A big question on many people’s minds right now is ‘Will there be war in Ukraine?’
The mainstream framing of this is, naturally, “Is a Russian invasion of Ukraine imminent?” The united states warns that it is - as does the united kingdom. But Russia, Ukraine, and the european union all say it is not. “So,” asks this useful piece, “why all the media fuss around the imminent ‘Russian invasion of Ukraine’?”
First, globally, to justify US ‘appeasement’ of Russia – if such moves are merely ‘compromises’ to prevent certain invasion, then surely they are permissible.
Second, more concretely, it cannot be ignored that this media fuss has had quite negative effects for the Ukrainian economy. Foreigners, placing their trust in Western media, have been withdrawing their money from Ukraine at a rapid rate. At the beginning of November 2021, 1 US dollar was worth 26.1 Ukrainian hryvnias. Now it is worth 28.5 hryvnias. This has the effect of pushing the Ukrainian government to consider more seriously any measures possible which would reduce war fear.
In other words, the united states can achieve its aims in the region by simply warning of a war; to both Russia and Ukraine, these warnings have the effect of threats.
Of course, economic aggression, such as that described above, can be no less brutal. A recent piece from Spencer Ackerman in ‘Forever Wars’ sums up another contemporary example of this; “U.S. Economic Strangulation Could Kill More Afghans Than 20 Years of U.S. War.” By freezing Afghanistan’s assets and cutting off all economic aid, the united states, and the united kingdom, can punish the nation for the defeat of the ‘war on terror’, while at the same time indicating to the Taliban - an unreliable new force in government - that imperialism is still capable of governing Afghanistan even without direct occupation.
Often, in my experience, the dominant forms of anti-imperialist organising in britain gather under the banner of ‘anti war activism’. Anti-war positions have (perhaps briefly) united principled anti-imperialists with liberals who would like to purify capitalism from external brutality and see the state focus its efforts at home.[1] The broad appeal of anti-war work has been historically useful - after all, who likes war, right? - as in the mass mobilisations against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But Ukraine, and a possible Russian invasion, has been in and out of the headlines since 2014. How do we prevent our organising from tailing behind bourgeois headlines? War is a serious threat - but what do we do against less spectacular forms of violence and domination? When we cannot draw attention to something as concrete as an invasion - when imperialism manifests as a continuity of british power, maintained through a combination of economic coercion, comprador bourgeoisie, and threats, rather than a new headline? Mahdi Amel is just one author who has argued that ;
The true colonial domination is these countries’ dependency on colonialism as represented in the social framework of colonial production. It exists first
and foremost in the class relations particular to the colonial structures in these
countries and not in a direct or active colonial presence, whether military or economic.
For this reason,it is a mistake to speak about the end of colonialism in reference to the end of direct colonial presence. Similarly, the term ‘neo-colonialism’ currently tossed around in our political discourse is not accurate because it relies on and implies a false theoretical definition of colonialism. Colonialism is actually the colonial relation, and it does not necessarily disappear with the disappearance of colonising forces, the presence of which is but one of the violent forms taken by this relation. Indeed, the colonial relation continues to exist in many ‘independent’ ‘underdeveloped’ countries, which are actually dependent on colonialism in their ‘independence’. The end of colonialism, to speak precisely, is linked to the end of colonial relations of production, which entails the transition from colonial production to socialist production enacted through a revolution for liberation.[2]
And whilst I would argue for the utility of terms like ‘neocolonialism’, as carefully articulated by Kwame Nkrumah and others, for classifying the forms that colonial domination takes under different conditions, the relationship of domination can remain stable throughout, or even partially because, of these shifting forms This is especially true of imperialism by contemporary britain, a small island, lacking the capacity for extensive direct governance, but well equipped for economic warfare by the resources of centuries of colonial plunder.
I have written before in this newsletter about the problem of spectacle; about the way that capital and the state visibilise and invisibilise their own workings in ways that enable them to maintain power over the processes they depend on. Previously I have largely addressed this from the angle of understanding transmisogyny. I am suggesting here that transmisogyny may tell us more about the workings of global capital than most accounts of either would lead you to believe. Right now there is lots of talk about war with Russia, less about the factors in Ukraine driving this renewed wave of urgency; even less about how britain benefits from this situation.
At this stage, britain cannot afford to withdraw from any sphere of influence. Leaving the e.u. may have helped escalate a domestic agenda, but economically, the u.k. has lost a lot of its reliable markets and supports. I do not know the exact details of british capital’s interests in the region, beyond the general relationship between britain, NATO, and the IMF - I also don’t really have the training or understanding needed to find out. But many of the people with this training - including some left/progressive commentators with anti-war positions - are more focused on orientalist scandal-mongering than serious economic investigation. I’m happy to concede that my inability to find this info may say more about me than anything else. But I have looked. And perhaps if we weren’t so oriented towards uncovering each new crisis, we might be more prepared for the next.
Writing of his years with the Palestinian People’s Liberation Army, in the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, Jean Genet often reflected on the activities of foreign journalists in the camps (perhaps because he shared a similar position), especially on their need for a more sensational war than they encountered.
All the pretense, misunderstandings and eyewash were quite evident to the journalists, who either went along with it deliberately or were dazzled by the glare given off by all the rebellions. But although the very naivety of the deceits should have warned them, I can’t remember a single newspaper article expressing surprise at the collusion and childishness involved. Perhaps the papers, who’d spent real money sending all those reporters and photographers and cameramen such a long way, insisted on sensational events to justify the expense. No question of applying the Paris cops’ motto, “Move on, please, there’s nothing to see.”
Journalists weren’t allowed anywhere near the bases - Halt! Secret! No entry! The bases were forbidden territory, perhaps because, as everyone guessed though they didn’t dare say so, there wasn’t anything to see.[3]
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[1] Occasionally, they have even attracted fascists, for reasons it is beyond the scope of this newsletter to discuss.
[2] ‘Colonialism and Underdevelopment II: On the Colonial Mode of Production’, in Arab Marxism and National Liberation: Selected Writings of Mahdi Amel, introduced and edited by Hicham Safieddine, translated by Angela Giordani, p. 66.
[3] Prisoner of Love, translated by Barbara Bray (New York Review Books: New York, 2003), p. 86.