No Cold War Statement on the War Without End

The capitalist United States has imposed war upon war on the planet for over 90% of its existence since 1776 – only pausing for a few years in its early period. Almost all these wars have been wars of choice, often taking place very far from the US mainland (the wars in the Philippines and Vietnam took place 13,000 km away). These wars resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of civilians, with horrendous weaponry used (including nuclear bombs in Japan and chemical weapons in Vietnam and Iraq). Forty-five men have been president of the United States. All of them have entangled their country in a foreign war or a war against people on the land being settled, particularly Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and immigrants. This belligerent habit has discarded US law (particularly the War Powers Resolution of 1973) and, by default, has permitted US presidents to use their massive military power against the planet.

This pattern is evident in the current conjuncture. In 2026, US President Donald Trump deepened or initiated five major conflicts on the planet. Three of them are being conducted alongside the government of Israel, which operates in a twinned manner with the United States government, alongside European countries that provide diplomatic support and weaponry. Each of these wars violates the United Nations Charter, making them illegal acts that should receive condemnation in the UN Security Council; all of them are wars of aggression, which means that the person who authorised them is a war criminal.

1. Venezuela. On 3 January 2026, United States violated Article 2 of the UN Charter when it invaded a member state of the UN, kidnapped its sitting president, and forced the country to submit to demands devised by the United States government.
2. Cuba. The United States has conducted an illegal economic blockade of Cuba since 1960, violating Article 41 of the UN Charter that only permits third-party sanctions to be imposed with a UN Security Council resolution (of which there has been none). This blockade was deepened on 29 January 2026, when Trump forbade any third country from providing oil to Cuba, forcing the country to survive on about a third of its energy supply.
3. Iran. On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel, in violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter, began a barrage of attacks on Iran, killing civilians with abandon and destroying infrastructure across the country, as well as assassinating the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. These attacks come less than a year after the United States and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear energy facilities over twelve days in June 2025. The recent bombings provoked retaliation from Iran against US military bases that are less shields for Iran’s neighbours and more targets. The war has led to the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has resulted in a major fuel and food catastrophe across the world.
4. Lebanon. Taking advantage of the war on Iran, Israel has been ruthlessly bombing the south of Lebanon and its capital, Beirut, in violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter. A fifth of the population has been displaced, and thousands of civilians have been killed and wounded.
5. Palestine. As part of the unending and brutal genocide against the Palestinians, despite the ceasefire, Israel has attacked the cities in Gaza repeatedly and has been confiscating land in the Occupied West Bank as well as removing Palestinians from the area in violation of several UN resolutions on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

These five wars are related to each other, being part of the US-driven imperialism that has begun to shape the planet (we are aware of other wars, in Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine, for example, but those will be for another statement). Unable to drive an agenda to recover its declined economic power and the rise of the Global South (particularly China), the United States has shifted its focus to its military force. But even here, the United States finds that it can destroy infrastructure and kill civilians, but it cannot seem to subdue nations politically. Each of these countries stands tall. None of them are willing to surrender.

Despair and demoralisation are not to be the mood of the world’s people. From Cuba to Palestine, those who are being fired upon fight back with everything they have at their disposal. They require the world to stand with them and not to be despondent. They require condemnation of US imperialism, and they require that we never treat such violence as normal. These wars appear to be without end. But they will end. The human spirit is far too strong to be vanquished by tormentors. It uses every avenue to refuse a world in which this history of war without end determines our future.