By PLM International via Facebook
We Are in a Period of ‘Globalised War’
Today, there are at least three major strategic theatres:
* Middle East: the US/Israeli war against Iran, alongside the continuing Israeli genocide in Gaza, the intensified settler violence and Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and occupation of South Lebanon, with Israeli forces continuing airstrikes.
* Europe: the NATO- Ukraine war against Russia is now European war with NATO’s 2026 commitments of €70 billion in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine, alongside continued reinforcement of its eastern defences. The war is a wider confrontation over the future European security order, NATO’s role, Russia’s strategic position and the balance of military power in Europe. It also has broader consequences for energy security, defence industries, sanctions, arms production and the allocation of public resources.
* Indo-Pacific: The intensifying US–China strategic confrontation is centred on the future balance of power in the region, with Taiwan a major potential flashpoint. The competition extends across the South and East China Seas, military alliances, advanced technologies, critical minerals, trade and strategic supply chains. The United States is strengthening its regional alliances and military capabilities, while China in response is expanding its own military and strategic capacity. The Indo-Pacific has therefore become a central arena in the wider struggle over the future balance of economic, technological and military power.
These theatres of war are increasingly interconnected through military alliances, arms supplies, energy and shipping routes, sanctions, technology, finance and global supply chains.
Hence there is growing speculation about whether these interconnected wars could develop into a wider World War.
The Changing Global Balance of Power
Despite overwhelming US military superiority, US hegemony is being increasingly challenged.
The global balance of economic, technological and political power is changing.
China has emerged as a major economic and technological power. Russia has challenged the post-Cold War European security order. Iran has resisted incorporation into a US-dominated Middle Eastern order.
The US security order in the Middle East has effectively broken down, with Iran’s attacks and destruction of US military bases in the Gulf states, Ansarallah (the Houthis’) control of parts of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, its disruption of Saudi Arabia’s oil-shipping routes, and direct attacks on Riyadh airport.
In Lebanon the Hezbollah continues to resist and fight Israel.
Across the Global South, countries are increasingly seeking greater strategic autonomy rather than aligning themselves exclusively with Washington or another major power (with countries such as the Philippines being the exception).
Mass movements of resistance are having a significant political impact — the Palestine Solidarity movement, the climate justice movements, etc.
The growth of democratic socialist politics in the United States is an important indicator of a broader resurgence of left and socialist politics. In the US, growing movements around workers’ rights, healthcare, housing, climate action and public services reflect widespread dissatisfaction with inequality, corporate power and the limits of neoliberal politics.
In Berlin, Die Linke’s historic electoral victory, with strong electoral advance particularly in working-class districts, has emerged alongside struggles over housing costs, insecure work, inequality and pressure on public services, while taking place against the wider rise of a neo-Nazi extreme right.
These developments point to a renewed search for political alternatives based on social needs, and democratic control.
Military Superiority Does Not Automatically Produce Political Control
The central contradiction of contemporary imperialism or global capitalism is that overwhelming military superiority does not necessarily produce political or economic control.
In Afghanistan and Iraq the United States could deploy overwhelming military force, defeat existing governments and occupy territory, but it could not simply determine the political future of either country.
The current conflict with Iran raises the same fundamental contradiction.
The US and Israel may possess the capacity to destroy enormous quantities of Iranian military infrastructure. But military destruction has not led to regime change in Iran and does not automatically determine the political future of Iran or the wider Middle East.
Cuba represents an important example of a small country asserting national sovereignty and pursuing an independent political path despite sustained external pressure. Its experience also demonstrates the importance of international solidarity.
Military power can destroy. It cannot, by itself, create political legitimacy, social stability or a sustainable regional order.
The Global South Is a Central Political Terrain
The peoples of the Global South, who have the least influence over the geopolitical decisions of the major powers, are often those who bear some of their greatest consequences.
The current energy shock illustrates this clearly. Conflict in the Middle East can disrupt oil supplies, shipping routes and global markets thousands of kilometres from the battlefield.
The consequences are transmitted through a chain of economic pressures:
war → energy disruption → higher fuel prices → inflation → higher food and transport costs → pressure on workers and poor communities.
The peoples of the Global South are being asked to pay for a situation they did not create.
At the same time, countries face pressure to increase military expenditure and align themselves with competing geopolitical blocs.
Resources that could be directed towards health, education, housing, social protection, infrastructure and climate adaptation are instead increasingly diverted towards militarisation.
Energy, War and Climate
The Middle East conflict also exposes the vulnerability of a fossil-fuel-centred global economy.
The relationship is increasingly clear:
fossil-fuel dependence → geopolitical competition → militarisation → war → energy disruption → economic and social crisis.
Climate change creates another reinforcing cycle:
climate disruption → disasters → displacement → food and energy insecurity → social instability → political conflict and militarisation.
These processes cannot be treated separately.
They point towards an important political convergence:
anti-war politics + climate justice + workers’ rights.
The Philippines: A Forward Position in a Globalised War and a Vulnerable Frontline
The Philippines’ growing integration into the US military structure risks turning the country into a forward position in a wider globalised war. Its proximity to Taiwan and the South China Sea makes Philippine bases, ports, airfields and communications infrastructure strategically important and vulnerable.
This military vulnerability is compounded by energy dependence and climate exposure: disruption of fuel supplies and shipping could rapidly drive up energy and food costs, while typhoons, flooding and sea-level rise threaten critical infrastructure and livelihoods.
The danger is therefore not only that the Philippines could become a military frontline, but that military, energy and climate vulnerabilities could converge, leaving Filipino workers and the masa to bear the costs of US imperialism’s aggression.
From Imperialist Wars to Socialist Alternative
The crisis of the existing imperialist order cannot be resolved simply by replacing one great-power bloc with another.
Nor can it be resolved through endless military expansion, permanent war economies and competition for strategic resources.
The alternative has to be socialist internationalism: cooperation among peoples and workers across national borders rather than competition among states and ruling classes for control over the remaining spoils.
A socialist alternative would place human needs above military power and private accumulation.
The Role of Revolutionary Politics
The role of revolutionary politics is not simply to predict whether the present conflicts will become a world war.
It is to understand the structural crisis producing these conflicts and to organise people around an alternative.
The task is to connect struggles that are too often treated as separate:
* the struggle against war and militarisation;
* the struggle for workers’ rights and democratic control;
* the struggle for climate justice;
* the struggle for democracy and sovereignty;
* the struggle against poverty, inequality and exploitation;
* the struggle for the rights of migrants and displaced peoples;
* the struggle for national and popular sovereignty; and
* the struggle for peace and international solidarity.
For workers and peoples in the Global South, this means building an independent political movement.
Independence does not mean political neutrality in the face of oppression or war. It means developing the political capacity of workers and peoples to determine their own interests and their own future.
The objective is not simply to oppose the next war, fight for climate justice or campaign for energy democracy as separate struggles.
The objective is to build the social and political forces capable of creating an alternative to the system that continually produces war, exploitation, inequality and ecological crisis.
It requires transforming fragmented struggles into a common political project.
The Call for a Revolutionary Bloc of Social Forces
This is why we need to call for a revolutionary bloc of social forces.
Such a bloc should not be understood simply as an electoral alliance or a coalition of existing political organisations.
It should be understood as a social and political alliance of forces capable of challenging the system.
The challenge before us is therefore much greater than responding to one war or a particular manifestation of the crisis of the international capitalist system.
The task of revolutionary politics is to transform this crisis from a source of fear, division and reaction into an opportunity for collective political organisation — towards a Gobyerno ng Mass and socialism.
That is the political basis for building a revolutionary bloc of social forces.
PLM International
September 26, 2026
