The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 16 We must force ourselves to think of the present in terms of a decade, because the changes already underway are reshaping the face of the world. In the next ten years, China will have surpassed America's economic power, by whatever metric one chooses to calculate it. The Chinese navy will deploy six, or perhaps nine, aircraft carriers, compared with the United States' current eleven. Within the decade, China will also have 1,500 deployed nuclear warheads, bringing it level with the current deterrents of the US and Russia. To withstand the tripolar confrontation, America plans to increase its number of deployed warheads to 3,000. Not to be outdone, European imperialism plans to double military spending and is already thinking about a European bomb , drawing from the nuclear forces of France and the United Kingdom. The AI bubble will burst, but a handful of giants will emerge to share out...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 15 From the series Atom and industrialisation of science The course of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, from Operation Barbarossa — the German attack of June 22 nd , 1941 — up to the Battle of Stalingrad between the summer of 1942 and February 2 nd , 1943, set the timeframes of the Russian nuclear programme. The Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of the Second World War on the Eastern Front. We quote The New York Times of February 3 rd , 1943, to illustrate the climate of the period, within which we need to contextualise Soviet decisions about the nuclear bomb. The daily cited a Moscow bulletin, according to which the Red Army had completely destroyed the elite of Adolf Hitler’s army, trapping 330,000 soldiers. On the basis of Russian announcements, since mid-November 1942, a total of 503,650 soldiers of the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 14 From the series The world energy battle The UN Climate Conference COP30 fails to put an end to fossil fuels and sheds light on a cracked international order [ Euronews , November 24th]. A snapshot of the global energy economy A detailed analysis of the global energy situation, as shown in the tables, explains why fossil fuels are still necessary for global economic development. The sources for our analysis are World Bank data and the latest reports from the International Energy Agency (IEA): the "World Energy Outlook 2025" and "Electricity 2025" . For the comparison between gross domestic products (GDPs) from 2010-2024, we took as a reference the statistics, in constant 2015 dollars and at current exchange rates, published by the World Bank. We made this choice in order to have consistent data for the period. There are often large discrepancies between different statistics...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 13 From the series The world steel battle Just over fifteen years ago, in the article “La rincorsa siderurgica dell’India” [ India’s Steel Catch-Up , April 2010], we focused on the rise of the Indian steel industry. Today, it ranks among the world’s giants and second only to China, having overtaken the United States, Japan, and finally the EU-27 plus the United Kingdom. In the early months of 2025, the annual growth rate of Indian steel production was still above 10%, compared with stable figures not only for global production but also for Chinese output. Alongside the advance of the national steel industry, Indian families at the head of major steel groups are increasingly active internationally. In addition to the Mittal and Tata dynasties, Gupta’s Liberty Steel and the two branches of the Jindal family are now present on the global market. ...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 12 From the series Chronicles of the new American nationalism The Supreme Court has been asked to rule on the emergency powers used by President Donald Trump to advance two key policies of his mandate: the decision to deploy the National Guard on American soil in support of his immigration policy, and the imposition of tariffs on almost every trading partner. In December, the Court issued a ruling which was unfavourable to the administration regarding the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois. At the time of writing, a ruling is expected that could declare the Liberation Day tariffs illegal. In addition, the Court is examining the dismissal of Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board. Scepticism among judges The White House imposed the reciprocal tariffs in April by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA, 1977), according to which the president...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 11 The hunger for capital and raw materials which drives Donald Trump's challenges is indicative of the anxieties of the leading imperialisms, pressured by the steady maturation of Chinese imperialism. American power is in relative decline, and although still the best equipped, it does not have sufficient strength to continue playing the role of a hegemonic power, as it has done more or less since 1945 amid numerous crises. In 1973, Charles Kindleberger [1910-2003] , an important historian of the Great Depression, derived from the historical experience of the hegemonic systems of the United Kingdom and the United States five imperatives concerning the role of the leader or stabiliser country: 1) maintain a relatively open market for surplus goods; 2) provide long-term countercyclical or at least stable loans; 3) maintain a relatively stable exchange rate system; 4) ensure the coordination of macroeconomi...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 10 With the leverage of reciprocal tariffs, announced on liberation day in April and implemented from August, Donald Trump has so far wrested around fifteen advantageous bilateral agreements with the United Kingdom, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Australia, Argentina, and other smaller countries in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Due to its unique characteristics, the agreement with Malaysia stands out and is considered by the White House a model, demonstrating the strategic ambitions of the tariff war. An Article 5 At the end of October, the Malaysian government hosted the 47 th summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), celebrating the accession of East Timor as its 11 th member. At the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, Trump announced two framework agreements with Vietnam and Thailand, and two reciprocal trade agreements with Malaysia and Cambodia. These results went relatively ...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 9 From the series Principles of Marxism The German Ideology arose from a party necessity: Marx and Engels’ struggle to guide the Communist League; in turn, the theses of The German Ideology laid the foundation, albeit indirectly, for Lenin’s conception of the party and the reflection on the science-party linked to it. Are there other theoretical-political battles in which we can trace that imprint? We limit the discussion here to three examples: the ideologies of State capitalism in the century of imperialism, the dialectic of unity and scission in world market relations, and the concept of external collision in the theory of international relations. [...] In the editorial The Political Ideas of Economic Dominance [September 1977], Arrigo Cervetto challenged one of the most foolish criticisms of Marxism according to which Marx did not want, or could not have wanted, to acco...