Kevin B Anderson is a Marxist humanist and Professor of Sociology, Political Science and Feminist studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. Green Left’s Federico Fuentes spoke with Anderson about why the world is becoming more bipolar (rather than multipolar) and the need for consistent anti-imperialism. (Read part one, on how imperialism explains wars, here.)
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How do you view current dynamics within global capitalism?
The world appears to be once again heading towards two blocs, reproducing something akin to what we had during the Cold War.
On one hand we have Russia and China, who on certain issues are joined by India, Brazil and South Africa [the other main countries within BRICS]. If the United States and Israel keep threatening Iran, it is likely to be drawn closer to this bloc. Either way, this is a pretty large bloc that is quite powerful economically, even if it is not completely united.
On the other hand, we have the European Union, the US, Japan and Britain, which are more united though they have their issues too.
Relative to other countries, the US is still a towering economy and, at least on paper, its military apparatus is multiple times the size of all the others put together.
While the US’ economy is not exactly declining, it is certainly not growing as rapidly as China’s or India’s. The trend is therefore for the US to become less important as a global economic player. It is not about to collapse, but it is definitely getting weaker.
If we look inside the US, we can see that there is a lot of resentment over its weakness and the fact it keeps losing wars, something that [Donald] Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” tries to tap into.
It is one thing to go into Iraq and be defeated; it is another thing to be driven out of Afghanistan by the Taliban after spending hundreds of billions of dollars, only to have the whole government collapse in a week, leaving you barely enough time to get your troops out.
Afghanistan is also interesting in that it demonstrates that not all forms of anti-imperialism are progressive. The Taliban is an incredibly retrogressive force, even compared with other Islamist or Islamic fundamentalist groups.
Something new that we face today is the emergence of powers that we could call sub-imperialist.
Iran is an example of this: for the past 10 years, Iran has been backing forces all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. These forces play a key part in the Israel-Palestine war, in Lebanon, and in Syria, where the regime is almost completely dependent on Iran. Iranian allies have shut off a good part of shipping through the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians.
So, Iran is a pretty powerful sub-imperialist power in the region. India is also sub-imperialist, as is Brazil, which throws its weight around Latin America quite a bit. South Africa is weaker now, but there was a time when it too exercised certain hegemony over large parts of Africa as a sub-imperialist power.
The world may be multipolar, in that we have all these different sub-imperialisms, but the trend in the past 10 years has been towards a coalescence of two large blocs. In this sense, the world is becoming less multipolar and more bipolar.
How do you view China and Russia fitting into the global imperialist system today?
People argue over whether Russia and China are imperialist. But this wears rather thin when we look at how Russia operates in Ukraine or how China operates in Africa.
What would you call Russia’s domination in Eastern Europe if not imperialist?
Today, Russia has a military presence not just in the former post-Soviet region but in Syria, Libya and parts of Africa, through the presence of the Wagner Group [a Russian-state backed private military company].
Even though its power is mainly regional, Russia can be classified as an imperialist power.
Though everyone likes to point out how weak Russia is compared to what it was — which is true in terms of its economy — Russia is still the world’s second nuclear power. This is politically important.
China does not have the same kind of relationship with other countries, in which it dominates them to the same extent. But they are certainly moving in that direction in Southeast Asia — from Myanmar/Burma all the way to Indonesia.
This has created tremendous anxiety because the Pacific has for a long time been a US and French imperialist lake. That is one reason why the French are reacting so harshly in New Caledonia — they worry that if the Indigenous population get more political power, they could align with China to some degree.
While China’s military is not really that developed, it is capable of threatening Taiwan and the Philippines, and jockeying for power in the region. Every once in a while, China gets into border disputes with India.
But China seems to put more energy into the Belt and Road Initiative, investing in Africa and so forth. Perhaps they are waiting until they get enough military power to really contend with the US. So, China today is more an economic than political or military power.
Russia and China are the two big contenders to the US, but it is important to note that they have their own internal weaknesses and problems too, which they try to hide through authoritarian controls.
If they are unable to deliver a higher standard of living to their population (or at least maintain the current level), they will find themselves facing the same problems causing instability in the US.
What should 21st-century socialist anti-imperialism look like?
Let us start with Palestine. There is a brutal colonial war in which one side has so much more armaments and military capacity than the other. There is just nothing like it in the world today. We have to support the Palestinians.
But this does not mean giving political support to Hamas. In Palestine, there is a broad nationalist movement, of which Hamas is part. It is true that the dominant wing in Palestinian nationalism right now (Hamas) is more conservative. But that is not what we need to be emphasising.
We need to be emphasising solidarity on a broader level with the Palestinian movement and against the ongoing genocide.
One way the more revolutionary and independent section of the anti-imperialist movement can do this is by being consistent in supporting both Palestine and Ukraine.
A lot of people think genocide necessarily means mass death. But genocide means destroying a people through a combination of military, economic and cultural control.
If you look at the areas of Ukraine under Russian control, it is clear that is Russia’s plan. Russia does not regard Ukrainians as a separate people with the right to a separate national identity.
The genocidal intent in Israel’s actions are also very clear. Of course, there are differences within the Israeli dominant class: some want to do this more slowly through attrition, while others want to do it more suddenly. But the intentions remain the same.
And if we are going to talk about genocide in Ukraine and Palestine, we should also talk about Sudan. While Sudan is not a centrally-directed genocide, it is a civil war between two-warlord type groups that has left millions of people on the verge of starvation.
Sub-imperialists countries are involved in arming both sides. Meanwhile, the popular committees that emerged during the uprising five years ago still exist and are working to alleviate the suffering among the population.
To be universal and consistent we should also show solidarity with the Kanaks in New Caledonia, and support Venezuela and Cuba versus US imperialism.
We should also pay attention to ethnic oppression, for example of the Kurds and the Baluchis in Iran. People do not pay enough attention to this, but it is a kind of internal colonialism involving harsh rule over areas that have aspirations to at least some level of autonomy.
By being consistent, the democratic and anti-Stalinist elements of the left can distinguish themselves from the kind of anti-imperialism that thinks everything is about the US and sees regimes such as Iran’s as allies.
While being critical of the US and its allies, we have to be critical of the Russian regime, the Iranian regime and so forth.
One final point: people often say, “Oh, you are anti-imperialist? You must like the kinds of regimes in anti-imperialist countries then,” which is a rehash of what we faced during the Cold War. But many also want to know what our positive agenda is.
During the Cold War, if you came out in favour of Czechoslovakia [against the Soviet invasion] and the French student-worker revolutionary movement in 1968, you were providing some elements of a vision of a new society.
You were saying: “I am a radical anti-capitalist, but what I have in mind is more like what they are trying to do in socialist humanist Czechoslovakia than the centralised Soviet state capitalist model.” It clarified the positive goal of a movement, which is very important.
So, our movement cannot just be anti-imperialist or anti-capitalist; it has to be socialist — I would say socialist humanist — and put forward some idea about a different way of life.
That is why, as well as being consistent, we need to highlight movements that have a liberatory aspect, such as the popular committees in Sudan, the Kurds in Rojava, etc. These are forces with a progressive and, in some cases, anti-capitalist or have a socialist orientation. They need the strongest support.
[Abridged from links.org.au.]