Imperialism, Militarism and Climate Crisis

Growing militarism is a major threat to the stability of the world, endangering everyone’s safety, but especially the safety of people living in countries dominated by imperialist powers — and the statistics show that growing military budgets contribute significantly to climate change.

Increasing Military Budgets

In the new cold war with China, there is increased pressure on NATO countries to bump up their military budgets to, an entirely arbitrary and wasteful target, of 2 percent of GDP by 2024. The invasion of Ukraine has led to an immediate acceleration of this trend, with renewed calls for member nations to rapidly increase their military spending. The German government has pledged to nearly double spending from €53.17 billion to €100 billion and reach the 2 percent goal.

Increases in military spending by NATO countries give other imperialist powers like China and Russia excuses to increase their own military spending, and vice-versa. In 2020, Chinese military spending was estimated to be 1.7 percent of GDP, or $252 billion, while Russian spending was 4.3 percent of GDP, or $61.7 billion; both are significant increases over previous years.

Between 2014 and 2020, Canada rapidly increased its military budget from a mere 0.99 percent of GDP, or $17.86 billion, to 1.42 percent, or $22.8 billion — exceeding even the spending levels of the noughties at the peak of the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. Liberal “Defence” Minister Anita Anand is calling on the government to increase military spending from the present 1.39 percent of GDP, and Trudeau’s government has projected military spending at 1.5 percent of GDP by 2024. However, this would still fall short of NATO’s goal. In NATO, only Slovenia, Belgium, Spain, and Luxembourg spend less per GDP than Canada, something which is surely an embarrassment to Canadian imperialism. Socialist Alternative opposes Canada’s military intervention in the neocolonial world (e.g., Haiti), Canada’s sales of military weapons to foreign countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia) and Canada’s membership in NATO. Military spending must be slashed, and foreign exploitation by Canadian corporations and banks must be put to an end.

On the one hand, increasing military expenditure acts as an economic crutch which helps to keep the capitalist system running (and enables powerful countries to maintain their control over world markets), but on the other hand, inter-imperialist rivalries result in the outbreak of new crises and wars. Every NATO country has increased its per GDP military spending since 2014 except for the United States, which decreased by 0.21 percent. The sharpest increases were seen in Greece (1.6 percent), Latvia (1.33 percent), and Lithuania (1.15 percent). The United States spends the vast majority of all NATO military expenditure — $811 billion of $1.174 trillion, or 69.1 percent in 2021 (39 percent as a world share of military spending). Global military spending rose to $1.98 trillion in 2020, or 2.4 percent of world GDP.

Trends in World Military Expenditure (2011 – 2020)

Table reproduced from the SIPRI Fact Sheet, April 2021, Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2020, Diego Lopes Da Silva, Nan Tian, and Alexandra Marksteiner. [ ] = SIPRI estimate

Imperialist Power Struggles and Wars

It is in the context of the new cold war between US and Chinese imperialism that the war in Ukraine has developed, and this war will accelerate the current process of deglobalization, i.e., a shrinking and isolating of world markets, driven by sanctions, and a strengthening of regional blocs. Xi Jinping was seemingly unaware of Vladimir Putin’s war plans when he announced his “no limits” alliance with Putin and now the Chinese government is maneuvering awkwardly between official “neutrality” abroad, and pro-Russian propaganda at home, while bilateral trade between Russia and China increased by 38.5 percent to $26.4 billion from the previous year during January and February. China’s exports to Russia increased by 41.5 percent to $12.6 billion during those two months, and imports increased by 35.8 percent to $13.8 billion. Beijing plans to try and maintain normal trade ties with both Russia and Ukraine in spite of the war, since both countries are key for Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative. In this regard, Chinese imperialism could stand to benefit greatly; the toll of war could force Russia further into a “junior-partner” role in the Chinese-Russian alliance. The alliance has broader impacts on world relations, and the war in Ukraine forces countries to choose sides, or walk tightropes, between the US and NATO or China and Russia.

Between 2011 and 2020, total military spending saw the sharpest increases in Ukraine at 198 percent, China at 76 percent, South Korea at 41 percent, India at 34 percent, Australia at 33 percent, and Israel at 32 percent. The only decreases in spending since 2011 were in the United States at -10 percent, -4.2 percent in the UK, and -3.3 percent in Italy. It should be noted that the US and NATO have continually provided military aid for both Ukraine and Israel, as well as other countries that are close to Russia’s sphere — Libya, Kazakhstan, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, to name a few — even if the US’s own military expenditure has shrunk. Ukraine has received enormous military aid from NATO — $2 billion from the US alone since the start of the Biden administration, and hundreds of millions before that. Total military spending in Russia also increased by 26 percent during the same period.

Ukraine’s military spending and NATO’s military aid, alongside Russia’s military spending, are part of the long-term Russo-Ukrainian conflict, i.e., the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, and the simultaneous war in Donbas (a conflict for control over eastern Ukraine). NATO and Russia have made Ukraine into a chess piece, with no regard for the people who live there.

Both China and Europe are heavily reliant on Russian exports of coal, oil, and gas. Russia is the third largest oil producer after the US and Saudi Arabia, producing 10.5 million barrels per day, or about 11 percent of the world total. It is the largest gas exporting country in the world, having exported 199,928.345 millions of meters³ (approximately 200 billion cubic metres) in 2020, which is actually down significantly from the 262,400.000 millions of meters³ in 2019. Over 70 percent of this is exported to Europe, primarily to Germany. Russia also exported 4,653.500 barrels of oil per day in 2020, down significantly from 5,253.000 per day in 2019. Nearly half of that oil is exported to Europe, but China is the largest single customer. Russia exported more than half the coal it produced in 2021 (it produced 262 million short tons), mostly to Asia, particularly China. Since the invasion, most of Europe is attempting to move away from the dependence on Russian fossil fuels, and other top exporters are attempting to meet the new demand — the war has hugely benefited the profits of western energy corporations, and this has resulted in steep energy prices around the world for working people. Early estimates suggest that sanctions against Russia have removed 3 million barrels of petroleum production per day — or 3 percent of world production — from world markets. Figures on Russian exports since the invasion of Ukraine are hard to come by, but it could be assumed that exports to western countries have largely been sanctioned away, and it is likely that exports to Asia have increased somewhat, but not enough to offset the difference.

The ongoing civil war in Yemen — a proxy war against Iran — perpetrated by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and backed by US and NATO weapons (including Canadian ones), is becoming even more violent. According to Oxfam, G20 nations have supplied Saudi Arabia with over $17 billion worth of arms since 2015. Western imperialism supports the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia because it guarantees access to vast oil reserves. According to the UN, the Saudi-led coalition has killed tens of thousands of people in thousands of air strikes, including 10,200 children, estimating 377,000 deaths directly related to the war by the end of 2021. The UN also says the war has caused the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, as over 80 percent of the population (24.1 million people) require humanitarian aid, and that 19 million Yemenis will soon go hungry. 50 percent of Yemeni children already suffer from malnutrition. This is worsened by the loss of wheat produced by Ukraine (a major producer) since the Russian invasion began. The flow of arms to Saudi Arabia must be stopped immediately. The international trade union movement should follow the example of Italian dock workers who refused to allow the transport of weapons to Saudi Arabia in 2020.

The war in Ethiopia is beginning to see increased involvement from Chinese and US imperialism. Abiy Ahmed’s regime has been supplied with drones from China and the United Arab Emirates (who have also supplied arms), while the US has implemented sanctions on the regime and wants them to negotiate with the Tigray leaders. The war is generating poverty and famine for the masses.

Ukraine, Yemen, Ethiopia — this is not an exhaustive list of the ongoing conflicts caused by inter-imperialist rivalry, but they are currently the most deadly.

Militarism and Climate Change

The US military, as an institution, exceeds the carbon footprint of most countries. This makes the carbon footprint of the US military a useful measuring stick for the climate impact of global militarism, because there is an overall lack of transparency when it comes to global military emissions data. Additionally, there is simply more data available for the US military. The emissions data from the US military alone suggests that the world’s militaries are some of the biggest contributors to climate change, while also wasting nearly $2 trillion in world GDP. Taken as a worldwide aggregate, increasing militarism is not only a grave threat to all people in terms of war and violence, but in terms of major contributions to climate change and other environmental damage. An estimate published by Scientists for Global Responsibility is that the global military carbon “boot-print” is as high as 6 percent of all emissions — this would make it more polluting than civil aviation. As military budgets continue to grow, this problem will become significantly worse.

“The US military machine is the world’s biggest institutional consumer of petroleum products and the world’s worst polluter of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements,” according to Sara Flounders, an anti-war activist and writer.

All of the US military apparatus — including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, operations in Pakistan, equipment at over 5,000 US bases globally (more than 800 abroad), other NATO operations, aircraft carriers and jet aircraft, weapons testing, training, sales — none of this has been included in US greenhouse gas emissions statistics and has never been included in worldwide climate negotiations like the Paris Agreement. The US military is also exempt from most environmental legislation and Environmental Protection Agency interference.

During the peak years of the US/NATO occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, statistics in the 2005 CIA World Factbook claim that the United States Department of Defense (DOD) consumed more oil per day than the total consumption of most countries and would rank about 34th in the world, just between Iraq and Sweden. At the time, the DOD used 4.6 billion gallons of fuel annually, or an average of 12.6 million gallons of fuel per day. This does not include use by coalition forces, contractors, or weapons manufacturing.

Social science researchers from Durham University and Lancaster University determined more recently that:

In 2017 alone, the US military purchased about 269,230 barrels of oil (11.3  million gallons) a day and emitted more than 25,000 kilotonnes CO2 equivalent by burning those fuels. In 2017 alone, the Air Force purchased $4.9 billion worth of fuel and the Navy $2.8 billion, followed by the Army at $947 million and Marines at $36 million.

If the US military were a country, it would nestle between Peru and Portugal in the global league table of fuel purchasing, when comparing 2014 World Bank country liquid fuel consumption with 2015 US military liquid fuel consumption….

The Air Force is by far the largest emitter of GHG at more than 13,000 kt CO2e, almost double that of the US Navy’s 7,800 kt CO2e. In addition to using the most polluting types of fuel, the Air Force and Navy are also the largest purchasers of fuel.

Science Daily

The US Army released a Climate Strategy document in February 2022, their primary concern being the threats and risks that climate change will pose to their operations (never mind humanity). In the document, the US Army admits to purchasing over $740 million of electricity from the national electric grid, yearly. In 2020, this added 4.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and other GHGs into the atmosphere. The US Army’s electricity consumption and related emissions are greater than numerous small island countries’ yearly GHG emissions from all sectors, and are greater than emissions from Switzerland’s entire heat and electricity sector. This does not include its unrestricted fossil fuel consumption, or any other sectors of the US military like the Air Force or Navy, not to mention other forms of pollution (i.e., contamination of water, air, and soil with chemicals or radioactive material) that are caused by military operations.

In examining the military budgets and energy consumption of other heavily militarized countries (China, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, etc.), and comparing them to the US, it is easy to hazard a guess at the amount of fuel burned, electricity consumed, CO2 and other GHGs emitted by each military locked in the imperialist struggle over world markets (largely, world energy markets).

Yemen, historically a fertile agricultural area, already suffers from a major environmental crisis, where water scarcity is the primary problem. Climate change is also making catastrophic events more frequent. In the past fifty years, temperatures in Yemen have increased by 1.8 degrees Celsius, projected to 2.3 degrees by 2060, with longer heat waves. There were two major cyclones within a week in 2015, and two more in 2018. There were also a number of devastating floods in 2020. Rising sea levels have increased the salinity of coastal aquifers, impacting three major cities and agriculture on the coastal plains. Agricultural land is undergoing desertification at a rate of 3-5 percent of land per year. Both war and climate change contribute directly to the ruin of agricultural land, as the US-led war in Iraq has previously demonstrated. Up to 90 percent of Iraqi territory is now threatened by desertification, devastating agriculture.

The Method of Social Revolution

Inter-imperialist” or “ultra-imperialist” alliances, no matter what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more than a “truce” in periods between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars; the one conditions the other, producing alternating forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle on one and the same basis of imperialist connections and relations within world economics and world politics.

V I Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

Socialists must not have any faith in the ruling classes of any imperialist powers — the modern imperialist state is the fully militarized embodiment of national finance capital, engaged in war for control over markets and fueling conflict all over the world. The working class is international and has no interest in imperialist wars and is, in fact, sacrificed in the course of them. However, a general call for “peace,” or a “diplomatic solution” is not sufficient to end an imperialist war. Under capitalism, periods of peace or relative peace are only temporary. Finance capital is always laying the groundwork and producing the antagonisms required for the next period of conflict, occupation, and annexation. The demand of socialists must be for a revolutionary struggle against capitalism and its wars. It was the Russian and German Revolutions that ended the first World War. In more recent history, in 1973, Nixon finally ended the war in Vietnam: the US ruling class was fearful of sparking a social revolt at home and because of the growing resistance of its own troops.

An anti-war/pro-climate position will demonstrate the differences between revolutionary socialists and reformists, who have illusions in their own national bourgeoisie and their imperialistic maneuvers. Liberals and reformists believe that imperialist wars can be ended merely by calling for “peace” and “diplomacy” (through which economic warfare is conducted in the form of negotiations), or worse, by posing sanctions — which is a special form of economic warfare against working people — as a solution! The same political wastrels making the calls for “peace,” “diplomacy” or “sanctions” are the exact same who do not understand the impossibility of solving the climate crisis within the capitalist system or are willing to ignore the climate crisis entirely. The level of international coordination required to tackle this problem is impossible in a system of worldwide competition between regional blocs of national bourgeoisie. Ending imperialist wars, taking all of the biggest companies and banks into democratic public ownership, planning for and investing in a green economy — all of these demands are actually linked to ending the capitalist system and the socialist reorganization of the world economy.

The only way in which the proletariat can meet the imperialistic perplexity of capitalism is by opposing to it as a practical program of the day, the Socialist organization of the world economy.

War is the method by which capitalism, at the climax of its development, seeks to solve its insoluble contradictions. To this method the proletariat must oppose its own method, the method of the Social Revolution.

Leon Trotsky, The War and the International

We have already seen heroic opposition against the war in Ukraine by Russian people, who hit the streets on the first day of the invasion, even in the face of severe repression and threats of imprisonment. The war is already deeply unpopular in Russia — there are even rumours of dissent in the Russian army. Appeals from Ukrainians to Russian soldiers to refuse to continue the war must be increased, and the political struggle in Russia against the war must be taken to a higher level. There can be no faith placed in western intervention, which will only result in further military escalation between imperialist powers. The international anti-war movement must oppose all western military intervention while supporting the right of self-determination for Ukraine, including the right of the Ukrainian masses to defend themselves with arms. Self-defence should be organized on a mass basis, independent of the Ukrainian elite and western imperialism — this is in contradistinction to the calls by many liberals and conservatives to donate money directly to the Ukrainian state and military! Independent working-class organization and politics, with an appeal to end the war directed at the Russian soldiers and the Russian masses are the most decisive weapons in the hands of workers and the oppressed.

Only revolutionary mass movements against the capitalist system, for socialism — the method of social revolution — can put an end to imperialist wars, meet the needs of humanity, and create the social conditions necessary for worldwide cooperation to solve the climate crisis.

We Say:

• Build working class resistance to the war, in Ukraine, Russia and all over the world.
• Stop the war in Ukraine — out with the Russian troops.
• End western support of the Saudi dictatorship and the war in Yemen.
• No to NATO militarism and imperialism, which fuels warfare throughout the world.
• No to Canada’s military intervention in the neocolonial world, Canada’s sales of military weapons to foreign countries and Canada’s membership in NATO. Slash military spending.
• End foreign exploitation by Canadian extractive corporations and banks.
• Take the profit out of energy. End subsidies to polluting and environmentally-damaging companies. Public ownership of the top energy companies to protect jobs and convert them to clean energy.
• Take into public ownership the commanding heights of the economy — energy, resources, telecommunications, transportation, banking and financial institutions. These and all other public services to be run under democratic control and management of workers, users and communities. Compensate small investors, not millionaires, on the basis of proven need.
• For international solidarity and collaboration among workers’ movements.
• An international socialist transformation that lays the foundation for the democratic planning of society in the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the environment.
• Global struggle for socialism — become a member of Socialist Alternative.