Arm-in-arm with US imperialism

War and want. These are the twin souls of capitalism.

Three billion people don't get enough to eat. One billion starve. The US, Europe and now Asia teeter on the brink of recession. War stalks the planet.

From Bush (and Obama or McCain) through to Hu and Putin and on to Howard and Rudd, our leaders are driven by the logic of imperialism.

Iraq, Afghanistan and now Georgia are not mistakes or aberrations. They are clear evidence that war is hotwired into capitalism.

The conclusion is clear too. You can't abolish war without a democratic socialist revolution to abolish the wage slave system.

Imperialism is the clash between the major economic powers. Because capitalism is a global system in constant flux, those powers manoeuvre for dominance across the globe, often through proxies.

The US state protects and extends the powers of its corporations around the world. It does this indirectly (for example through partly captured institutions like the IMF, World Bank and UN, and free trade agreements and other deals) or directly through armed intervention.

It is a mistake to see imperialism as the major powers invading weaker countries. While this may be a consequence of military competition between the major economic powers, it is not the essence of the beast.

For example, the US invaded Iraq as part of its battle to retain economic supremacy in the world. Apart from attempting to show upstarts like China where the real military power lay, it was also a way of controlling vital energy sources that flow to China and Europe.

Without the arms giant McDonnell Douglas, there can be no McDonald's worldwide. The power of US corporations to exploit the world rests in the end on the power of the US military to impose American ruling class interests on the rest of us.

Since the collapse of the imperialist USSR the pre-eminent power in the world has been the United States.

But the rise of China (which now contributes about 10 per cent of world GDP compared to the US at around 20 per cent) has challenged this pre-eminence, and as China continues to grow in economic power, the economic and military battle between it and the US will become more and more intense.

The Australian ruling class has specific interests in this struggle. For example, much of Australian defence policy is couched in terms of unspecified threats. They mean China.

Like China, Russia and the US, Australia has its own backyard which it regards as inviolate. Thus the $500 million in "aid" to Papua New Guinea is not humanitarian (although that is the guise all ruling classes use to justify their interventions) but rather an attempt to control a colonial neighbour and prevent China getting a foothold in the region.

Australia's infant imperialism means it has invaded and currently occupies countries in the neighbourhood like the Solomons, East Timor and more subtly PNG, the latter through police and military assistance and public service advisers as well as strings-attached money.

Australia's military adventurism in the region is not mainly about resources (although screwing the East Timorese over oil was part of the invasion agenda). This immediate military presence is one way of countering Chinese influence, extending the economic interests of some sections of the Australian ruling class and showing other countries in the region (especially in South-East Asia) that we have a strong military and are prepared to use it.

Although Australia's military is the third-largest in the Asia-Pacific region after China and Japan, it is not capable of challenging China on its own.

Traditionally Australia's ruling class has sought to meld its interests with those of a major imperialist power. Initially that was Britain. But as its power declined and that of the US grew, our ruling class sought to enmesh the US in the region to provide a defence shield to extend its own power and repulse the so-called longer term threats like Japan and now China.

The ANZUS treaty is central to this strategy of the Australian ruling class to protect and extend its power and influence. Our payment for this treaty is military support for specific American invasions like Vietnam in the past and Afghanistan and Iraq today.

As part of this enmeshment, Australia also allows the US to set up spy bases here to gather intelligence. Information from these bases was vital for example in the invasion of Iraq.

So why Afghanistan? It is not resource rich.

The US invaded the country shortly after September 11 to show the world it would not be pushed around, and to help in the long-term encirclement and containment of Russia and China.

Australia supported the US-dominated UN intervention to buy credibility with the US ruling class and hope to convince them that our interests coincide with theirs, especially in the immediate Asia-Pacific region.

Our ruling class wants to help the US contain China. It wants to buy an insurance policy with the US by supplying troops to Afghanistan.

Extending that insurance policy to Iraq under Howard could not continue with the election of Labor. Under pressure from below (initially through mass actions and over time through simmering discontent) the ALP differentiated itself to some extent from the Coalition by promising to withdraw troops from Iraq.

This was always a sleight of hand. Advisers remain, and what our ruling class has done is increase its commitment to US imperialism in Afghanistan.

There is another aspect to this. As the Australian economy continues to integrate with the world economy, trade with Asia (especially China) has increased markedly. At the same time Australia will in the next decade, for the first time in its history as a nation, become a net capital exporter, not only to Europe and the US but also into Asia.

This means our ruling class's attempts to dominate the immediate region will grow and the logic of imperialism will force them to support the US in its interventions throughout the world. Iran seems an obvious candidate for our next field of battle, arm-in-arm with US imperialism.

Some argue that Afghanistan is a "good" war, rescuing Afghans from feudal barbarism. These are the same arguments the Russians used. They are echoes of the imperialist idea of the "white man's burden".

Imperialism uses any humanitarian or other excuse to disguise its real intentions. Australia's participation in the invasion of Afghanistan and the ongoing suppression of the Afghan people is about defending the interests of the Australian ruling class. It is in particular about tying the American ruling class to the idea that our imperialist interests are their imperialist interests.

The solution? The withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan (and Iraq), in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the subjugated people in these countries.

The task for Australian socialists is to build opposition here to Australian imperialism in any of its forms. That won't be easy in the current environment, but as we continue to educate ourselves and build our theoretical understanding of the nature of our enemy, we will eventually be able to couple theory with practice.

The crises of capitalism create their own alternative solutions. From little things, big things grow.