News from the Silk Road

The Defeat in Afghanistan — a Watershed in the Cycle of Atlantic Decline

In crises and wars there are events which leave their mark on history because of how they make a decisive impact on the power contention, or because of how, almost like a chemical precipitate, they suddenly make deep trends that have been at work for some time coalesce. This is the case of the defeat of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan, which is taking the shape of a real watershed in the cycle of Atlantic decline. For the moment, through various comments in the international press, it is possible to consider its consequences on three levels: America’s position as a power and the connection with its internal crisis; the repercussions on Atlantic relations and Europe’s dilemmas regarding its strategic autonomy; and the relationship between the Afghan crisis and power relations in Asia, especially as regards India’s role in the Indo-Pacific strategy. Repercussions in the United States Richard Haass is the president of the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations; despite having ...

Chinese Rearmament Projects Itself in Asia

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 5 From the series Asian giants Trends in rearmament spending and comparisons of military equipment are increasingly set to dominate coverage of the contention between powers in the crisis in the world order . The military factor has entered the strategic debate, accompanied by a wealth of figures and technical details. The increase in military spending as a percentage of GDP represents a widespread sign of the rearmament cycle at this juncture, but spending alone cannot entirely explain the situation, given the qualitatively different natures of the arsenals being compared. Nor are comparisons between this or that type of weapon useful in themselves, because ultimately all weapons are only ever used in combination with the complex military means available to a power, either in alliance or in conflict with other powers in the system of States. Therefore, while it is difficult to assess the real significa...

Engels in the New Century

Friedrich Engels memorably describes the poor sanitary condition of working-class neighbourhoods in mid-19 th century England. At a certain point, typhus and cholera epidemics began to threaten bourgeois neighbourhoods, and only then was the government forced to take remedial action. Well, with the pandemic of the century , it is as if Engels had entered the 21 st century, and the same contradiction was laid bare for the whole world. The Covid-19 catastrophe in India shows an elementary truth: Europe, America and China are completing colossal vaccination plans, but they will never be truly safe if the rest of the world, in Asia, Africa and Latin America, remains at the mercy of the virus and its mutations. And yet, even in the face of the evidence, the contention between powers to take advantage of vaccine diplomacy does not cease. The United States has put forward the promotional idea of suspending the patents of the pharmaceutical giants, perhaps in order to counter the Chinese off...

Uneven Development, Job Cuts, and the Crisis of Labour Under Global Capitalism

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 16 Uneven development is a fundamental law of capitalism. We have a macroscopic expression of this in the changing balance of power between States: Atlantic decline and Asian rise are the key dynamics behind the political processes of this era, including wars caused by the crisis in the world order. But behind all this there is a differentiated economic trend, starting from companies and sectors: hence the differentiated conditions for wage earners. And this is the element to keep in mind for an effective defensive struggle. It’s only the beginning The electrical and digital restructuring imposed by global market competition affects various production sectors. The car industry is the most obvious, due to the familiarity of the companies and brands involved. We have already reported on the agreement reached before Christmas at Volkswagen, which can be summarised as a reduction of 35,000 employees by 2030. Die Zeit [De...

The future of work in Europe

Every moment of transition presents its own complexities: for our class this means that further divisions are sown within it. Such is the present moment — one when different dynamics stack up and intertwine. Past, present and future On the one hand, there is the troubled exit from the pandemic crisis, still under the threat posed by the emergence of new Covid-19 variants. The pause on redundancies has come to an end in Italy. This, albeit partially, would have spared about 520,000 jobs in Italy up until now, according to Centro Einaudi’s estimates [ 25 th Annual Report on Global Economy and Italy , June 2021]. Company closures and staff reductions (in a mixture of arrogance and callousness) have marked the summer months, only to announce a difficult autumn, when the redundancy ban will be lifted also for small businesses and services. However, it is clear how uncertain the workers’ condition remains, regardless of any collective agreement signed, and how necessary it is always to ...

Leapfrogging: The Chinese Auto Industry’s Leap Forward

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 15 From the series The world car battle It is predicted that next year in China the sales of electrified vehicles (mainly battery-powered or hybrid) will for the first time overtake those of cars with an internal combustion engine. This development will mark a historic about turn which will put the world's biggest auto market years ahead of its Western rivals [Financial Times, December 26th]. Meanwhile, the growth in sales of electric vehicles in Europe and the United States has slowed. BYD's leap forward Another important development in 2024 was the record sales of Chinese brands in China: they rose from 38% of the total in 2020 to 56%, a sign of the maturation of the national auto industry which is now able to challenge the Japanese, American, and European manufacturers. BYD's leap forward is impressive, comparable to that of Ford Motors after the First World War, when with the Model T, introduc...

Cryptocurrencies, Tariffs, Oil and Spending in Trump’s Executive Orders

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 8 Douglas Irwin, economist and historian of American trade policy, writes for the Peterson Institute that the tariffs announced by Donald Trump, if implemented, would constitute a “historic event in the annals of US trade policy” and “one of the largest increases in trade taxes in US history. One has to go back almost a century to find tariff increases comparable”. Irwin limits himself to providing us with a historical dimension to the planned duties. But the bewilderment and turmoil created, especially among Washington’s allies, derives from the fact that the tariffs being brandished are accompanied by a hail of presidential decrees and declarations that mark a profound political discontinuity, both in the balance of internal institutional powers and in the balance of power between nations. The watershed was expected, but the speed and vehemence of the White House’s assaults are setting the scene for a change of era i...

Speculative Race for Charging Stations

From the series The world car battle If at the beginning of the 21 st century electrification had technological limits in batteries, both in terms of cost and range, these are now partly overcome, because electric cars have a range of 240-450 km, more than enough for 95% of journeys of less than 50 km. The major obstacle remains the construction of a network of charging stations and their integration with the electricity grid. The race between China, Europe, and USA UBS Evidence Lab, a team of UBS bank experts working in 55 specialised labs to provide data on investment decisions, predicts that cost parity between electric and internal combustion cars will be achieved in 2024 [ Inside EVs , October 20th 2020]. By then, the development of car electrification will be self-sustaining without government subsidies. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), in its report Electric Vehicle Outlook 2020 , estimates that by 2022 carmakers will have 500 different models of electric cars avai...

The Unstoppable Force: Capital’s Demand for Migrant Labour

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 16 “Before Giorgia Meloni became Italy’s prime minister, she pledged to cut immigration. Since she has been in government the number of non-EU work visas issued by Italy has increased”. This is how The Economist of April 26th summarises the schizophrenia of their politics; and this is not only true in Italy: “Net migration also surged in post-Brexit Britain”. The needs of the economic system do not coincide with the rhetoric of parliamentarism. And vice versa. Schizophrenia and imbalances in their politics Returning to Italy, the Bank of Italy has pointed out that by 2040, in just fifteen years, there will be a shortage of five million people of working age, which could lead to an estimated 11% contraction in GDP. This is why even Italy’s “sovereignist” government is preparing to widen the net of its Immigration Flow Decree. The latest update, approved on June 30th, provides for the entry of almost ...

German Socialism in 1917

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 6 From the series Pages from the history of the worker’s movement According to Arrigo Cervetto [ Opere , Vol. 7], “paracentrism” is “the biggest obstacle to the formation of the worldwide Bolshevik party”. The Spartacists at Zimmerwald and Kiental Cervetto was analysing Lenin’s battle against centrism for the creation of the Third International, a battle which saw him isolated at Zimmerwald. He wrote down one of Zinoviev’s quotations from Histoire du parti communiste russe . “We were in the minority at Zimmerwald [1915]. […] In the years 1915 and 1916, we were nothing but an insignificant minority”. “But what is more serious?” – observed Cervetto – “is that the Zimmerwald Spartacists also said they were opposed to us”. In the strategic perspective of the “two separate halves” of socialism – the political conditions in Russia and the economic, productive, and social conditions in Germany – “for ...

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