«Another virus»

Translated "Avante!"article by Jorge Cadima, Member of the International Department

The corona vírus COVID-19 will be blamed for all the world’s wrongs and will possibly justify (Financial Times, 20.03.06) “cheap loans to banks [… and] a coordinated injection of liquidity in the banking system” (but shouldn’t it be the NHS instead?). However, another more dangerous and mortal virus is spreading: the virus of imperialist belligerence that threatens mankind’s survival.

At the Munich Security Conference ( 14-16.2.20), Mark Esper, the US Secretary of Defense, launched a direct attack against China and Russia: “the first priority” for the USA, he claimed, is “to implement its National Defense Strategy” that states “that we are now in an era of Great Power Competition, with our principal challengers being China, then Russia, and that we must move away from low intensity conflict and prepare once again for high-intensity warfare“ (www.defense.gov, official transcript). As “second tier priorities” he indicated “rogue states such as North Korea and Iran”. Although she had just recently attempted to impeach Trump on other charges, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and a leading figure of the Democratic Party confirmed in Munich that this policy brings together big capital and the Administration in the USA. Asked about Trump’s China policy, she gave a clear reply: “ We are in agreement on that point”. And she warned European allies: “ Don’t go near Huawei” (video available on the conference website). At the State of the Union Address, a joint session of the US Congress, Pelosi interrupted briefly her ripping up of Trump’s speech to stand and applaud alongside others US puppet Guaidó whom Trump named as “President of Venezuela”. Behind their disputes over power, they are united in their ambition to impose by force the (decaying) United States Empire.

A few days after Munich (20.02.25), the Committee on Armed Services of the US Senate held a hearing with General Tod D. Wolters, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander, US European Command (video available at c-span.org). He declared himself ready to “cure the malign influence on behalf of Russia” that he considered to be a “potential foe”. Asked about his views on adopting a “no first use policy” (a policy of declining to use nuclear weapons before an adversary does so that was, until the end, the Soviet Union’s doctrine), Wolters was blunt: ”I am a fan of flexible first use policy”. In other words, the “flexible use” of nuclear weapons even in the absence of any previous nuclear attack. Asked about NATO allies, he stated that “we are seing greater cohesion”. He pointed out that ”for the first time in over 6 decades, we […] approved the first NATO Military Strategy. It’s a document that’s classified NATO Secret that codifies the threat and codifies the activities that we need to embrace”. And he explained that the NATO Military Strategy “looks very similar to the US National Defense Strategy” (adopted in 2018, similarly secret, of which only a summary is known). From Dr. Strangelove’s counterpart we have learned that the PS government has tied Portugal to Trump’s secret US National Defense Strategy and to the “West’s democratic freedom” to cause a nuclear holocaust.

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