The bloody first of round of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has given way to a
bloodier escalation in the second round. The scale of brutality and bloodlettinghas taken the western media by surprise, despite it being in the nature of waritself as seen in the other, currently invisible, conflicts around the world -Ethiopia, Yemen, Myanmar. War is the crime; war crimes are its stock in trade.President Zelenskyy has portrayed this is a moral David against a barbarianGoliath defending democracy and western values. His recent statement that "Wewill fight to keep what is Ukrainian, and what is not, we simply don't need it."reveals its more prosaic national nature for Ukraine with a tacit recognitionthat its Russian minorities are not welcome. Other than its scale why is this thestandout conflict?Something here is clearly different, but what is it that truly distinguishes thisconflict and explains the scale of mobilisation and intervention in it? 1945 sawglobal capitalism splitting into two potentially mutually destructive and rivalimperialist blocs. Direct confrontation was too risky, and the United Nations wasthe lowest common denominating political point for mitigating tension.Conflicts since have been franchised out to local proxies in a never-endingconfrontation for resources and influence across the planet. Since then,according to Our World in Data, 12 million people have died just in the wars inwhich the US has been directly involved alone. So much for the ‘rules-basedglobal order'!The collapse of the state capitalist Soviet bloc has merely morphed into a newrivalry between neoliberal ‘democratic' forms versus centralised unitarycapitalist dictatorships. The imperialist schism still runs through the samefault lines. What makes this more different is that it is taking place in theheartland of that fault line. The frontier of those blocks, with no proxies leftto stand in. What distinguishes this conflict is that what is at stake is nolonger at the margins but at the centre, it is the ‘Ring of Fire' in theseismology of global conflict.The shock absorbers of peripheries and the mitigating role of the UN aredisintegrating, causing metal to grind on metal along a mutually destructivepath. In another 6 months Ukraine, if still fighting, will have lost a generationof development according to UN rapporteurs. But what happens to Ukraine isexposed to be far from the key interests of the West as £30 billion flows eastsubsidising the Russian war effort compared to £1 billion (much of it inundelivered promises) in aid to defend against it.That 1.2 billion people are now in food insecurity (325 million at immediaterisk) with riots already in Peru and Sri Lanka appears a sideshow, as capitalismcommits to a zero-sum game on the brink of annihilation. Only power and the rich- including the multi-millionaire Zelenskyy - can have any interest in asuccessful outcome that does not involve their total abolition. This bosses' warexposes our perpetual risk of annihilation with or without their version ofpeace. Our only hope is that we can turn this war and all their wars into ourclass war against them, as their total demise is our only salvation.https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/04/24/against-the-bosses-war-and-their-peace_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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