- The crisis of the imperialist-capitalist system is steadily deepening; as the absence of a unifying political-ideological framework becomes increasingly evident, the system assumes a profoundly more chaotic character. The US administration, whose hegemony as the system’s dominant power is shaken, aims to consolidate its domination over the Americas, while simultaneously pursuing a strategic controlled withdrawal across the rest of the globe. Yet, through the aggressive maneuvers it executes to preserve its leading role in the system during this process of withdrawal, it continuously destabilizes inter-imperialist balances.
- The prevailing picture, manifesting itself in Ukraine, the active front of the war against Russia; in the so-called “Peace Council” process, which was, after being introduced as part of the mandate plan for Gaza, engineered into a parallel platform bypassing the UN; and in Trump’s insistence on Greenland, points not to mundane differences of opinion among various governments, but rather to the sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions. This state of affairs signifies a transition from a configuration of “inter-imperialist alignment”, shaped on the basis of the undisputed hegemony of the US under Cold War conditions, to another one marked by inter-imperialist rivalry and divergence.
- The decline of US hegemony and the consequent shift in its role within the system, while quite apparent in the policies of the second Trump administration, is the inevitable outcome of a multidimensional objective reality that transcends Trump’s subjective preferences. As a result of the policy of shifting production to Asia, where the labor costs are cheaper, the US has undergone deindustrialization, and its technological leadership has begun to falter. Although its financial hegemony, grounded in the dominance of the dollar, still persists, the decline in the share of international reserves in dollars from 70 percent in 1999 to 57 percent in 2025, along with the growing debates around the option of de-dollarization, indicates that the financial hegemony may also be imperiled. In this picture, the sole domain where US leadership remains unshaken is the military strength, an area where it commands an asymmetrical superiority. In a landscape where the military strength constitutes the principal element of hegemony, attempts are made to resolve all problems through threats, which, in turn, becomes a crisis dynamic on its own within the imperialist-capitalist system.
- Imperialism, defined by the domination of monopoly capital, by its very nature entails rivalry and conflict both among different groupings of monopoly capital and among the imperialist governments acting as their political representatives. The unquestionable nature of US hegemony was a transient phenomenon, rendered possible only by the unifying effect of hostility towards the opposing pole of the socialist system and its leading power, the USSR. Following the liquidation of the USSR through a counter-revolution, attempts at ideological consolidation via an enemy designation, periodically tested over China and Russia, have proven unsustainable in the long run. This is fundamentally due to the fact that these countries’ class balances, economic roles, and positionings in world politics differ drastically from those of the USSR. In the absence of a formidable socialist pole threatening the very existence of the imperialist-capitalist system, such a landscape is inevitable.
- The concept of war against Russia, which gained prominence in Europe during the 2020s, has constituted a significant juncture in terms of the search for an enemy designation, yet far from altering the general tendency. Following the fascist Maidan coup in 2014 as the pinnacle of American backed provocations, Ukraine was instrumentalized as a front against Russia, and the insistence of the imperialists on incorporating Ukraine into NATO, an organization of war and provocation, triggered a hot war in 2022. This war, waged through the military, economic, and ideological build-up of the imperialist bloc, has ceased to be sustainable particularly due to the economic and social burden it has imposed on Europe. During the second Trump administration, being reconsidered within the scope of controlled withdrawal, it has turned into a factor that widens the rift between the US and the EU.
- The faltering in the economic dimensions of US hegemony, along with the erosion of inter-imperialist harmony that emerged in the absence of a unifying opposing pole, has tended to accelerate as of the 2008 crisis, which was triggered by the collapse of US financial monopolies. During the second Trump administration, a period in which the United States threatens the entire world including its own allies with escalating tariffs and sanctions, the quest for commercial and financial alternatives is resurging worldwide, and new routes of international trade are taking shape.
- During the second Trump administration, the US has suspended all norms and conventions of diplomacy and international law, overtly engaging in outright banditry. The abduction of Nicolás Maduro, the President of Bolivarian Venezuela who has resisted the US, alongside the aggressive maneuvers aimed at the annexation of Canada and Danish-controlled Greenland, both of which are pliable NATO allies, have set examples of this modus operandi. Implementing an updated version of the Monroe Doctrine, the Trump administration resorts to heightened aggression to consolidate its domination over the Americas, even as it withdraws, partially and in a controlled manner, from the rest of the globe.
- The Trump administration’s strategic controlled withdrawal has plunged EU governments into a strategic vacuum. The European states, having been subordinated to US hegemony within the framework of the Marshall Plan and NATO during the Cold War configuration of forces, succumbed to the illusion that the Pax Americana on the continent was absolute and permanent. They internalized their dependence on the US, which maintains a presence of roughly 100,000 troops, air forces, and missiles across the continent, taking US economic and military hegemony for granted in their own strategic existence. The militarization tendency among EU governments, having been set in motion with the outbreak of the hot war in Ukraine in 2022, has accelerated in a state of panic during Trump’s second term. The persistent rise of the far-right, acting which is part of a centrifugal tendency that renders stability in European politics increasingly fragile, responds to the strategic vacuum, generated by the controlled US withdrawal, by proposing an alternative relatively independent from the United States. Yet, simultaneously, it imports the rhetoric and policies of the ascendant American right into Europe. This landscape is merely one of the manifestations of the chaos engendered by inter-imperialist rivalry and divergence. Ultimately, all prescriptions aimed at resolving the crisis of imperialism within the existing system are inherently hostile to the people and humanity.
- The strategic controlled withdrawal of the US envisions leaving behind subcontractors or relatively weak partners that will prioritize aligning with the US in the vacated regions, thereby delegating the expectations of the US to other elements that would also inevitably have their own agendas. The rising tendency of militarization among various US allies, including Germany and Japan, whose armies were downsized after being surrendered to American patronage following the Second World War, is in this respect compatible with strategic controlled withdrawal and is being encouraged by the US itself. This tendency, which erodes the balance established after the Second World War, although still compatible with the current orientation of the US, points to a new crisis dynamic that amplifies the bargaining power of these respective countries vis-à-vis the United States, thereby heightening the potentials of exacerbating inter-imperialist contradictions and rivalry.
- The escalating aggression in the Middle East must be considered within the context of the new phase of imperialism. The horrific massacre perpetrated by Israel in Gaza for over two years, following the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, an act of legitimate self-defense against the Israeli blockade, with the backing of the entire imperialist world, alongside the bombings, assassinations, and occupations it has undertaken in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran to eliminate the resistance forces in the region, acquire their true significance within this very framework. Israel, a racist and theocratic colonial project, pursues its own expansionist objectives while simultaneously serving as a regional enforcer of US imperialism. The resistance forces, particularly in Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen, have paid a heavy price in waging a principled war against imperialism and Zionism.
- The ongoing chaos in the Middle East is inextricably linked to an initiative for restructuring in accordance with the needs of US imperialism, operating in compliance with the strategic controlled withdrawal of the US. As part of its preparations to downsize its direct presence in the region, the United States seeks to disarm all resistance forces across the geography stretching from Iran to Gaza, striving to disable Iran as the most formidable bastion of resistance against US and Israeli designs in the region. The aggression, having escalated in the region to the point of directly targeting Iran, and repeated brazen threats constitute attempts by the US to prepare the ground for its withdrawal from the region.
- Regional reactionism, with all its components, collaborates with US imperialism, and actively vies for winning tenders from the US to fill the gaps destined to emerge during its controlled withdrawal. The most pivotal component and the most advantaged power within this configuration of forces is Israeli Zionism, acting as a colonial project endowed with strong and direct ties with the US and the entire imperialist bloc. The Neo-Ottomanism of the AKP and the jihadist networks which it collaborates with in the context of a sectarian agenda, alongside the reactionary regimes wealthy in oil, also stand as active participants in the same matrix of complicity and rivalry.
- The ideological glue of regional reactionism in its complicity with the US is sectarianism in hostility toward the Shiites. Sectarian reactionism provides an ideological framework compatible with the line of the US and Israel, which centers on hostility toward Iran. At this historical juncture, US imperialism has opted to utilize sectarian jihadist reactionism as a subcontractor. The fall of Syria, accomplished upon a fourteen-year-long imperialist onslaught, and subsequent continuation of clearing the way for HTS, which is installed in Damascus, are inextricably linked to this preference.
- The overthrow of Assad upon a fourteen-year-long imperialist onslaught in Syria constitutes not merely a change of government or regime, but an outright counterrevolution that signifies the fall of Syria itself. The ultimate victors emerging from this fall have been the US and Israeli Zionism. Alongside those that waged a direct war against Syria, all entities which positioned themselves within the broader configuration of forces hostile to the Baath and invested in the overthrow of the Baath government stand as collaborators in this operation. Having been trained and equipped by CENTCOM and have driven Syria toward collapse by seizing its resources of oil, grain, and water, the position of the PYD-YPG, alongside the Kurdish national movement of which they are a constituent part, should be assessed through this very lens.
- The imperialists bringing national borders and sovereign rights into question, interchangeably through imperial references or tribalism, sectarianism and identitarianism, constitutes an exceptionally dangerous manipulation, and is part of the strategy of turning dependent nations into failed states. Although it is widely recognized that some of the borders drawn based on the impositions of imperialist mandate administrations during the previous century do not correspond to the demographic composition of the region, bringing borders which are firmly established in the present day into question is highly provocative, and amounts to a direct violation of the sovereign rights of the countries whose borders are being disputed. The imperialists bear absolute responsibility for all the crises experienced in our region from the past to the present day, and what is to be done today is to categorically reject imperialist manipulations while resolutely defending the established borders and the sovereign rights of the countries founded within these borders.
- Growing inequality, injustice, and recurring crises across the globe deepen discontent among the working masses and occasionally trigger mass reactions. The genuine grievances of the working people worldwide must be taken seriously, the crimes of the imperialists at the root of these grievances in dependent countries must be exposed, and vigilance must be maintained against the ability of the imperialists to manipulate legitimate popular reactions. The political leadership of the socialist vanguard constitutes the decisive guarantee that legitimate popular reactions are oriented into the correct channel. Conversely, mass upsurges lacking effective socialist leadership–particularly in countries targeted by imperialists–may become susceptible to externally orchestrated manipulations.
- In the contemporary international configuration, the absence of a socialist bloc on a global scale should be taken into consideration from the standpoint of revolutionary strategy. Within this configuration of forces, the international and/or regional resistance generated by power centers that confront the imperialist bloc centered around the US should be closely assessed from the perspective of socialist strategy. It must never be forgotten that the liberation of our country, our region, and of humanity cannot be achieved by any force other than the revolutionaries themselves. The fundamental strategic objective is the revolutionary forces strengthening themselves and turning socialism, the sole genuine solution to the current landscape, into a viable alternative. Both the vacuums arising from the difficulties imperialist centers face in governing the world, and the tensions generated by the conflicts between imperialists and other power centers should be assessed as avenues of intervention to materialize this fundamental objective.