#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ITALY #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) Italy, MILANO, F.A.I.: Anti-militarist analysis and perspectives. How the war is fueled (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 After a month and more since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict,

elements emerge that allow us to make new assessments with respect to those
previously brought to the attention of the readers of  Umanità Nova . There are
two aspects in particular that deserve consideration: one is geopolitical, that
is, the strategic importance of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, the other is
the increasingly concrete proposal for the establishment of a common European
defense. ---- As regards the first point, we must first of all state that the two
water basins not only have a local value but are the point of arrival and
departure of a significant part of the global geo-economy which sees its Silk
Road (OBOR) as its bearing structure. The "One Belt One Road" project has one of
the preferential routes in the maritime routes; this can only be the case,
considering that 70% of world trade takes place by sea.

The Azov Sea and the Black Sea, via the Caucasus and in particular Georgia, are
one of the global landing points of the Silk Road. It is also the terminal of the
Stan economies (republics of Central Asia) as well as representing the shortest
route between Europe and the Far East. The Black Sea is one of the busiest
waterways in the world: forty-eight thousand ships annually cross it (the Suez
Canal has a much lower annual traffic with about seventeen thousand ships), as
well as being one of the main transport arteries of oil.

In addition to energy flows, the passage of Russian-Ukrainian and Central Asian
wheat through Kazakhstan is of absolute importance. It is estimated that the
passage of the cereal through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles guarantees 25% of
world needs, as well as covering the global demand for a fifth of maize and
sunflower oil. It is therefore no coincidence that in recent years this water
basin has become a terrain of competition and division. China, in May 2017,
signed an agreement with Georgia becoming the third commercial partner while, in
the same year, the US company SSA Marine, one of the world's logistics leaders,
took over the operations of the Anaklia container terminal. - one of the most
important in the Black Sea and already the subject of European funding, in
particular from Switzerland, France and the Netherlands.

In summary, this waterway represents one of the main routes of traffic between
the Far East and the West and vice versa. Confirming the growing importance of
the Black Sea is the Turkish project to double the Bosphorus canal, with a
forecast cost of over 8 billion US dollars. This infrastructural work has two
values, one geopolitical and the other economic. In the Russian-Ukrainian match
also the "reserves", the "benches" which, translated into geopolitical language
are the "minor imperialisms" of which Turkey is one of the leading exponents,
also enter the field. The Turkish influences fueled by "Pan-Turkism" give Erdogan
a not indifferent instrument of pressure not only on the areas immediately
adjacent to Anatolia but also in territories located in the heart of Asia:

The panturco recall worries Moscow not a little: we recall the preferential
relations between Turkey and Ukraine, then the request for recognition of the
Turkish Tatar minority of Crimea. The panturcan nationalist sirens can also be
heard in the depths of the Russian Federation, from Tatarstan to Bashkiria to
Siberia where the presence of Turkic minorities offer Erdogan an element of
pressure against Putin. Moscow cannot renounce having a weight in the Black Sea:
the stabilization of the Donbass and the creation of a corridor that extends from
Crimea to Odessa thus becomes vital for its geopolitical role and above all for
its economy.

65% of Russian exports and 38% of oil exported pass through the Black Sea. The
Russian-Ukrainian game is therefore played on a much wider field than is commonly
understood and goes far beyond the territories of the current war confrontation.:
it can therefore be safely said that Ukraine is only part of a Eurasian
geo-economic match. The Ukrainian crisis, already highlighted in 2014 with the
annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation, is only one end point of a
project whose focus is located in Central Asia.

Moscow is trying to stay in the international competition by re-proposing its
imperial scheme. The Russian eagle has its head in the west but its body and
claws in the east, and the Black Sea is the synthesis of it. The secular
construction of identity of the "Russian Holy Mother Earth", inherited entirely
from the USSR, with the pretense of reuniting the Russian speakers with the
"Mother Country" is only, like all nationalistic references, the facade behind
which there are the interests of exploiting classes. Donbass, Crimea and Odessa
are only a decisive part in the attempt to remain and count in the world competition.

The conflict also has another effect, that of accelerating the debate on two
focal points within the EU: the need for a common European defense and the role
of the Atlantic Alliance. As regards the European army being set up, we had
already offered readers some reflections at the beginning of the year and
outlined a picture that now finds further confirmation. In recent weeks, in fact,
the interventions of the "regime" opinion-makers on the need for the EU to have
its own autonomous role from a military point of view have become more and more
numerous. The President of the Council Draghi, a voice of "weight" not only
nationally but above all in the European field, reiterated, at the end of the
meeting of the prime ministers of the EU held last month in Versailles,

This opinion also found a moment of discussion in an unprecedented political
context such as that of the ANPI (National Partisan Associations of Italy)
congress which ended on the last Sunday of March. This is not the place for a
political evaluation of the association, but we must nevertheless point out that
the ANPI is changing its "skin": it is no longer the "transmission belt" of the
majority party of the left. In recent years it has been the container, the point
of reference, of the political and ideal instances of a significant part of the
more or less legalistic left that has long ceased to vote and of those who no
longer have any party referent. For this reason, as a witnessing association it
is gradually assuming its own profile, its own "political autonomy" and an ever
greater weight in the sphere of the legalitarian left.

The part of President Pagliarulo's congressional report concerning the
positioning of Europe in the conflict, its geopolitical positioning and the role
of the Atlantic Alliance is significant. The concept of a united and independent
Europe is re-proposed in the congress document. The report states that: " the
European Union must be represented with one voice " and, above all, the common
European defense project is clearly encouraged, with exclusively "defensive"
characteristics. In this regard, a passage from the congress document is
significant: "without a true (European) political government and in particular
without a common foreign policy, no autonomous defense policy will be possible. A
discussion has begun on a European defense system. The objectives must be made
explicit and clarified, which must be aimed at the exclusive internal defense of
the territory " .

If on the one hand a common European army is advocated, a project strongly
supported by Italy and France, on the other hand it is also explicitly stated
that Europe must have its own political autonomy. The theme of an independent EU
that can play its game in international competition is also seen in the
perspective of a breakdown of the Atlantic Alliance. The report states that: "the
tendency, prevailing today, to consider the future defense system as an addition
to NATO must be countered by starting a reflection on its role. The original
reasons of NATO have disappeared as the historical-political presuppositions of
the collapse of the Berlin Wall have fallen. In the new multipolar world and in
the perspective of a European defense system, a progressive dismissal of NATO
structures is therefore reasonable ". These statements leave no doubt about the
need for the creation of a politically united EU with its own military instrument
(European army) to sanction the end of the Atlantic era.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has accelerated the contradictions within the
European community and the EU did not speak with a "single voice", there was no
single management of the crisis. Furthermore, a question has arisen for some time
now, but always postponed: the interests of the US and the EU do not always
overlap, indeed they can also have different directions and the need to place
themselves in the framework of international relations independently. The role of
Italy and France in Africa and in the "enlarged Mediterranean" is the clear
demonstration of a political and military activism that responds to the
particular interests of the two countries, beyond and outside the US geopolitical
design and therefore its operational arm what is NATO.

In other words, an increasingly fragmented and rapidly evolving global world is
emerging: in this perspective, Europe is trying, with a thousand contradictions,
to carve out a leading role. If the ANPI, through its president, chooses the
European way as an alternative to the Atlantic one, two fundamental aspects are
not clarified in the congress report. The new European army cannot have only a
"defensive" character: armies are not only instruments of deterrence, a deterrent
for war, a safe conduct for peace, as some members of the armed forces have
always maintained. The cost of military apparatuses responds to a strict economic
logic or, better, to a logical advantage: that of protecting one's markets,

Pagliarulo also carefully avoided clarifying another aspect: independence from
the USA and NATO must have an indispensable corollary, that of a European
military apparatus much more structured than the current one. If the EU is to
defend its own interests, it must inevitably allocate ever greater shares of
resources to military spending than those, however abnormal, currently reserved.
The question that ANPI does not want to ask itself because it is politically
"incorrect" is the usual one: who pays the bill? Capitalism has always given only
one answer: military expenditures finance the wages of workers or the constant
decrease in welfare through the reduction of pensions and cuts in social
spending. The "pacifism" and anti-atlantism branded ANPI will pay the usual suspects.

Daniele Ratti

https://federazione-anarchica-milanese-fai.noblogs.org/post/2022/04/08/analisi-e-prospettive-antimilitariste-come-si-alimenta-la-guerra/
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