The Metamorphosis of imperialist Conflict: Technology, Multipolarity, proxy wars and the Enduring Relevance of Leninist Imperialism.

From direct wars to proxy wars; How the just and unjust wars in our technologic era differ ?

“Of course, in politics, in which sometimes extremely complicated—national and international—relationships … have to be dealt with.. it would be absurd to concoct a recipe, or general rule... that would serve in all cases. One must have the brains to analyze the situation in each separate case.” (1)

In this article I will try to summarize the technical questions related to wars,  and will follow, focusing on the theoretical aspects of imperialism and war in relation to the Leninist theory and against the claims that it is no more valid. Technically;  1)-how the imperialist wars in our technologic era differ from the previous ones?, 2) Transition to Multipolar Order ; Facilitation of National Struggles, leveling the plain field to a large degree, 3) How the ratifications and  implications of technology will change the forms of war? 4) Transition from the direct wars between superpowers to proxy wars, 4) An era of “neutrality” on the part of small countries? 5) has the Nuclear War between superpowers became a thing of the past?, 6) Geo-political position of a country, natural resources, economic power, and  the capability of disrupting the internet as the new “nuclear weapons” of the era without its physical destruction. Main theoretical section; Does the change in the form of wars refute Leninist theory of wars ; Inevitability of wars or does the theory still remain valid?

Introduction

On our 2022 article related to the war in Ukraine we had stated that; “ Ukraine military as a guinea-pig for US-NATO,  as the testing ground for Russia; trials and drawing lessons from each other's military means, strategy, and tactics. That is another reason why they will be extending the war longer than usual at the expense of the people's deaths and sufferings.” We have, since then,  witnessed the introduction and testing of numerous weapons to the war. (3) It has become like a sci-fi movie in real ground.

Despite all these concrete and decisive changes in the means and methods of war, memorized and sloganized  general theories on imperialism and war still remain to be valid. We have those who call themselves “realists” like Professor Mearsheimer who borrows the Marxist Leninist theory that “as long as capitalism exists the wars are inevitable” yet in the form of an  imperialist apologizer. Him and like minded “realists” including some of the ML left  and their  followers, however, are selective in their assessments; objective sometimes- like in the case of Ukraine-Russia, subjective in the case of West against China. That is the manifestation of hubris in all their assessment when it comes to West against the rest. They are realists in the context of the theory and yes Marxism is related to the essence of things but Marxist Leninists never deny the importance of the forms of the things. “Marx’s method consists, first of all, in taking due account of the objective content of a historical process at a given moment, in definite and concrete conditions”. (2)

 Wars are inevitable but the question is if the “forms of the wars”  are changing together with the changes in the war-technology; simply put it , will we be seeing world wars as the history has shown between the superpowers with their direct involvement or will it be mainly proxy wars between them? The premise that direct wars between superpowers will bring about the use of nuclear war convinces most every objective Marxist Leninist  analyzers that nuclear war between them is  highly unlikely. This conclusion reflects the Leninist theory. However, most aligns themselves with the Kautskyite view that the imperialist will “handshake”  and form an “ultra imperialist” world order due to the existence of “destructive technological weapons” and weaponization of economy; energy, food and now technology on which the rest relies on .

In its core there are two seemingly opposing point of view both of which in reality reach the same conclusion as the “solution” deriving from the fearmongering of “nuclear war”.  One claim is that due to the threat of nuclear war, and the technological developments related to the use of nuclear war, there will be peace between the  imperialists and  the wars will be a question of history, the other is that for the same reason and due to shaping of “super powers” regionally  (East and West), they will use economic and political means in order to expand their sphere of influence within their regions without any need for a direct war.

As we have noted in an earlier article ; “in a bipolar, multi polar world the possibility of a nuclear war is highly unlikely. There may be exceptions of regions far from the borders outside of the nuclear affect zone and outside of the strategic, economic alliances of one or the other super power with minimal use of tactical-nuclear weapons. However, the wars during  the phase of multipolar world will have to  be proxy wars in smaller scales, regional at worst, economic competition at best.” …. most likely… proxy wars with the use of new weapons at the expense of the people and the destruction of the proxy countries in where the new “technological weapons” will be tested on the field and improved accordingly.” (4)

And in another article I had stated that ;“A direct war” between superpowers as we understand it, is increasingly becoming a thing of the past. It is being replaced by “proxy wars” and will remain so for a long time”. (5)

In that reference, Lenin had stated that “We Marxists differ from both the pacifists and the Anarchists in that we deem it necessary historically (from the standpoint of Marx's dialectical materialism) to study each war separately… Therefore, it is necessary to examine the historically specific features of precisely the present war.” (6) Study of each given period could give us serious information to consider in our predictions for the near future.

What Really Has Changed?

When Lenin spoke of war as a continuation of politics, he did not restrict 'politics' to formal declarations of war, nor 'force' to massed infantry. For a dialectician, 'force' encompasses economic strangulation, cyber paralysis, information subversion, and the arming of proxies. Thus, when I speak of 'war' in this article, I mean systemic violent competition across all domains, not merely the kinetic battlefield.

In the new era, the tools of war have become far more technologically advanced, complex, sophisticated and diverse, even when waged through proxies. Modern proxy wars involve sophisticated logistics, intelligence gathering and analysis, cyber capabilities, drone technology, special forces advisors/training, and information warfare. Decisions are made at strategic centers involving high-tech planning, often without direct large-scale military confrontation on the home front or between the competing super powers.

The level of technological sophistication involved in planning and executing all forms of "war" ( economic, political, military, information and cyber) is immense. Unlike in traditional inter-imperialist conflicts, decisions about conflict often happen at high levels without visible boots on the ground or direct involvement by enemy armies. Information technology allows for unprecedented manipulation of perception, support for proxy forces via global networks, and creation of propaganda environments.

Modern capitalist powers don't just fight other great nations directly, the nature of the targeting has changed. They wage war through smaller states, rebel factions within their own backyard or allied territory, non-state actors like formed and/or cultivated terrorist or insurgent groups, and even potentially through cyber attacks against infrastructure. This reflects both a continuation of competition for economic and strategic interests and an adaptation to the changed conditions and landscape.

The classical sense of a direct world war between superpowers has been largely avoided due to nuclear deterrence, especially mutual assured destruction (MAD).  Conflicts are frequently localized but often involved major powers indirectly or via their agents/proxies.   It is a tactical revolution that manifested itself in redefining the battlefield; in other words, a transition from mass mobilization to precision stand-off.  It was technological development with the production and application of drones, hypersonic missiles, and AI-targeting that have shifted warfare from contemporary “shock and owe” and/or industrial/infrastructure attrition of the WWI and WWII era to real-time, networked attrition and elimination.

The high cost military means and methods lost its leverage. A multi billion dollar aircraft carrier has become a sitting dock in the sea, a multi million dollar missile interceptor has become an economic burden against the thousand dollar drones. For the aggressor, the average unit cost of a precision-guided long-range missile ranges between $1.5M–$3M, a single modern main battle tank  like Leopard 2 or M1A2 costs $10M to $15M; a full mechanized battalion (30–40 tanks) represents a deployed asset value of $300M. The cost-exchange ratio of high-tech weapons,  a $20,000 kamikaze drone against  $4,000,000 missile interceptor creates a severe economic mismatch. This cost asymmetry allows smaller countries wage wars of attrition against wealthier nations, risking the depletion of their advanced defense stockpiles. For example; FPV Attack Drone costs range between $500 – $2,000, Iranian Shahed-136 costs range $20,000 – $50,000. Standard Missile  Interceptor (SM-2) costs $2,100,000, Patriot PAC-3 Missile Interceptor costs around $4 million, THAAD Missile Interceptor cost range between $ 12 to $15 million. Considering the fact that in order to intercept and shoot down one incoming missile or drone, at least two intercepting missiles needs to be launched, the calculus is obvious. Thus, the depletion of already limited stock and the required long time in mass production of these interceptor missiles becomes not only financially but strategically a huge problem for the aggressive  large countries. That is why this new technology acts as a "force multiplier," allowing medium and small states to inflict disproportionate costs on aggressor/invading superpowers. As we witnessed to  so many concrete examples in Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, it has been  illustrated that the old industrial calculus of mass production of high cost military means has been inverted; the defender's economic friction is now exponentially cheaper than the invader's physical mass. This tactical revolution explains why major powers no longer seek direct territorial occupation; therefore, it is important to study  how and why  these powers are seeking and will seek to project force indirectly.

The underlying drivers, competition for resources, markets, strategic positioning, ideological rivalry, and geopolitical influence,  remain fundamentally the same. Capitalism still thrives on accumulation and control over life-sustaining conditions. The forms of warfare have changed dramatically due to technology, but wars are still waged to secure interests like controlling oil fields in the world, interventionist policies based on ideology. What was once direct confrontation between large armies is now often a complex mix of  indirect support and proxy action, asymmetric warfare against non-nuclear, poorer states or internal rebellions, non-territorial yet slowly territorializing conflicts through cyber wars and information wars that aim to shape perceptions without immediate physical occupation.

The result is the use of advanced technology in conventional warfare without concentration and involvement of large troops with wide ranging constrains on logistics without which no war can be waged.

Some argue that this transformation is due to the possibility and threat of nuclear war.

Nuclear war

Most nuclear powers like U.S and Russia maintain policies that permit the first use of nuclear weapons in certain scenarios, while China has an unconditional "No First Use" (NFU) policy, and India has an NFU policy with exceptions.

A "first strike" in nuclear weapon terms is a preemptive surprise attack using overwhelming force to cripple an adversary's nuclear capability, aiming to prevent them from retaliating -second strike. The idea that countries like India with a NFU policy somehow make their nuclear weapons less effective or turn them into "magical weapons" is largely incorrect. Possessing nuclear weapons, regardless of the specific policy about first use, fundamentally changes international relations. It creates immense fear and uncertainty in potential adversaries due to Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Even countries with NFU implicitly rely on MAD – the understanding that any adversary attacking them would face catastrophic retaliation, potentially from a country that wasn't initially planning its own first strike but could be forced into it under extreme duress.

The NFU declaration primarily concerns itself with the “conditions” for using nuclear weapons. For countries like India and Pakistan, both declared NFU, this policy signals they are committed to retaliatory strikes, not preemptive ones designed to achieve decisive military objectives before warning is received. So, while the specific "first use" capability differs between nations with NFU versus those without, like Russia or China historically, both groups still possess weapons of existential power for their adversaries. The weapon remains potent; it's just that its primary intended use shifts from surprise attack to assured response.

Uncertainty Around Nuclear Arsenal Size is an important factor. The exact global nuclear stockpile is unknown beyond official declarations, which themselves are highly debatable figures. However, even without precise numbers, major powers,  Russia, US, China and regional states like India and Pakistan maintain arsenals considered large enough to inflict unacceptable damage on any conceivable target, including through second-strike capability. The uncertainty exists more around smaller nuclear forces or those of other potential actors than the declared stockpiles of established nuclear powers/India/Pakistan.

Although the quantity  itself is a key deterrent factor, the crucial elements go far beyond simple "first use" capability like the quality and quantity of  the launchers and Anti-Missile Technologies. MIRVs (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles) on ICBMs drastically increase the destructive potential of a retaliatory strike by allowing fewer missiles to carry multiple warheads, targeting different parts of an enemy's homeland. Different types of launch platforms (ICBMs, SLBMs from submarines, strategic bombers, tactical nukes delivered via conventional aircraft/platforms) significantly alter the nature and range of nuclear threats.

While no system is foolproof against dedicated state-of-the-art attacks or sophisticated countermeasures, advanced missile defense can reduce an adversary's confidence that a ballistic missile launch will guarantee hitting its target. This slightly weakens deterrence based purely on MAD.

The core point of NFU for countries like India is strategic credibility.  By committing to not using nuclear weapons first, they ensure a massive retaliatory capability exists even if attacked with their own nukes or by other means.  This guarantees that an adversary cannot win decisively through a surprise nuclear attack, thereby maintaining deterrence. Countries adopting NFU are not inviting destruction; they are assuring destruction for the aggressor should it occur. The concern is whether  a country can destroy its enemy with a preemptive strike while also ensuring its own second-strike capability survives. First/surprise attacks against prepared adversaries can  fail and the attacked country could always retaliate. Countries adopting NFU are implicitly saying they believe their adversary might be capable of surviving an initial strike or that MAD itself is sufficient deterrence.

It's not valid to consider a "No First Use" policy as evidence that nuclear weapons “themselves” are "magical" but useless because some countries explicitly state it. Countries with NFU still possess incredibly destructive capabilities and rely heavily on the principle of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), including their own ability to inflict massive retaliatory damage, for deterrence. That’s why having robust second-strike capability and potentially advanced defensive systems is “more” important than just whether you can launch first. The NFU policy enhances credibility by guaranteeing destruction even if a preemptive strike doesn't succeed or the target survives although surviving an initial nuclear blast exchange is unlikely for large populations/industrial complexes/cities, or small countries like Israel.

The official declaration of an adversary's nuclear arsenal size matters less than their “intended” use; whether they have declared NFU or not. Both groups understand that even through assured, rather than preemptive, destruction, the sheer destructive power makes them fundamentally different and game-changing tools on the strategic landscape. Countries with a declared NFU policy are not helpless simply because they don't authorize surprise attacks; their arsenal size (MIRVs) and assured second-strike capability (guaranteed by NFU and MAD) make their nuclear forces extremely dangerous, specifically deterring “any” adversary who might entertain thoughts of trying to win decisively through a first strike. The existence of these weapons remains the central reason why nations are deterred – it is precisely because they know that under any circumstance (NFU or not), using them against countries like Russia would invite catastrophic consequences for the attacker, potentially involving total national annihilation even if limited nuclear exchanges occur or MAD doesn't operate exactly as originally feared in a purely theoretical sense.

 In other words, having nuclear weapons and striking first does not guarantee the destruction of a nuclear power country, but possibly may bring about the destruction of  first attacker. In that sense the nuclear weapon has only a deterrence factor. I will not dwell on this subject here, my article “Who Actually Makes the Decisions for Foreign Policy in the US? Conflict Within the Bureaucracy”*  can give a better idea on the “who” makes such decisions, and the article “On the likelihood of a Nuclear war”**  responds the fundamental question of why it is unlikely.

The Systemic Shift ; New Deterrents, and the "Neutrality" Paradox

The nuclear war hasn't become "a thing of the past" in possibility, but has become “strategically irrational” and highly unlikely between nuclear peers. It acts as the ultimate ceiling, a psychological operation narrative and fearmongering; proxy wars have become the floor beneath this ceiling as the only viable option.

The perpetual theoretical possibility of nuclear exchange masks its practical impossibility under finance capital's hegemony. War is an extension of politics, but politics in the imperialist core is an extension of the loss-benefit calculation balance-sheet. The bureaucratic class embedded within finance capital operates on a risk-reward calculus that supersedes even nationalistic military ambition; a strategic nuclear strike would instantaneously sever global settlement systems, obliterate cross-border debt securitization, and physically annihilate the prime urban real estate and logistical hubs that underpin global accumulation. Unlike the Cold War's ideological brinkmanship, today's financial oligarchy possesses no 'victory scenario'; only systemic liquidation of its own assets and circulation mechanisms. Consequently, nuclear weapons have transitioned from a tool of warfare to a purely “negative deterrent”; they ensure the non-escalation of direct great-power conflict, but they actively shape the proxy and cyber battlefields below the nuclear threshold.

Having rendered physical nuclear war structurally unviable for its own backers, imperialist capital has simply been forced to displace the concept of 'existential threat' onto the digital and energetic architectures of the new technological era.

Having undergone decades of financialization and de-industrialization, the US economy functions today as a tripartite consumer state (reliant on a war-tech/services complex, speculative finance, and GMO-agribusiness exports) while its physical manufacturing base has atrophied. Crucially, its entire advanced military arsenal, from precision-guided munitions to stealth aviation, depends on rare-earth elements and their refined magnet alloys, over which China now holds a near-monopoly in both mining and downstream processing. The consequence is twofold: first, the US has critically depleted its deep-strike arsenals in recent conventional engagements, with replenishment timelines now measured in years rather than months due to supply-chain bottlenecks; second, even if Washington were to secure immediate access to these ores, the rebuilding of its industrial throughput—shuttered foundries, lost metallurgical expertise, and contracted tooling lines—cannot be accelerated by decree. The US retains the “brand” of hyperpower, but its “muscle” is finite. Thus, the preference for proxies is not a choice of convenience, but a  choice of material necessity: it must export its firepower, because it can no longer domestically regenerate it at the speed of modern warfare. It is the industrial and supply-side constraint" on imperial power.

That’s why the shift to proxy warfare is not merely a tactical preference; it is a structural imperative for the United States. This logistical paralysis, paired with the nuclear veto of finance capital discussed earlier, forces the Pentagon into a managerial role; equipping, advising, and resupplying local allies  rather than leading the charge itself.

Contrary to the claim of  the “realists” like Professor Mearsheimer who attributes US proxy strategy to rational balancing  , the US is “structurally compelled” into proxy warfare due to its own internal decay which reinforces Lenin's emphasis on finance capital's internal contradictions.

The New "Strategic Weapons"  Alternative to “nuclear “ weapon.

Control of Resources; rare-earth minerals and energy,  Fiber-Optics: internet disruption, and Food; from fertilizer to distribution, are the new “nuclear weapons” in the new era.

It is important to note that in case of a nuclear war and worldwide interruption of internet finance Capital will most likely be the ultimate loser since people have nothing to lose. Other than that, in the case economic crises, inflation, increase in the cost of insurance etc., Finance Capital always benefits ,  only people lose; at best the tax payers money is transferred to the Finance capital somehow, someway; weather it is by transferring the tax payers money to military- tech industry or by monopolizing the small banks, other industries with the tax payers money. There is not one case in history that they were the losers.

Rare Earth Minerals

“Especially in our era with high-tech industries are  heavily reliant on rare earth minerals for their operations and  are particularly susceptible to the effects of tariffs. These industries might face higher costs and reduced competitiveness if tariffs are not matched by comparable increases in domestic production capacity. As technology evolves, new applications for rare earth minerals are emerging, particularly in renewable energy and medical fields. Their role is expected to expand with technological progress. The high demand coupled with costly extraction processes influences product pricing, affecting multiple industries…  rare earth minerals are integral to various military technologies and systems, from radar and communication to energy storage and stealth applications. Understanding their role in advanced defense industries and addressing environmental and supply chain challenges is crucial for the military industry's future.” (17) The production of high military-high tech industry products requires the "supply" material necessary for the intended goods. Regardless of the pre-existing industry for any given product, regardless of the financial capability, without having access to the "supply" of required "material" , those goods cannot be produced, or at best case not at the same quantity, quality, cost and timely. China has seven critical rare earth metals, dominating 90% of global production. In addition China controls % 93 of the world market of the manufacturing of permanent magnets that is required for the production of military machines. Cutting the supply of these materials to other countries will have decisive affects on the military and high-tech industries of any given country.

The disruption of undersea cables and critical cyber infrastructure would not merely be an "internet outage"; it would trigger a systemic, cascading failure of the modern global economy. Undersea cables carry approximately 95% to 99% of all international data traffic, acting as the central nervous system of global finance, trade, and communication. I am not equating the physical destruction of a cable with a thermonuclear blast, but to denote its systemic equivalence—a weapon capable of inducing a civilization-wide cascading collapse within hours, comparable in strategic shock to a limited nuclear exchange, yet remaining within the calculable risk-tolerance of finance capital.

Impact on Financial Institutions - Finance capital

The affects of the disruption on the cyber infrastructure on the Finance-Capital can give a better idea on comparison with  use of nuclear weapon.  For banks, stock exchanges, and global trade networks, connectivity is not a luxury; it is the fundamental mechanism of their existence. Any disruption of connectivity will paralyze the of Global Payments and Settlements. International wire transfers rely on the SWIFT messaging network, which routes through these cables. A disruption would freeze cross-border payments. Importers could not pay exporters, and multinational corporations could not move capital between subsidiaries and the foreign exchange market they control relies on continuous, real-time global pricing without connectivity, banks cannot hedge currency risks or execute international trades, leading to massive, uncontrolled volatility and a freeze in currency conversion.

Modern financial markets are dominated by algorithmic trading, which relies on microsecond latency to execute trades based on global data. If cables are cut, data feeds are delayed or lost entirely. Exchanges would likely trigger automatic circuit breakers, halting trading entirely to prevent market crashes.  Traders rely on price differences between markets. Disrupted cables create "blind spots," making arbitrage impossible and destroying market liquidity.

Global trade relies on digital verification of shipping containers, customs documents, and letters of credit. If cyber infrastructure goes down, cargo ships cannot be cleared at ports, and goods cannot be released, instantly halting the physical supply chain.

Financial institutions are legally required to maintain real-time, geographically dispersed backups of their ledgers. A severe cyber infrastructure failure breaks the synchronization between primary data centers and disaster recovery sites, risking permanent data corruption or loss of transaction records.

Its Impact on the Average Person

For the average citizen, the disruption of these networks would instantly revert society to a pre-digital state, but without the physical cash reserves to support the population. Card readers and ATMs require a connection to a central server to verify account balances and authorize transactions. Within hours, consumers would be unable to buy groceries, pay for gas, or withdraw cash. Systems like Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo, and Alipay would become entirely useless, cutting off the primary payment method for a massive portion of the population.

Platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba would cease to function. Order processing, tracking, and digital payment gateways (like Stripe) would fail, halting the flow of goods to consumers. Millions of people who rely on app-based work (Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, freelance platforms) would instantly lose their livelihood. Without GPS routing, payment processing, and customer-server communication, these platforms go dark.

People would be unable to pay rent, mortgages, or utility bills online. While grace periods might eventually be granted, the initial confusion would lead to a spike in late fees and automated penalties.

Modern work relies on cloud infrastructure  If the cyber backbone fails, tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, and company databases become inaccessible. Remote and hybrid workforces would be entirely paralyzed.

International and often domestic communication would fail. People would be unable to check on family members during a crisis.

Modern 911/emergency dispatch systems rely on cyber infrastructure to route calls, access medical records, and coordinate with hospitals. A disruption could lead to fatal delays in emergency response.

The real danger of this scenario is not the initial outage, but the secondary and tertiary failures it triggers across physical society.

Modern "smart grids" rely on constant data flow to balance electrical loads. Without cyber infrastructure, grids can become unstable, leading to cascading blackouts. Municipal water treatment plants and pumping stations are heavily automated and remotely monitored. Disruptions could lead to water shortages or the pumping of untreated sewage.

When the bank cards fail, panic will ensue. Anyone with physical cash will hoard it, and those without will rush to bank branches to withdraw their life savings. Since banks only hold a fraction of their deposits in physical cash, branches will run out of money within hours, sparking riots and severe civil unrest. Electronic locks, security cameras, and automated logistics for police/military forces would fail, leading to a spike in opportunistic looting and crime.

The disruption of undersea cables and cyber infrastructure is the ultimate "choke point" of our era. For Finance-Capital, financial institutions, it means billions of dollars in losses and frozen global trade. For the average person, it means an immediate inability to feed themselves, access their money, or communicate with loved ones, rapidly devolving from a technological glitch into a severe humanitarian crisis. While a cyber-attack as discussed previously breaks the information flow, oil and gas disruption breaks the physical flow of the world.

While the immediate and most visible impact of global oil and gas disruption is the loss of electricity, heating, and transportation fuel, the deeper, more devastating impacts lie in how these resources serve as the fundamental raw materials for modern civilization. Oil and natural gas are not just burned for energy; they are the physical building blocks of global agriculture, manufacturing, and the modern supply chain.

Modern agriculture is essentially a process of using energy to produce food. A disruption in oil and gas does not just make farming more expensive; it physically halts the mechanisms that feeds people. Natural gas is the primary feedstock for producing ammonia, which is the foundation of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Without natural gas, global fertilizer production would plummet by 50% to 70% almost immediately. It is estimated that nearly half of the global population is sustained by crops grown with synthetic fertilizers. Without them, crop yields would revert to early 20th-century levels. Wheat, corn, and rice production would crash, leading to immediate, catastrophic global famine. Tractors, combine harvesters, irrigation pumps, and grain transport vehicles run almost exclusively on diesel. A fuel shortage means fields cannot be plowed, planted, or harvested. Agrochemicals are heavily derived from petroleum. Without them, crop losses to pests and weeds would skyrocket, further compounding the yield reductions caused by the lack of fertilizer.

Oil and gas are the lifeblood of the petrochemical industry. A disruption would strip modern manufacturing down to its barest essentials, as the physical materials required to build and maintain modern society would simply cease to exist. Over 60% of modern clothing is made from synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon, and acrylic, all derived from petroleum. The global textile and apparel industry would face an immediate raw materials cliff. Processing raw ore into usable metals requires immense, continuous heat, often provided by natural gas or coal , which relies on diesel transport. The supply of steel, aluminum, and copper would freeze, halting construction, infrastructure repair, and electronics manufacturing. Every machine, wind turbine, vehicle, and factory on Earth requires petroleum-based lubricants to prevent metal-on-metal friction. Without them, mechanical assets seize up and destroy within months.

The economic shockwave of an oil and gas disruption would impact on employment and  move from direct industry losses to a total collapse of the consumer economy.

Farm workers, truck drivers, freight train operators, and cargo ship crews would lose their jobs as the physical movement of goods becomes impossible. Factory workers in automotive, textiles, plastics, and electronics would face permanent plant closures. Without raw materials, manufacturing employment would evaporate. The economy would enter a severe state of stagflation driven by the scarcity of food and basic goods combined with mass unemployment and stagnant economic output. Without the ability to source materials, transport goods, or sell to impoverished consumers, the vast majority of small and medium-sized enterprises would go bankrupt, permanently erasing millions of jobs.

The resulting unemployment would not just be a temporary recession; it would represent a permanent structural shift. The global workforce would be forced out of the digital, service, and manufacturing sectors, and violently pushed back into primary survival industries, fundamentally altering the human standard of living for a generation.

Nuclear weapons act as a primary deterrent against direct war, but not a viable solution for the Finance capital. However, control over energy, food, and the capability to disrupt undersea cables/cyber-infrastructure function as "alternatives nuclear weapons" capable of collapsing a state and/or states without the need of dropping a single bomb.  While a nuclear war between super powers is in no way in the interests of Finance- Capital for it would be a suicide for them, a localized use of such alternatives to nuclear weapons may well be in the interests of Finance-Capital in some cases based on their loss-benefit calculations.

“The nuclear threat narrative is a psychological operation, not a policy option. Global finance capital will not permit a suicidal escalation that destroys the circulation of value. The real weapons of the digital age are economic disruption (Strait of Hormuz, undersea cables), not nuclear weapons.” (7)

The nuclear war, war-mongering and fear mongering directed at pacifying the masses. Reformism is promoted by fear mongering.  It is a  fact that the superpowers capable of carrying out this structural choke-points, yet one would hesitate to use them against the other directly. Here comes again the subject of  proxies and proxy wars with the plausibility of denial..  

Proxy war Era

Conflicts initiated or supported by major state actors (e.g., US, Russia, China) but fought primarily by other states, non-state actors like rebel groups, militias, or even international coalitions using foreign proxies. This can be a direct continuation of the idea that capitalism requires competition over vital interests.

As Lenin suggested, finding "small neighbouring country" of the enemy for proxy is one form, but today's context includes smaller nations within contested regions and non-state entities that are ideologically aligned or geographically relevant to the superpowers. Proxy wars allow major powers to engage in military-like interventions without necessarily triggering direct confrontation between themselves for the reasons explained earlier.

While still potentially devastating due to advanced technology, proxy wars often involve more localized territorial objectives and can be prolonged and attritional compared to the total war vision of major imperialist conflicts from a century ago. They represent slowly territorializing forms of conflict that fit capitalist interests. The manipulation of information, fear-mongering, propaganda,  are integral parts of this warfare – both direct and proxy.

The fear of direct annihilation prevents head-on collisions between superpowers but doesn't eliminate the need for conflict; it just pushes the methods into more complex and subtle territory. As the recent history has proven (Georgia, Ukraine, Iran, Myanmar) the execution of wars has become much more indirect than in the direct wars phase. Avoiding direct wars, proxy warfare allows for greater ambiguity and attribution issues .

All the modern proxy wars are incredibly complex, involving multiple actors with potentially conflicting agendas. The form of imperialist proxy war is fundamentally tied to the underlying essence; geopolitical and economic interests. Proxy warfare is just a major vector for this competition, made possible and facilitated by technology which also allows sophisticated espionage, cyber ops, etc., as other forms. The ability to maintain plausible deniability is easier in proxy wars – actions are attributed to local actors rather than directly to national leaderships, making international responses more complex or hesitant.

In essence, Capitalism still requires war, but modern technology allows it to be waged through more complex and varied forms, including sophisticated proxies for major geopolitical conflicts,  or even internal ones masked as external intervention. The tools of warfare have expanded beyond the physical battlefield. 

However, this development open the path for so many small-medium countries for “neutrality” in order to eliminate the chances of being used as a war  proxy.  The mechanism of counterbalancing proxy Wars and National Liberation involve complex diplomatic maneuvering, intelligence operations, training, arming, funding, and potentially coordinating actions through multi-lateral frameworks, though often circumventing them. Cyber warfare, information control, economic sanctions, and drone strikes are modern tools integrated into this form of conflict.

Neutrality paradox

Under the conditions of “unipolar “world, aligning with the sole superpower was a more calculated risk. The superpower's word carried more weight, and its ability to project power was unmatched.

In a multi-polar world, with a rising China, an emerging Russia, and regional powers like Iran, the calculation changed entirely.  Choice of neutrality or one may prefer to term "multi alignment under duress" which  equals "neutral" positions on the issues whether it is voluntary or not. That is significant to clarify that  some would be choosing "multi alignment = neutrality under duress, others as a pragmatic reality depending on their geographical situation. Neutrality in this multipolar era is not a singular state, but a spectrum. For geographically privileged states like Turkey, it is a proactive, opportunistic  multi-alignment to extract benefits. It is not really neutral but for itself. For geographically exposed states like Gulf monarchies, it is a reactive survival mechanism under duress. Both manifest as non-alignment in practice, but their internal dynamics differ.

“The family-states of the Gulf were no longer just hosting US bases; they were placing themselves on one side of multiple, overlapping global and regional power struggles. They become a potential frontline in a US-China conflict, a US-Russia conflict, and a US/Iran-Israel conflict simultaneously. As the world is transferred from the unipolar to multipolar world, they transferred  to becoming  “a proxy battlefield.”

Multipolar world order shatters the monopoly on protection. The US can no longer guarantee absolute protection against all comers, as the Iranian strikes demonstrated. The cost of defending them against a near-peer competitor or a determined regional power with its own superpower backers becomes astronomically high and uncertain.

“The risk and benefit”, both sides of this equation are now collapsing simultaneously. The confluence of events; depleted arsenals, a new major war, and a shift in U.S. strategic doctrine, is creating a perfect storm that is fundamentally devaluing the "security guarantee" that U.S. bases are supposed to provide.

The U.S. is facing critical weapons shortages, its new defense strategy is explicitly deprioritizing the defense of allies in favor of homeland and hemispheric defense, and this combination is forcing allies from Europe to East Asia to confront a terrifying new reality: the bases that were meant to be their "protective umbrella" may now leave them as exposed and undefended.

… The traditional "vassal" model, where a nation trades sovereignty for security by hosting a superpower's bases, is predicated on that security being credible and guaranteed. Hosting a U.S. base provided a “credible guarantee of protection” in a unipolar world.  The military base was a symbol of the alliance's “shared security”. The alliance was an unequal partnership and   “transactional”.  The U.S. always  acted in its own interest, and the host nation's security was a secondary consideration.

The U.S. is now a “depleted superpower” fighting multiple wars, with a doctrine of "limited support." The credibility and guarantee  for safety has disappeared. The U.S. is effectively dismantling the very foundation of its alliance system. By withdrawing the protective assets while leaving the vulnerable bases in place, Washington is demonstrating that its allies are now just forward-deployed platforms expendable in strategy and deniable in defense.

The next  process for the countries seems to be an inclination from “alliance with military bases” to alliance without military bases” in the direction of “non-alignment”- a neutral postering. The path to neutrality, once unthinkable, may soon look like the only prudent option of small countries.” (8)

It is the era of "active neutrality" that is on the horizon. Because great powers are mutually deterred and resource-dependent, small/medium states are no longer forced into rigid Cold War blocs. They can now leverage their geographic position and rare-earth deposits to bargain with multiple poles simultaneously (e.g., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India).

Proxy warfare in our multipolar world era  is structural cage, not a choice of bellicose imperialism. Illusions of “no more world wars “ spread by the fact that direct wars between the imperialists have become unlikely.

Multipolar world order

A multipolar world order, meaning a few large powers instead of one dominant superpower, does, in principle, make it harder for any single entity , even a very large power like US or China,  to exert total dominance and control over distant regions.

As noted above, the US preference for proxy warfare is not geopolitical strategy; it is industrial triage. Decades of financialization have hollowed out its mid-tier manufacturing, leaving its advanced military sector dangerously dependent on rare-earth elements, specifically neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium, which are essential for guidance gyroscopes, jet engine blades, radar-absorbent coatings, and permanent magnets in precision munitions. China controls over 85% of global refining and nearly all heavy-rare-earth processing; without these inputs, the Pentagon simply cannot produce or sustain airframes, naval strike platforms, or hypersonic glide vehicles technologically “equivalent” to those already deployed by Russia or rapidly advancing in China's arsenal. The result is a double-bind: US deep-strike inventories have been critically depleted by recent campaigns, yet replenishment requires a domestic refining and fabrication ecosystem that was offshored decades ago and cannot be rebuilt within a single procurement cycle. Consequently, even with emergency access to raw ores, restoring technological parity would take a minimum of five to seven years. Faced with this temporal and material deficit, Washington is structurally compelled to fight by proxy; arming, financing, and integrating allied forces into its targeting networks, because it lacks industrial metabolism to wage a high-intensity peer-to-peer conventional war on its own.

US as a de-industrialized consumer state has lost its metabolic capacity to regenerate peer-level weaponry, imperialism's highest stage is not just finance capital. It is finance capital that has cannibalized its own industrial base, rendering it reliant on its primary rival just to maintain its arsenal.

“Widely repeated rhetoric of “World War 3” and the context in which it is used -a nuclear war- has become a thing of the past for the time being. The World War 3 is already going on in different form with varying intensity.” (9)

The transition to multipolarity does introduce complexity and potentially more avenues for struggle via indirect methods like proxy wars. However, it hasn't eliminated the fundamental drivers or forms inherent in imperialism as described by Lenin and Marx.

Emerging anti-imperialist trend

Rejection of anti-imperialist wars has been the trend of overt and covert anti-Leninists for decades. Regardless of the changes in the form of imperialist wars, anti-imperialist wars have always been on the agenda. It was easier to curtail and crash during the unipolar world order but  in our Multipolar world order it has already gained momentum and with the new technology we will be witnessing more countries gaining their political independence.  

Leninists make distinction between “political independence” and “economic dependence”. Economic interdependence is a universal condition of global capitalism, but “political sovereignty”, the ability to determine one's own internal and external policy without imperial diktat, is the decisive variable. The US is deeply economically dependent on Chinese manufacturing, yet remains politically sovereign because its state apparatus serves its own monopoly capital, not Beijing’s. China is dependent on Russian and Gulf energy, yet its political line is entirely its own.

Criticizing the  argument; “In the epoch (era) of this unbridled imperialism, there can be no more national wars. National interests serve only as an instrument of deception, to deliver the masses of the toiling people into the service of their mortal enemy, imperialism.... is that the world has been divided up among a handful of “Great” imperialist powers, and, therefore, every war, even if it starts as a national war, is transformed into an imperialist war and affects the interests of one of the imperialist Powers or coalitions”, Lenin stated; “The fallacy of this argument is obvious. Of course, the fundamental proposition of Marxian dialectics is that all boundaries in nature and society are conventional and mobile, that there is not a single phenomenon which cannot under certain conditions be transformed into its opposite. A national war can be transformed into an imperialist war, and vice versa.”  “Only a sophist would deny that there is a difference between imperialist war and national war on the grounds that one can be transformed into the other. National wars waged by colonial and semi-colonial countries are not only possible but inevitable in the epoch of imperialism. “(10)

This new era will be defined by "active neutrality" (previously a passive anti-imperialist stand)  and active "anti-imperialist wars" alongside "proxy wars".  “To deny all possibility of national wars under imperialism is wrong in theory” said Lenin and continued; “to fall into negation of wars really waged for liberating nations is to present the worst possible caricature of Marxism. .....Rejection of "defense of the fatherland" in a democratic war, i.e., rejecting participation in such a war, is an absurdity that has nothing in common with Marxism." (11)

A national movement's success, as always has been,  and still fundamentally depends on internal dynamics; political will among the population and ruling elites, resource endowments of the country itself.  As Stalin summarized Lenin’s theory; “The revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples in the dependent and colonial countries against imperialism is the only road that leads to their emancipation from oppression and exploitation.” (12)

The popular  anti-Leninist argument in the name of Leninism is that Socialist would and could not support the anti-imperialist struggles of “reactionary” classes.  The reality as spelled out by Stalin is that “ The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement. The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism."   He explains the reason by saying that “  Lenin was right in saying that the national movement of the oppressed countries should be appraised not from the point of view of formal democracy, but from the point of view of the actual results, as shown by the general balance sheet of the struggle against imperialism, that is to say, "not in isolation, but on a world scale."  (12)

During the unipolar world order, most “communist”, “socialist parties” chose reformism under the threat and violent practice of aggressive imperialism. In new era, multipolar world order, this fear, and attitude will have to change.  Therefore, we can anticipate an era characterized by both national conflicts, against dominant powers' interventions,  and imperialist proxy wars, where these two dynamics are intertwined and potentially transformable into each other under complex conditions driven by competition over vital interests. The form might change, but the underlying essence of imperialist-driven conflict remains central to understanding international relations in this period.

This complexity could indirectly facilitate national movements and strengthens with the international support of socialists. Inevitably, It will create a more crowded geopolitical landscape with potentially diverging interests among major powers (e.g., Russia, US, EU, China). A small country like Mali or Burkina Faso might find itself playing off one power against another.

In this new era, for most of the medium and small states, neutrality is no longer a passive, it is an “active, offensive strategy of political decoupling” .  The Sahel countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) are the vanguard of this development. French and US military bases did not bring "protection", they turned the Sahel into a target zone for NATO's proxy war against Libyan remnants and Russian influence. By expelling these bases and turning toward Russian private military contractors (and politically toward the broader anti-imperialist coalition), these states are not "choosing a new master." They are reclaiming political sovereignty. They remain economically dependent (on mining exports, on grain imports), but they have broken the “political” command chain. This will be the trend across West Africa, Central Asia, and parts of Latin America: states will leverage the existence of multiple power poles (China, Russia, the Global South blocs) to play off imperial demands and secure their own political room for maneuver.

The Technological Factor with Equalizing Asymmetric Warfare  is where cost-effective technology makes anti-imperialist wars “more” viable, not less.

Lenin taught that the decisive factor in war is the will and consciousness of the masses combined with the material means to fight. Today, a $5,000 loitering munition or a cheap naval drone can mission-kill a $10 million main battle tank or harass a billion-dollar destroyer. The Houthi operations in the Red Sea, carried out with relatively primitive yet effective missiles and drones, demonstrated that a medium-sized power can impose strategic costs on a global hegemon without matching its air force or navy. For countries facing Western-backed proxies, this technological diffusion means that “the cost of defending political independence has dropped exponentially”. An anti-imperialist military power in the Sahel, or an anti-imperialist government in Latin America, does not need  massive military industrial complex to deter intervention. It needs enough cheap, smart systems to make the price of US/West  interference prohibitive. This shifts the correlation of forces firmly toward the defender of national sovereignty. Technology makes it harder at some geographical locations but makes it easier in others. Due to its cost, in multipolar world order, they can get indirect supply of these weapons, like against the latest Jihadist attacks in Sahel. It is always conditional who will benefit most; if the war- conflict is between two neighboring countries with the support of multi parties, or if it is an internal one - or far from any super power.

Myanmar is a distinct but overlapping category. It is not a classic anti-colonial war against a foreign occupier; it is a “civil proxy war” deeply entangled with the multipolar transition.  The anti-junta forces are fragmented, some are genuinely democratic and anti-imperialist, but others are backed by Western intelligence apparatuses seeking to dismantle China's corridor projects and contain Beijing's influence. The Junta- now civil power  meanwhile, leans on Russian military advisors and retains economic ties with Beijing.  It is a proxy war of US/NATO indirectly backing the military wing of Washington based Myanmar exiled government NUG.  (14)

In this new era, we will see more of these “"gray-zone" proxy wars”, where the main powers (US, China, Russia) do not directly confront each other, but finance, arm, and advise rival internal factions. The US, depleted in direct military arsenal and industrial capacity, will increasingly rely on these low-cost, high-leverage proxy theaters to slow down the rise of the multipolar poles.

The era is defined by the “coexistence” of these three phenomena, not one replacing the other.  “Neutrality” is the political “goal” of states that have witnessed the cost of alignment.  “Anti-imperialist wars” are the “active, armed expression” of refusing Western command chains. “Proxy wars” are the “imperialist reaction”, the declining hegemon's attempt to offset its industrial and military decline by burning down other people's houses.

This is a “material necessity” of the objective conditions. The multipolar order is not a peaceful utopia; it is a violent, chaotic transition. But within that chaos, the window for genuine political independence has widened precisely because the hegemon can no longer afford to fight everywhere at once. The smaller states that leverage this window, equip themselves with cost-effective defensive tech, and maintain political vigilance will be the ones to survive and consolidate their sovereignty.

Latin America

It is important to mention that I had stated in one article that the declining US will have to focus on its backyard more than anyplace else.  The US will have to Pivot to Latin America, forced to focus more on its backyard as its Asian and European proxy wars falter or become stalemates. But here, the US will face a different problem: “Latin American states who already have a history of anti-imperialist struggle, are learning the Sahel lesson”.  They see that having US bases  does not protect them—it makes them targets for US-enemies.  They see that the "Washington Consensus" is dead, and that BRICS+ offers alternative financial architecture; the New Development Bank, swap lines, local currency trade. However, because China and Russia cannot project power there directly, the “form” of their involvement will remain “defensive and economic”, providing satellite intelligence to counter US surveillance; and offering diplomatic coverage in the OAS and UN.

The primary” struggle in Latin America will be won or lost by “Latin Americans themselves”; the popular movements in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and the Southern Cone. Russia and China will be the “external conditions” that make victory possible, not the “agents” of that victory. Russia and China cannot do much directly in Latin America.” The logistical distances, the absence of power-projection naval bases, and the historical weight of the Monroe Doctrine  impose strict limits. However, their involvement takes a “qualitative, not quantitative” form.

China's Role would be the Economic lifeline and diplomatic shield. China is already the top trading partner for Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Argentina. It provides an “alternative market” for raw materials and agricultural exports, breaking the US's historic monopsony. More critically, China offers “development financing without IMF-style political, social, structural strings attached” which historically strangled Latin American sovereignty. When a Latin American government  faces US pressure, Beijing's UN veto power and trade contracts give those states “political breathing room”.

Russia's Role would be Military-technical niche and cybersecurity support. Russia cannot send the Pacific Fleet to the Caribbean, but it can provide advanced air defense systems, counter-intelligence training, and diplomatic backing in the UNSC.

The US will "focus" in its backyard , but it will find that its traditional tools; economic coercion, CIA-backed coups, are blunted by the existence of Chinese capital and Russian military hardware. However, the “primary” engine of anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America will remain “internal”; the indigenous and working-class movements that have historically resisted US domination. China and Russia are “secondary stabilizers”, not front-line combatants.

Africa seems to be the Primary Battlefield for Multipolar Political Independence. It is the arena where Russian and Chinese involvement is direct, tangible, and game-changing. Here, the degree and form of their involvement are distinct but complementary; the “"Military-Economic Dual Strategy."“ Russia's Role would be The “Security Guarantor” and Military Disruptor with High visibility, boots-on-the-ground, but limited in total manpower.  Russia provided rapid-response military support to sovereign governments facing Western-backed insurgencies like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, CAR. This allows these governments to expel French and US bases without immediately collapsing under jihadist or rebel offensives.  Russia supplied and can supply cost-effective air defense systems and reconnaissance drones that neutralize the NATO advantage in air superiority.  Russia's information warfare apparatus actively counters the French-language media monopoly  in Francophone Africa, providing alternative narratives that delegitimize Western intervention and frame the juntas as legitimate nationalists.

Contrary to the arguments based on learned by rote theories, Russia, under current conditions, does not seek to colonize Africa. It seeks to “deny” the US/NATO the ability to use African territory, resources, and UN votes against Russia. It creates a "cost-imposing" strategy: any US attempt to reassert dominance in the Sahel will face direct armed resistance involving Russian advisors and contractors, raising the body count and political cost for Washington.

China's Role would be the “Economic Infrastructure” and Long-Term Developmental Partner with massive economic footprint, but cautious military non-entanglement. China does not send troops. It sends engineers, financiers, and infrastructure contractors. China is pivoting from giant, debt-heavy mega-projects to more targeted, scalable infrastructure like railways, power grids, digital fiber-optic networks, and deep-water ports (e.g., Tanzania, Mauritania). This builds the “material base” for genuine economic independence by allowing resource-rich African states to export minerals without routing them through Western-controlled ports or colonial-era railway monopolies. China signs long-term, fixed-price contracts for critical minerals (cobalt, lithium, rare earths, copper) that guarantee revenue streams for African governments “outside” the IMF-controlled financial system. This breaks the traditional colonial circuit where African resources were extracted by Western multinationals (Glencore, Barrick) leaving little to the state.

Contrary to Western "debt trap" propaganda, China is increasingly willing to restructure or extend debt terms for struggling African states (e.g., Zambia, Ethiopia) in exchange for long-term strategic cooperation, effectively buying political goodwill without demanding regime capitulation. China's goal is to secure supply chains and create a vast, resource-exporting hinterland that is “politically non-hostile” to Beijing. It does not need African states to be "communist"; it needs them to be independent enough to resist US pressure to decouple from Chinese trade.

Dialectically, Russia and China can “enable” African political independence. The materialist truth that the Western media obscures is that neither Russia nor China is "replacing" the colonial powers” because they cannot, and they do not intend to for their own calculated interests.  What they provide is a “multipolar safety net”.  Previously, when a West African state expelled the French, it faced an immediate military backlash or a crippling economic strangulation. Today, if Niger expels the US, it can sell its uranium to Russia or China, buy Russian air defense, and use Chinese-built fiber optics to bypass Western financial messaging systems (SWIFT alternatives like CIPS).  Thus, the “degree of involvement” is calibrated precisely to break the “political” dependence without creating a new “economic” colonial relation.

The US, depleted militarily and industrially, will indeed retrench toward Latin America and Africa—but in Africa, it will collide with the Russian military shield and the Chinese economic floor. In Latin America, it will face the rising tide of its own decaying ideological hegemony, with no easy way to reimpose the old order without directly triggering a major conflict that it cannot afford to win.

Lenin and Stalin understood what the West's "regime change" operatives still refuse to grasp: “tanks, money, and drones are meaningless without the subjective factor.” You can arm a proxy army to the teeth, but if the masses do not rise, if the workers and peasants do not see the struggle as “their own”, then the whole edifice collapses the moment external logistics are cut. Myanmar is the perfect current case; the US poured support into the NUG/PDF, but the ethnic nationalities, the actual grassroots armed forces, never fully bought into that Washington-directed project, and now they are negotiating with the government. The people—in their diverse, complex, tribal and class realities—voted with their feet.

Conversely, when the people “are” ready, as seen in the Sahel, where popular anger at French neo-colonialism was boiling for decades, a relatively modest amount of Russian military advisory support and diplomatic coverage was enough to tip the scales. The material assistance was the “midwife”, but the “labour” was performed by the masses.

 What has not changed and will not change in its form or in its essence is that “Outside assistance can accelerate or hinder, but it cannot substitute for the internal contradiction.” The national liberation war is ultimately won or lost in the minds and peoples of the nation itself.

What has changed will create the objective conditions externally for the national liberation movements.

Lenin’s theory  in the Digital Age and multipolar world order

Does the change in the form of wars refute Leninist theory of Inevitability of wars or  the Theory still Remain Valid?

Finance capital's drive for profit gutted US production, uneven development handed China the rare-earth monopoly, and inter-imperialist rivalry is now fought via resource choke-points. The “form” has changed; the “imperialist essence” remained starkly visible.

Lenin’s theory remains structurally valid, but must be updated to account for “technological deterrence” as a modifier, not a refutation, of capitalist competition. War is inevitable due to uneven development, the export of finance capital, and the violent redivision of the world market. The essence of monopoly capitalism– the inherent tendency toward competition over vital interests – remains. Wars are still fought to secure markets, resources, strategic positions, and geopolitical dominance. As for Leninist perspective on imperialism (monopoly capitalism) the  core idea is that under monopoly capitalism/imperialism, certain phenomena are inherent due to its structure – specifically, competition over vital resources and markets.

Marxism distinguishes between essence (the inherent drive toward conflict) and forms (how it manifests). The core idea is that capitalism inherently possesses a dynamic, competitive nature driven by the pursuit of profit , especially imperialist accumulation, which generates tensions leading to conflict. This "essence", competition over vital interests and inherent antagonism , remains. Lenin’s Core Premise argued that imperialism would lead to wars because it concentrated capital  and made global rivalry inevitable, including the use of proxy states as a means to wage war without direct confrontation between the powers themselves.

The core of the question is whether modern proxy wars are a transformed version of those classical imperialist conflicts. Lenin argued that imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism leads to an arms race and inevitability of war because profit-driven powers compete because finance capital  necessitates competition on a global scale for markets, resources (raw materials), and cheap labor leading to intense geopolitical rivalry. Stalin echoed this in Soviet contexts. They both had already mentioned the likelihood  of proxy wars,  but today's context includes smaller nations (not-nation state) within contested regions (ethnic, religious like minorities) and non-state entities (terrorist groups, separatists) that are ideologically aligned or geographically relevant to the superpowers. Proxy wars allow major powers to engage in military-like interventions without necessarily triggering direct confrontation between themselves.

So the shift is  from direct wars  between imperialists to using proxies.  The key points here are differentiating forms versus essence. Essence would be the underlying cause—capitalist competition leading to conflict. Forms refer to how that specific conflict manifests itself. So, if the drivers of war under capitalism haven't changed but methods have evolved with technology, then yes, the form has changed while the essence remains. The nuclear deterrence prevents direct wars between superpowers.  The "nuclear peace" idea—no all-out wars between nuclear powers due to mutual assured destruction. Instead, conflicts are through proxies. So, proxy wars become a new form where the essence is still competition leading to conflict, but the method is different. Proxies allow powers to fight without direct risk, using fear-mongering and spreading an illusion of no major war.

Conclusion

It is wrong to assume that "Lenin’s theory of inevitable inter-imperialist war did not just predict competition; it predicted direct, armed, military clashes between the metropolitan states themselves over the redivision of colonies". Lenin talks about "war" in general, not direct inter-imperialist war. Most importantly Lenin does not take the concept of "war" in its literal sense but as "use of force" . He and Stalin clearly states, even then that an imperialist country can find a "bordering small country" as a proxy to wage war against its enemy. (15) (16) We have to take the words of Lenin not in literal sense but in context with all his writings. Lenin explicitly acknowledged "small neighboring countries"-proxies and explicitly argued for studying each war separately based on any given concrete conditions.

The technological evolution of warfare, particularly the proliferation of nuclear weapons, has fundamentally altered the forms of inter-imperialist competition. Mutual assured destruction (MAD) has rendered direct large-scale conflict between nuclear powers as catastrophic and therefore taboo. However, this does not signal a 'post-war' era, but rather a transformed one—where conflict continues in fragmented form across new domains. Technology has altered the grammar of war by making it faster, more asymmetric, and more proxy-driven. The Leninist framework survives precisely because it is flexible enough to recognize that when direct conquest becomes unprofitable, capital simply invents new battlefields; cyber, economic, and informational.

The forms now include cyber warfare,  economic and political  sanctions instead of boots on the ground. Proxies allow super powers to fight without direct risk, using fear-mongering and spreading an illusion of no major wars. It is the "nuclear peace" concept—no all-out wars between nuclear powers due to mutual assured destruction, but wars through proxies. Technology enables more precise, less escalatory warfare through proxies. Proxy wars should not be taken and considered as “limited” wars. That is the propaganda intended to pacify the people through the widely accepted thought  that nuclear war is always possible.

Another factor is that economic interdependence might mitigate direct conflicts, but not in areas with geopolitical tensions like Ukraine-Russia or Middle East disputes. Here, technology enables more precise, less escalatory warfare through proxies. The fear-mongering angle ties back to Marxist ideas about how capitalism uses tools to distract the masses from systemic issues.

Lenin did not deny the  possibility of the "peaceful" division of some regions by  imperialist countries to forge an alliance. " We ask, “ he says, “is it “conceivable,” assuming that the capitalist system remains intact—and this is precisely the assumption that Kautsky does make—that such alliances would be more than temporary, that they would eliminate friction, conflicts and struggle in every possible form?” " This is because the only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., is a calculation of the strength of those participating, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for the even development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries is impossible under capitalism … Is it “conceivable” that in ten or twenty years’ time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained unchanged? It is out of the question. " (13)

Competition among imperialist powers leads to inevitable conflict, just in new forms.  proxy wars serve as tools for maintaining capitalist dominance without direct confrontation.

Economic interdependence and the financial cost of high-tech warfare make wars too expensive.  Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) invalidate the "inevitability" of direct  inter-imperialist conflict.  However, the form of inter-imperialis wars changes, but the essence of  it  persists. Imperialist competition hasn't ended, it has merely “shifted domains” , from territorial colonies to control over energy,  rare-earth refinement, and global data routing.

Proxy wars are still inter-imperialist wars, they are merely subcontracted, proving the great powers are still fiercely competing for global hegemony. The inevitability of war hasn't disappeared; it has been “compressed and displaced” occurring in cyberspace, economic sanctions, and covert sabotage, rather than prolonged trench warfare. The essence of Lenin and Stalin's theory “war is inevitable under capitalism" still remains valid. The essence of Leninist analysis—the inexorable competition for resources, markets, and global dominance driven by capitalist imperatives—has not changed. What has changed is only the battlefield: from trenches to trade routes, from artillery to algorithms, from colonies to cyberspace. The war continues, but in new forms, and under new names.

Erdogan A
2025- July 2026

Notes;

" I acknowledge the use of DeepSeek as a research and editorial aid for structuring, language polishing, and proofreading. All theoretical frameworks, political conclusions, historical interpretations, and final editorial decisions remain solely my responsibility."

* Erdogan A, Who Actually Makes the Decisions for Foreign Policy in the US? Conflict Within the Bureaucracy”
“The reader who wishes to understand US foreign policy must abandon the comfortable frameworks of liberal democracy (where “checks and balances” matter) and left‑liberal conspiracy theories (where “neocons” act autonomously). Only a “class perspective” – materialist, dialectical, and unforgiving – can answer the question: “Who actually makes the decisions?” The answer is finance capital, organised through the state bureaucracy. Conflicts within the bureaucracy are real but non‑antagonistic. And the claim that “Israel controls the US” is not an explanation – it is a symptom of the very crisis of legitimacy that US imperialism is trying to manage.

If we look at the question  within The Unipolar vs. Multipolar Context; In the unipolar era (post-1991), the alignment of US and Israeli interests was nearly perfect. The US needed a reliable enforcer in the Middle East; Israel needed a global superpower patron. There was no significant cost to the US for supporting Israel’s most aggressive policies…When the liabilities outweigh the benefits, finance capital will act. Israel will be informed that US policy has changed. The lobby will be managed, not obeyed.

Iran will most likely be the  ultimate  confirming test for the correctness of the Marxist Leninist analysis based on existing condition and facts.”

** Erdogan A, On the likelihood of a Nuclear war
“With the technological - satellites, Artificial intelligence, precisian guided sub-sonic, supersonic, hypersonic missiles, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), USVs (Unmanned Surface Vehicles), lately introduced Robot Tanks, lasers, signal jamming, and so many other to count-development,  the need for the use of nuclear weapons is diminishing. This new technological war machines are also extremely destructive but can be localized and their extent is controllable.

For these reasons I do not see any likelihood of nuclear world war.

Nuclear warheads will probably remain for a long time as a weapon of deterrence, new missiles will be produced for their possible use. It is similar to the fact that wars will be inevitable as long as capitalism exists. New technological weapons will continue to be destructive in the service and for the benefit of Military Industrial complex and of the Finance Capital. However, most likely the wars will be proxy wars with the use of new weapons at the expense of the people and the destruction of the proxy countries in where the new “technological weapons” will be tested on the field and improved accordingly.”

(1) Lenin, Left-wing Communism

(2) Lenin, Under a False Flag

(3) Erdogan A, War in Ukraine; Now what? The prospects of the second phase and on.

(4) Erdogan A,  On the likelihood of a Nuclear war

(5) Erdogan A, Is the World War knocking on the door? Subjectively; Yes, objectively; No.

(6)  Lenin, The Principles of Socialism and the War of 1914–1915

(7) Erdogan A, An unavoidable structural change in Middle East

(8) Erdogan A,  Early possible implications of the war of aggression against Iran.

(9) Erdogan A,  On the  North Korea and Russia ” alliance”; reasons, significance,  and implications 

(10) Lenin, The Junius Pamphlet

(11) Lenin, A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism.

(12) Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism

(13) Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

(14) Erdogan A, Myanmar ; the fallacy of “Freedom fighters” versus Junta.

(15) Lenin, Theses for an Appeal to the International Socialist Committee and All Socialist Parties
“In the political sphere, the imperialist war has demonstrated that from the imperialists’ standpoint it is sometimes much more advantageous to have as war ally a politically independent but financially dependent small nation. It is quite possible, therefore, that parallel with its policy of strangling small nations, imperialism will in individual cases follow a policy of “voluntary” alliance.”

(16) Stalin, Interview with Roy Howard (1936)
"History shows that when any state intends to make war against another state, even not adjacent, it begins to seek for frontiers across which it can reach the frontiers of the state it wants to attack, Usually, the aggressive state finds such frontiers.”

(17) Erdogan A, Rare earth minerals, and Trump’s tariffs on China; Facts and fictions, subjective narratives versus objective realities.