration’s escalation follows Trump’s presidential election victory. Trump previously declared he would end the war within 24 hours of taking office by withdrawing US support for Ukraine and forcing negotiations. US imperialism’s aims in the war have not been met at all, and the conflict has merely led to increased diplomatic, economic and even military integration between Russia and states such as China, North Korea (DPRK), and Iran.
In October, Western imperialist media expressed alarm at the deployment of North Korean troops in Russia. This follows Putin’s visit to the DPRK in June 2024 establishing a joint security and defence treaty which included a mutual defence pact. ‘It has taken an election defeat in the US and the arrival of 10,000 North Korean troops in Ukraine for Joe Biden to finally relent [on the missiles decision]’ (The Guardian 18 November 2024). It was this troop deployment that served as an excuse to relent on the use of missiles against Russia even though there was no evidence that the DPRK troops would be used in Ukraine itself: they are currently fighting Ukrainian forces in the Kursk salient on Russian territory.
US and European imperialism on a collision course
The Western imperialist camp is in increasing disarray. At all levels there are growing divisions: within the US ruling class, between US and European imperialism, and within the EU itself. All of these have been exacerbated by Trump’s victory. Trump will continue his previous policy of economic hostility to European imperialism through tariffs and trade war. His aim is to reduce US dependency on EU trade: in the months to September 2024 the US amassed a $173bn trade deficit with the EU; that with China is $217bn, with a total trade deficit of $872bn. Unlike the Biden administration which sought to foster alliances with European imperialist powers in a battle against China, the Trump faction sees the EU principally as a rival – hence his threat to withdraw from NATO, and hints that the US would not honour the Article 5 mutual defence clause in the NATO treaty.
Splits within Europe
Divisions within Europe are developing as conditions of economic crisis across the EU continue unabated. On 7 November, the day after Trump’s election victory, the German coalition government collapsed as months of fierce budgetary debates culminated in Chancellor Olaf Scholz sacking his Finance Minister Christian Lindner, prompting an effective withdrawal of Linder’s Free Democratic Party thereby ending the coalition government’s narrow majority. Central to the debates are the crisis in the German economy and manufacturing: German industry has been in recession since 2022, and industrial production is down 16% from its 2017 peak. A major factor is the severing of access to cheap Russian fossil fuel imports following the invasion in 2022 and sanctions on Russia.
The German ruling class is committed to levels of rapid rearmament which it can only afford with cuts in state budgets elsewhere. Scholz’s Zeitenwende (new era) speech made on 27 February 2022, three days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, called for huge increases in military spending: from $73bn in 2023 to $98bn in 2024 and more in 2025. There are divisions on how to raise the necessary funds; the consensus among the forces that are set to replace Scholz in government is cutting state expenditure and austerity.
Added to the political crisis is the rise of the far-right, with the virulently racist Alternative for Germany winning the most votes in Eastern Thuringia on 1 September, beating all three parties in the ruling coalition. A focus of their rhetoric is opposition to the war in Ukraine, citing the havoc it has wreaked on the German economy. In France, the far-right National Rally party, which took the highest share of votes in the French legislative elections in July with 37%, had included opposition to the war in Ukraine in its programme.
Divisions exist across the whole of Europe. Poland, Scandinavia and the Baltic states are among the most aggressive in confronting Russia, while Hungary and Bulgaria are increasingly opposed to the war. German imperialism is the largest trading partner of Romania, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and among the top three holders of Foreign Direct Investment stock in all but two of these countries. Notwithstanding its military support to Ukraine being the largest after the US in monetary terms, Germany has been more cautious in any escalation against Russia than Britain and France: Scholz has repeatedly ruled out sending German TAURUS cruise missiles to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, French imperialism has wider global interests beyond Europe, and President Macron has positioned France among the major aggressors towards Russia within Europe. On 23 November France joined US and Britain’s dangerous escalation in allowing Ukraine to use French SCALP missiles against Russia. In February 2024, Macron refused to rule out NATO ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine. On 24 November, French media outlet Le Monde reported in an article entitled ‘Discussions over sending European troops to Ukraine reignited’: ‘Paris and London are not ruling out leading a military coalition in Ukraine’, citing a British military source.
Britain: global assets to defend
The British ruling class in its entirety supports confrontation with Russian imperialism. The specifically parasitic character of British imperialism breeds an intense drive to aggressively confront any potential rival. In June 2024 British imperialism’s external assets stood at £13.7 trillion, equivalent to five times annual GDP, a ratio significantly higher than for any other imperialist country. The Labour government is committed to defending these global assets, and the super profits drawn from them. It is supported by the left of the Labour Party, the trade union leadership, The Guardian, and the BBC, all applauding the aggression. On 21 November, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff Lieutenant General Rob Magowan told MPs Britain was ready for war with Russia: ‘if the Russians invaded Eastern Europe tonight, then we would meet them in that fight’. As an attack dog for NATO, Britain is leading the dangerous escalations and risking nuclear confrontation.
No to British imperialist warmongering!
No to NATO!
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 303 December 2024 /January 2025
