The war that the U.S. empire is waging against Russia, China, their allies, and the global class struggle has everything to do with the tightening persecution of marginalized groups within the imperial center. With Washington's attempt to use the Ukraine crisis as a catalyst for regime change in Russia, and for subduing China by extension via the knocking out of China's most important geopolitical partner, the U.S. settler state has an excuse to crack down on the oppressed nationalities within its own borders. The consequence is an increase in the contradictions that the imperialists have created for themselves, and therefore greater potential for the tensions within U.S. society to reach a revolutionary crisis.
Before then, however, will come great risk of a fascist upsurge within the core imperialist countries. "We will see the rise in the West of genuine civic consciousness that's not directed toward the mythical Russian threat, but toward its own leaders that are forcing ordinary Europeans and Americans to pay for their reckless geopolitical moves and miscalculations from their own pockets," writes Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service director Sergey Naryshkin. "Such an awakening can only be welcomed, although it's possible that it will end not by the coming to power in the U.S. and European states of nationally oriented, sensible and realist politicians, but by the establishment of complete and undisguised liberal-Nazi dictatorships in the Western area."
The seeds for such a scenario are being planted not just by these economic consequences of NATO's campaign to foment conflict in Ukraine, but by its direct alliance with white supremacy. The racism inherent in this multi-pronged global war effort, where the imperialists seek to simultaneously crush the emergence of multi-polarity and the rise of the proletarian movement, is apparent from its association with Ukraine's neo-Nazis. More than engaging in collaboration with fascist militias like Azov, the imperialists have used the CIA to cultivate neo-Nazi terror, which is NATO's weapon for both countering the Donbass independence fighters and ethnically cleansing Ukraine of Russians. It's also served to terrorize Ukraine's communist movement into submission amid the banning of its Communist Party, justified by governmental promotions of Nazi anti-Soviet propaganda. The eight-year onslaught of beatings, pogroms, torture, and executions, perpetrated both by paramilitaries and by the official Ukrainian armed forces, feels like a prelude to the wider fascist takeover that Naryshkin describes.
Naryshkin names these future dictators as "liberal-Nazis" because the liberals leading this war effort are not only eager to assist Nazis to achieve their foreign policy goals, but are indispensable in laying the foundations for an American-European series of Nazi regimes. It was Obama who expanded the surveillance and police states, giving Trump the tools to wage war against black radicals through the FBI label of "Black Identity Extremists." It was the Russophobic warmongering of liberals throughout the Trump era that created a climate of paranoid xenophobia, leading to the "China Initiative" that persecuted Chinese people in academia. The Initiative, launched by the Justice Department, the FBI, and other federal agencies, added a McCarthyist element to NATO's recent efforts to militarize the academic sphere. At the same time that the military has been growing its ties with high education to innovate in "cognitive warfare," it's been suppressing voices who may challenge the imperialist narratives about China.
The official end of the Initiative hasn't stopped law enforcement's persecutions of the ethnic Chinese individuals who were targeted, and though imperialism's propaganda blowtorch is currently pointed at Russia, the Biden administration is absolutely continuing the hybrid war on China. The dragging of Russia into this conflict, and the subsequent push to destabilize the Russian Federation, themselves are tied into the anti-Chinese campaign. What will come out of this is far worse racism, stemming from the colonial nature of Washington's great-power competition.
"Evidence suggests that the latest military coups in Africa have the fingerprints of AFRICOM all over them," writes Ajamu Baraka. "While the focus on Ukraine is of utmost importance, we must also recognize the U.S. commitment to the global doctrine of 'Full Spectrum Dominance' and its utilization of a 'military-first' strategy to achieve continued U.S. global dominance. Therefore, unlike a number of peace and Anti-war groups that abstract Ukraine from that context, we argue that the coup in Ukraine and the attempt to create the conditions for the expansion of NATO into Ukraine must be seen as an aspect of U.S. imperialist strategy and, therefore, must be vigorously opposed by all anti-imperialists. For African peoples, the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination represents the greatest threat to peace, human rights, and social justice on the planet today. It is absurd for any African to embrace the agenda of empire by giving credence or legitimacy to the crude mobilization of public opinion for conflict on behalf of NATO and the white supremacist, colonial/capitalist protect."
Globally, this project is floundering, its reckless recent provocations coming to backfire on it. Its sanctions are failing miserably, and will ultimately do more harm to the economies of the imperialist countries than to Russia's. Over and over, Ukrainians are getting caught fabricating Russian atrocity stories. Zelensky is demanding military assistance from NATO day after day because of how outmatched Ukraine is. Ukraine admits that Russia has destroyed most of its war industry, which will leave the fascist Kiev regime unable to reach its goal of invading the newly independent Donbass republics. Ultimately, these republics could have a referendum on joining Russia, which has been recovering from the backlash to its military effort as the Ruble rebounds.
Domestically, the empire is preparing to turn inwards, which is what Naryshkin described when he said the U.S. and its allies are going to undergo 21st century versions of the rise of the Third Reich. We're even seeing an all-too-obvious indicator of Hitler rising again as Germany rearms following Washington's recently assimilating it into the war on Russia. The extreme right is rising throughout Germany and the rest of the imperialist sphere, carrying out Beer Hall Putsch coup attempts at the U.S. Capitol, spreading reactionary conspiracy theories like QAnon, and using Ukraine's combat zones as a means for training the many white supremacists who've come from around the world to fight for "Slava Ukraini." The liberal treatment of this phrase as some feel-good rallying cry, instead of as a Nazi slogan, shows just how open our society is for a Nazi takeover. In every way, the liberals are welcoming the coming of this age of genocidal dictatorships. They're who will fulfill the nightmare scenario of a U.S./NATO bloc that's been pummeled by the blowback from its own imperial hubris, and that reacts by perpetrating a genocide against the marginalized groups within its own borders.
