WITH the US, EU and the UK capitalist economies and regimes in a growing and desperate economic and political crisis, the imperialist powers are being driven to step up their war preparations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced yesterday that Russia is suspending its mission to NATO as tensions sharpen between Moscow and the Western military alliance.
He said the move was a response to the expulsion of eight Russian staff at the NATO mission last week, citing ‘recent moves’ by NATO, and saying there are no longer ‘basic conditions for common work.’
Last month, a Kremlin spokesman said the expansion of NATO’s military activity in Ukraine had crossed a ‘red line’ for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At a press briefing in Moscow last Thursday, Lavrov said all of Russia’s Central Asian allies and neighbours are opposed to the deployment of US or NATO troops on their soil, and former Soviet states, including Uzbekistan, stand firm in their unwillingness to host US forces.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who visited Russia this week, was told that the deployment of US or NATO infrastructure in the region is categorically unacceptable to Russia.
Nevertheless, a Pentagon delegation is currently in Uzbekistan discussing with Uzbek authorities the possibility of deploying ‘over the horizon’ counter-terrorism forces to maintain surveillance on Afghanistan and strike Afghan targets if necessary.
The United States is now reportedly going to increase drone surveillance and mount strikes in Afghanistan despite formally pulling out its troops. The Taliban-ruled Afghan government has recently warned Washington that there will be ‘bad consequences’ if US-operated unmanned drones continue to violate the country’s airspace.
Meanwhile, the United States has signed a military pact with Georgia which will last for six years, and condemned ‘Russia’s ongoing occupation of Georgia’.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin signed the agreement with Georgian Defence Minister Junasher Burchuladze on Monday, a move calculated to increase tensions between Washington and Moscow. The US Defence Secretary also said Washington’s support would help Georgia build ‘effective deterrence and defence,’ and includes military exercises with the country’s troops.
Austin arrived in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Monday and said: ‘The United States is committed to helping Georgia build its defence capacity and advance its Euro-Atlantic integration, and I’m looking forward to my meetings here.’
According to the US, Moscow gained control of roughly 20 per cent of Georgia’s territory following a brief war between Russia and Georgia in 2008.
Austin went on: ‘The United States condemns Russia’s ongoing occupation of Georgia and its attempts to expand influence into the Black Sea region through military coercion and malign activities.’
Meanwhile, the crisis-ridden EU states are still claiming that Russia is responsible for the oil and gas crisis that has stopped the EU in its tracks. Russia has condemned this nonsense and says it is more than ready to negotiate additional supplies for the EU.
However, the disintegration of the EU is now well underway with Poland defying the authority of the European Court while France and Greece have signed a military treaty to confront EU Associate Turkey in a war to grab the oil-rich Eastern Med.
Meanwhile, workers in the US, the UK, France, Italy and Germany are on the march against the savage job cuts and wage cuts policies that ‘their’ governments are imposing on them.
Now is the time to build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in the USA and throughout the EU to provide revolutionary leadership for the working class to turn the developing death agony of the capitalist system into its revolutionary overthrow.
There must be successful socialist revolutions organised that will liberate the gigantic productive forces, that have been developed, from the anarchy of capitalist production. There must be a nationalised and planned worldwide socialist economy where capitalist anarchy will be abolished and replaced by socialism, then communism. Its motto will be: ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.’
