LAST FRIDAY, Labour’s armed forces minister, Al Carns, was ramping up the increasingly strident calls for the whole country to step up and prepare for the outbreak of war with Russia.
In answer to a question from Sky News, Carns insisted that the main issue for the capitalist state is: ‘How do we mobilise the nation to support a military endeavour’.
Carns made clear that his intervention was part of an all-out campaign by Starmer’s Labour government, the military and security services to whip up a war frenzy amongst the working class with dire warnings that Russia is on the verge of invading Europe and the UK.
This campaign was continued yesterday by Blaise Metreweli, the new head of the UK’s secret service.
In her first speech as boss of MI6, Metreweli claimed that Russia is an acute threat with an ‘aggressive, expansionist, policy.’
She declared that the UK’s commitment to the Zelensky regime is ‘steadfast’ saying: ‘Putin should be in no doubt, our support is enduring,’ before going on to insist that ‘the front line is everywhere’ in a new ‘age of uncertainty’.
Also yesterday, Sir Richard Knighton, Britain’s Chief of Defence Staff, in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute, warned that the military needed huge sums to ‘properly prepare’ the nation for war and that what was required was for ‘our whole nation stepping up’ to build ‘national resilience’.
The demand for workers and youth to ‘step up’ to imperialist war has accelerated across the capitalist nations of Europe.
This month, the German parliament passed a law that introduced ‘voluntary conscription’ for youth but which also allows for a wider compulsory conscription if necessary.
This was met with youth-led protests in 90 cities across the country as workers and youth accused the German government of preparing for war under the banner of ‘security reforms’, and declaring: ‘We will not be cannon fodder.’
Like Germany, France is introducing a form of voluntary military service for 18 and 19-year-olds from next year.
Last week, US president Donald Trump denounced Europe as a ‘decaying’ group of nations led by ‘weak’ people as he moved to decisively break with them as he prepares to dump the unwinnable war against Russia.
Instead, Trump’s focus has switched to a military campaign to overthrow Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and seize the country’s vast oil reserves for exploitation by US capitalism.
The latest US National Security Strategy (NSS) revealed US imperialism’s insistence that it would readjust its military presence throughout South America and use ‘the military system superior to any other country in the world’ to gain control of energy and mineral resources throughout the region.
The claim to military supremacy was dealt a massive blow with the leak last week of a US government assessment that showed that China would defeat the US military in a war over Taiwan.
US imperialism is clearly attempting to impose its dictatorship across the entire region, driving out ‘hostile’ economic companies in preparation for a war against China.
In its final imperialist death agony, capitalism has no future except through war against its competitors along with war against Russia and China to destroy all the gains of the Russian and Chinese revolutions.
This is driving the demand for workers to rally to the nationalist flag and sacrifice their lives for the profit of the bankers and bosses.
The working class will not be fooled into becoming cannon fodder for capitalism but will see that the enemy is not Russian or Chinese workers but the parasitic capitalist class at home.
The working class and youth will stand with the workers of Russia and China as allies in the class war to overthrow bankrupt capitalism.
Workers of the world must unite in revolutionary action to bring down their capitalist governments and replace them with workers’ governments and socialism.
This requires the building of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to organise the victory of the world socialist revolution!
This is the only way forward!
