House of Lords lays out plans to make UK fully war ready

Chris Marsden

The House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee has issued its report, “Ukraine: a wake-up call”. Published September 26, it proposes measures by which the UK and Europe can take the additional steps needed to take on “Putin’s Russia” and its ally, China.

It cites the war in Ukraine as an “illegal and unprovoked invasion” that is supposedly a product of a failed deterrence strategy, rather than deliberate provocation by the NATO powers. The committee then warns that “our Armed Forces lack the mass, resilience and internal coherence necessary to maintain a deterrent effect and sustain prolonged conflict” [emphasis added].

Lord De Mauley, who chairs the committee, welcomes the incoming Labour government under Keir Starmer’s promised Strategic Defence Review, but insists that the government “must commit to spending more on defence and spending better.”

Noting that Labour has not yet committed to increasing military spending to 2.5 percent of GDP, the committee makes clear that even doing this is not enough. What is required is an increase in “Army size and readiness”, a plan for “Homeland defence” to prevent Russia targeting “critical national infrastructure”, “Defence industry preparedness” requiring an end to “years of underinvestment” and “Public engagement” in national defence, learning from models like the Scandinavian “total defence” approach.

Ukraine: a wake-up call [Photo: House of Lords]

The report proposes a global effort to “counter Russian (and Chinese) influence”, especially in the Global South. It invokes the need for European security, welcoming Sweden and Finland assuming NATO membership. But this is declared inadequate given “a geopolitical shift, with China, Iran and North Korea providing support to Russia, thus raising the prospect of increased collaboration between countries who are in competition with or outright hostile towards the international order and the West.”

Under the designation “global insecurity” the report identifies the war in Ukraine, “Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel and the war in Gaza (which could yet spill over into a wider regional conflict)” alongside “China’s assertive behaviour in the South China Sea”.

The Lords’ report complains: “President Putin has been given, until recently, free rein to control the escalation narrative by invoking the spectre of nuclear war” and “attempt to divide NATO and deter Western support for Ukraine.” This, the report states, is not “just empty rhetoric,” but must be met not by retreats but re-establishing “credible deterrence in the UK and across Europe. This includes both nuclear and conventional deterrence.”

Under the heading “Building Mass”, the report leads with the imperative for the ruling class to increase the size of the British Army. Decades of defence cuts have reduced the army to under 73,000 troops, with plans “not reversed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… While size is not the only measure of capability, we are concerned that the Army cannot, as currently constituted, make the expected troop contribution to NATO. We therefore question whether the British Army is prepared to meet the growing threat posed by Russia to European security.”

The report calls for “involving the whole of society in the UK’s security and defence, given the heightened threat environment.”

Politicians and military figures must avoid mention of conscription as a part of this process due to its arousing popular opposition, “which happened to the former head of the British Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, when he introduced the idea of a ‘citizen army’ in January 2024.”

An alternative model is provided by Finland and Sweden’s concept of “total defence”—'which involves all sectors of the government, the economy and civilian population in defence planning” and is “well embedded in the national psyche.”

“Finland, for example, has a small regular armed force, but can mobilise a large number of troops quickly due to its comprehensive national defence strategy, which includes significant civilian involvement, including from a large pool of reserves… Sweden has a wide range of voluntary defence organisations linked to this effort.”

Mobilising the civilian population involves proselytising for “the emotional aspects of national defence.

Calling for strengthening “the defence-industrial complex”, the report states: “A resilient industrial base underpins Defence’s credibility as a fighting force. Our evidence consistently showed that the UK’s defence industry is unprepared for high-intensity, prolonged conflict due to decades of budget cuts and reduced industrial capacity since the end of the Cold War.”

The production of munitions must be massively scaled up, with the report citing “an eight-fold increase in artillery ammunition by BAE Systems” but complaining that this was “from a low base”. A key area for stepped-up production is of “high-end weapons”, insisting that “precision-guided munitions and advanced drones offer significant advantages in terms of accuracy and effectiveness.” In Crimea what really “made a difference” were “British Storm Shadow and French SCALP cruise missiles”.

Among other measures to strengthen the armed forces is the chilling recommendation that “While the UK does have a maritime missile capability in the Tomahawk land attack cruise missile, further investment is required to enable the Royal Navy to be deployed offensively and better project lethality.”

There is an extended section on the need for military cooperation with Europe post-Brexit, but also with non-EU allies such as Japan and South Korea. This appeal is made citing Russia’s relations with Iran and North Korea, but above all “the role of China as a key decisive enabler of Russia”.

The report warns that those abstaining on UN resolutions against Russia “were countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia—i.e. within what is often referred to as the ‘Global South’.”

It rails against Russia’s exploiting “grievances against the West” and relying on “the Soviet Union’s historical support for decolonisation to forge closer partnerships” as a narrative that “resonates particularly in Africa and Asia, where the central story explaining the past couple of centuries is the struggle of national liberation against colonial power and exploitation.” It cites Russia’s new Foreign Policy Concept, adopted in March 2023, for devoting “a distinct section to Africa for the first time and talks about a polycentric world in opposition to Western ‘neo-colonialism’. Moscow also hosted its first Russia-Latin America conference last year.”

But the chief concern is clearly “the deepening Sino-Russian relationship,” with Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping declaring that “their countries’ friendship had ‘no limits’ and there were ‘no ‘forbidden’ areas of co-operation’. The war has only brought these two countries closer together, particularly in the economic sphere… hitting record levels in each year since the invasion of Ukraine.”

The UK warmongers are pleased that “The threat of an increasingly prominent Sino-Russian strategic alignment has been recognised by NATO members. In a NATO communiqué published at the Washington Summit in early July 2024, member countries labelled China a ‘decisive enabler’ of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its ‘no-limits partnership’ with Russia and its large-scale support for Russia’s defence industrial base.”

The committee boasts that the UK has pledged £12.7 billion in support to Ukraine, of which £7.6 billion is in military assistance, and has provided “both lethal and non-lethal weaponry, including tanks, air defence systems and long-range precision strike missiles” as well as training “close to 40,000 Ukrainian troops.”

Various examples are cited of military cooperation with Europe, but this is not seen as enough.

The great fear of the British imperialist ruling class is that the US “is increasingly pivoting to the Indo-Pacific to counter its main competitor, China,” raising concerns of a pivot away from Europe “at a time when war has returned to the continent. There are also uncertainties over what a potential Trump or Trumpian administration would mean for European security, with fears it could result in disengagement and embolden Russia. Questions on US support extend beyond the situation in Ukraine, with broader implications for the future of the [NATO] Alliance.”

Refocusing the UK’s security priorities towards Europe “has acquired a new urgency to mitigate against the risk of a less Europe-focused US—In the very early days of this Government, the new Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon David Lammy MP, met with key European counterparts in Germany, Poland and Sweden. Prime Minister Keir Starmer made rapprochement with Europe a priority at both the European Political Community Meeting in Oxfordshire and at the NATO Summit in Washington. At the NATO Summit, President Joe Biden welcomed Starmer’s intention to establish closer relationships with Europe.”

There is praise in this regard for the Joint Expeditionary Force, the coalition of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, led by the UK, focused on “security in the High North, North Atlantic, and Baltic Sea region” which is designed to “complement NATO”.

But a far more drastic turn may be necessary as part of developing “a comprehensive strategy that takes account of the potential for a deepening Sino-Russian relationship, particularly in critical areas for UK security, such as the Arctic…

“The United States has long been a cornerstone of European security, but it is also reasonable to expect a gradual shifting of US priorities, regardless of the outcome of the forthcoming US election. The trajectory of a re-focus towards the Indo-Pacific region is clear. As we continue to rely on the vital yet evolving partnership with the US, the Government and its European allies must visibly increase their preparedness by committing more resources—both human and financial—towards our collective security.”

Rival factions of MAS ruling party clash in Bolivia

Andrea Lobo

Nearly five years after being overthrown by a US-backed military coup in 2019, former Bolivian President Evo Morales marched into the capital of La Paz with thousands of supporters last Monday demanding the resignation of President Luis Arce, his hand-picked successor and former economy minister. 

Evo Morales and Luis Arce [Photo: comunicacion.gob.bo]

The march took seven days to cross 120 miles along the main Andean highway from the small town of Caracollo. Crowds of goons deployed by the Arce government clashed with the pro-Morales march when it attempted to invade the headquarters of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB), the main union federation. Anti-riot police then used tear gas to disperse the crowds. 

The last time Morales led a similar march was in late 2021 to defend Arce against renewed threats by the far-right in response to the arrest of the leaders of the 2019 coup. 

A rift first opened between the two in late 2021, at least in public, over the control of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. After a court ruled last December that Morales is not allowed to run for reelection, the conflict escalated, and his supporters began organizing widespread roadblocks and mass rallies.

Then, in late June, the head of the military at the time, Gen. Juan José Zúñiga threatened to arrest Evo Morales for seeking another term. After Arce demoted him, Zúñiga attacked the government palace on June 26 with hundreds of soldiers and a few armored vehicles in an abortive attempt to overthrow the government. The mutineers demanded the liberation of the 2019 coup leaders, exposing their alignment with the fascistic right and Washington.

Initially, Morales called for a mobilization to halt what he described as an attempt to overthrow Arce. But soon after the military riot failed, he claimed that Arce had staged a “self-coup” to gain popularity. 

Morales argues that Arce has failed to resolve the deepening economic crisis and should hand over power. 

However, the implosion of the MAS sums up the failure of not only MAS, but the entire so-called “pink tide” movement of bourgeois nationalist governments across Latin America to resolve the region’s historic economic and social backwardness and unite any country, much less the region, against imperialist oppression.

The government claims that Morales hopes to provoke another coup to install the pro-Morales chair of the Senate, Andrónico Rodríguez, as interim President and allow Morales to run in snap elections. Currently, the next presidential elections are not scheduled until August 2025. 

Judicial elections, including for the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, on December 1 could also result in the election of judges that will favor Morales’s candidacy. Finally, a national referendum on the question of re-election announced by Arce has now been indefinitely suspended.

For months, the Bolivian public has been bombarded with threats exchanged between the two factions of MAS, round-the-clock coverage by the corporate media, and an alignment of the union bureaucracy behind one or another faction of the ruling capitalist party. 

The thrust of this conflict has been to step in front of any independent intervention of the working class in the political crisis.

On Friday, the leaders of the pro-Morales camp, which includes sections of the union bureaucracy and peasant leaderships, announced that major national roadblocks planned for September 30 would not take place, feigning concern about its effects on the poor and about the need to fight wildfires. 

For its part, the COB leadership has gone from backing the 2019 coup and having bureaucrats join as officials of the far-right regime to becoming the main cheerleaders of the Arce administration. The mining union bureaucracy used its congress on September 20 to appeal to miners, largely unsuccessfully, to mobilize against the “coup attempt” by Morales. 

Earlier this month, COB officials policed the doors of the Congress to intimidate pro-Morales and other legislators into voting in favor of $140 million in new loans from the international banks.  

Each faction of MAS is focused on demonstrating to different sectors of the ruling class and their partners among the imperialist and other major international powers that they are the most reliable enforcers of their interests. 

This boils down to their ability to suppress the class struggle and implement social austerity and a major economic reshuffling amid an escalating economic and military war instigated by US and European imperialism against China, Russia and Iran, all powers with close ties to both factions of MAS.   

Strikes by teachers and protests by garbage collectors in Cochabamba, street cleaners in El Alto and manufacturing workers point to a growing unrest against the increase in the cost of living and rising poverty. 

Significantly, Arce has exploited the pro-Morales mobilizations to impose repressive legislation against roadblocks. Both Morales and Arce have a history of deploying riot police and the military against peaceful worker and peasant protests. 

The inability of the regime under the fascistic coup leader Jeanine Áñez to suppress mass unrest while implementing its economic agenda forced it to call for elections and allow the MAS to return to power in 2020. 

Washington officials have said little about the MAS dispute and have remained laser-focused on building up the far-right political and business elite in the eastern department of Santa Cruz along with its fascistic gangs, which were the main contingent behind the 2019 coup. US imperialism has not abandoned its plans to destabilize Bolivia and install a puppet regime to secure control of the country’s strategic natural resources. 

The US State Department, according to journalist Carlos Fazio, has financed the fascist Santa Cruz legislator Svonko Matkovik, who was jailed for eight years for organizing an armed insurrection for Santa Cruz independence. Meanwhile, the US embassy has also sought to unite the far-right opposition ahead of the scheduled 2025 elections, which could be used for a provocation behind claims of vote fraud, as in Venezuela. 

At the same time, Washington is working closely with the government of fascistic President Javier Milei in Argentina in preparing for military conflict across the region against its rivals. Buenos Aires already launched a bellicose provocation by claiming in April, without any evidence, that Bolivia is hosting hundreds of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. 

The internecine war in the MAS has only further undermined popular support for both factions. Polls show that most Bolivians—the latest by Ipsos found 81 percent—think Morales merely seeks personal gain. Meanwhile, the approval rating for the Arce administration has fallen from 42 percent to 22 percent since January. 

According to pollster Diagnosis, concerns over the economy are primarily responsible, with a positive view of the economic situation dropping dramatically from 43 percent in July 2022 to only 5 percent this month.

Dollar and fuel shortages are regularly cited in the media. Bolivia’s main trade partners in South America have suffered their worst economic decade, while the gas field of the “Southern Sub-Andean basin” that have represented the greatest source of income and foreign reserves for decades are drying up. A new major basin was discovered but questions remain about its real size, profitability and the years it will take to begin production.

International reserves have also plummeted from $15 billion to $1.7 billion, and Bolivia’s public debt is among the fastest growing in the region. With nearly half of public spending going into servicing the debt, global capital is demanding deeper attacks on the limited social programs implemented by Morales when gas prices and production were booming. 

Most importantly, Bolivia has the world’s largest known reserves of lithium, a key ingredient for the batteries that go in electric vehicles and electronics. But a drop in global lithium prices, legislative hurdles and the massive investments needed have prevented production from really taking off. 

The Arce administration has responded to this systemic crisis by enforcing a pact with the main business groups, providing tax and credit incentives, further subsidies, government investments in chemical and other industries, and freedom for exporters and investors to take dollars out of the country. The president has proposed to “relax” regulations in the oil sector to let foreign firms own and exploit larger shares. The government has eroded environmental and other regulatory obstacles to mining and selling gold, whose prices and production have continued to increase.

Regarding lithium, Arce signed an investment deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last June to develop the processing of the mineral, while it has negotiated several mining concessions with Chinese companies. The projects are merely in their pilot phase, however.

The current context presents enormous dangers for workers in Bolivia.

Time and again across Latin America the revolutionary struggles of the working class have been blocked from taking power by leaderships who backed one or another section of the ruling class as more “democratic” or “progressive.” This opened the doors for imperialist-backed fascist coups and regimes that have then crushed the workers movement and left-wing organizations. 

In 1971, the Pabloite Revolutionary Workers Party (POR), which had mass influence in the working class, including in the mining unions, played the most important role in collaboration with the Stalinists in carrying out the most significant betrayal of Bolivian workers. It provided political support for the bourgeois nationalist dictator J.J. Torres and his Popular Assembly, suggesting they could be pressured to fight imperialism. POR leader Guillermo Lora then placed hopes that Torres would arm workers against the threat of the far right, facilitating the coup of fascistic Col. Hugo Banzer Suárez, which launched a regime of mass torture, kidnappings and killings of leftists at the behest of imperialism and the local oligarchy. 

The internecine war between Arce and Morales and the efforts of the union bureaucracy and its Pabloite and Morenoite apologists to promote illusions in the national bourgeoisie threatens to become another catastrophic exercise in politically disarming the working class.

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party wins parliamentary election

Peter Schwarz

The result of last Sunday’s Austrian parliamentary elections followed the same pattern as the elections in Italy in 2022, the Netherlands in 2023, and the German states of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in 2024.

Herbert Kickl, leader of the Freedom Party of Austria, in Vienna, Austria, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, after polls closed in the country's national election. [AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru]

The widespread opposition to the war in Ukraine, falling real wages and social cuts led to a dramatic decline in support for the established parties. Since the trade unions suppress the class struggle and all established parties have adopted the fascist refugee policy of the extreme right, the latter were able to gain ground. Their electoral success is not the result of a right-wing mass movement, but of the rightward shift of the ruling elites.

Five years after being kicked out of the government because of the Ibiza scandal, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) became the strongest party on Sunday with 29.2 percent of the vote. Compared to the 2019 election, the FPÖ gained 13 percentage points. It performed particularly strongly in rural regions and among the generation of 35- to 59-year-olds. Among workers, it scored 50 percent.

The FPÖ has moved further to the right under its new leader Herbert Kickl. The 55-year-old former student of politics and philosophy is close to identitarians who advocate biologically justified racism. He placed the battle cry of “remigration” at the centre of his election campaign and called for the mass deportation of foreigners. The FPÖ election programme was named “Fortress Austria, Fortress of Freedom.” It argued that asylum applications should no longer be approved in Austria at all.

Kickl presented himself as the future “People’s Chancellor”—an allusion to Adolf Hitler—and railed against the “system parties” and against COVID public health measures. At the same time, he opposed further support for Ukraine in the war against Russia.

Kickl has been working for the FPÖ for 30 years and served as a speechwriter and adviser to Jörg Haider, under whom the party swung sharply to the right. From 2017 to 2019, he was Austrian minister of the interior under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (Austrian People’s Party, ÖVP) and made a name for himself with draconian deportations, the rearmament of the police and several scandals.

The ÖVP and the Greens, who have ruled Austria together since the beginning of 2020, suffered record losses on Sunday. The ÖVP fell from 37.5 to 26.5 percent, the Greens from 13.9 to 8 percent.

The main reasons include the high real wage losses and rising poverty due to war-related inflation. Austria has experienced one of the highest inflation rates in Europe in recent years, with prices for rents, food and energy skyrocketing, in particular, putting significant strain on low-income families. In 2023, one in five children in Austria was considered at risk of poverty.

A year ago, a video was published in which Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) mocked poor families and mothers who work part-time. He advised them to work more and eat at McDonald’s. Although this is not healthy, it is “the cheapest hot meal” you can get in Austria, he asserted. The ÖVP defended his statement.

After the FPÖ left the Federal Government, Nehammer took over the Ministry of the Interior from Kickl in 2020 and continued his rigorous deportation policy. At the end of 2021, he then succeeded Sebastian Kurz as chancellor. In the recent election campaign, Nehammer continued to agitate against refugees.

The Greens under Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler, a close confidant of German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, have fully supported the right-wing course of the ÖVP on both the social and refugee issues. 

The Social Democrats (SPÖ), who have held the position of chancellor for 40 years since 1970, achieved the worst election result in their history with 21 percent. Their last chancellor, the business manager Christian Kern, who was voted out in 2017, pursued a brutal austerity policy and drew close to the FPÖ.

In Sunday’s election, the SPÖ ran with Andreas Babler as its lead candidate. The mayor of a small town with 20,000 inhabitants surprisingly replaced Pamela Rendi-Wagner at the head of the SPÖ in the summer of 2023 with a “left” party conference speech. Babler refers to Bruno Kreisky, who opened the era of social democratic chancellors in 1970. During the election campaign, he promised measures against child poverty, a wealth tax for the rich, shorter working hours and easier access to specialist doctors.

But voters were not fooled by the leftist rhetoric. They have long experience with the anti-worker policies of the SPÖ, which also sits in numerous state governments and local administrations, where it also cooperates with the FPÖ.

Forming a new government based on the election result will be difficult. So far, all parties have asserted that they oppose a coalition with the FPÖ under Kickl. However, the ÖVP has not ruled out such a coalition, provided Kickl renounces the chancellery. It would be the sixth such government since 1983, with the ÖVP, as the stronger party, always having nominated the chancellor. In three federal states, the ÖVP already governs together with the FPÖ. It is also possible that Nehammer’s party will replace him with a member who is willing to cooperate with Kickl.

A coalition of the ÖVP and the SPÖ would have a narrow majority of 93 deputies in the new parliament, one more than is necessary for an absolute majority. It would be a coalition of election losers that would immediately provoke enormous resistance. 

A coalition of the ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS is also being discussed. The NEOS, an economically liberal party, which is mainly supported by younger urban voters from the middle class, gained 1 percent and reached 9 percent of the vote.

Transportation unions call for strike in Argentina

Rafael Azul

Seven key transit and transportation unions in Argentina meeting at a National Transportation Conference (Mesa Nacional de Transporte) decided on a 24-hour protest strike against the policies of the Javier Milei administration which, in less than a year, have sunk millions of Argentines into joblessness, hunger and extreme poverty.

Workers protesting in front of Argentina's national Congress against Milei's changing of labor laws. [Photo by Axrg / CC BY-SA 4.0]

At the conference last week were leaders of the truckers, pilots, flight crews, as well as rail, dock, maritime and transit workers.

The protest strike will take place on October 17, an important anniversary in the history of Argentine Peronism. On October 17, 1945, over 100,000 workers rallied in Buenos Aires, demanding that Labor Secretary Juan Peron and his wife Eva be released from military arrest. Nine days earlier the military Junta, that Peron himself had been part of—alarmed over his pro-union and corporatist demagogic policies—placed him under arrest.

Though the conference delegates declared that the choice of date had nothing to do with the October 17 anniversary, they did so with large photographs of Juan and Eva Peron behind them, symbolizing the unions’ subordination to a bourgeois party that provides the fascistic Milei indispensable support.

The protest-strike call was triggered by the proposed privatization of state-owned Aerolíneas Argentinas.

Aerolíneas, a successful airline established as a government airline under Peron in 1949, was privatized in 1990 under the Menem administration (also a Peronist) as part of a neo-liberal wave of privatizations, which turned the debt-free airline into a private corporation managed by Iberia Airlines (Spain). Two years later as a result of mismanagement and corruption, the airline had accumulated debts of $530 million and had to be rescued by the Argentine government through the purchase of shares of stock. In 2008 heavily in debt and on the edge of bankruptcy, the airline was re-nationalized under the (Peronist) administration of Cristina Kirchner, to be run as a public utility and in large part, based on the sacrifices of its workers.

The privatization of Aerolíneas Argentinas was part of the government’s policy of privatizing every possible public enterprise. This was seconded by Transportation Secretary Franco Mogetta, who called on Congress to approve a decree to be formalized this week, in order to “force Aerolíneas Argentinas to submit to the dictates of the market, and function like all the other airlines.”

On September 27, the Milei administration declared its intentions to privatize the airline once again by transforming it into a privately owned corporation. The privatization of the airline had been originally included in, and then removed from, the Law of Bases legislation (also known as the “Omnibus Bill”) approved by Congress earlier this year.

In its message motivating the decree Milei indicated that in a nation with a poverty rate of 52.9 percent, “it is irresponsible and inadmissible for the State to keep financing the deficit [of the airline] and the privileges of a few by taxing those that cannot make it to the end of the month.”

Specifically, the Milei administration identifies the “privileged few” as the supposedly overpaid pilots of the airline.  

The president’s message contrasted the hunger wages and pensions of the working class of the country with the wages and benefits of pilots. “Monthly pilots’ wages range from US$2400 to US$8000 … family members and friends enjoy free tickets.”

In this way, the government, which has broken off negotiations with the pilots’ union, is attempting to pit the more oppressed sections of the working class against the pilots.

Manuel Adorni, Milei’s press secretary, denounced the fact that the airline employs 15 pilots per airplane, which he considers “absolutely unnecessary.” 

Currently the airline flies 11 million passengers a year on 95,000 flights. It is the only airline serving 22 cities in the country’s interior.

Nothing in the Decree message acknowledges that the conditions of poverty that affect millions of  workers and retirees in Argentina today are the direct consequence of Milei’s brutal austerity policies. These policies have included the removal of food entitlements and the cancellation of wage and pension increases to keep up with the increase in the cost of living, including food, fuel, medical care, child care and housing (the Total Basics Basket, Canasta Basica Total, CBT).

Recent statistics indicate that Argentina’s poverty rate among households living below the CBT in the first semester of 2024 reached 52.9 percent, the highest in 20 years, a 13 percent increase since Milei took power. The level of indigence, those households unable to afford the Basic Food Basket (Canasta Basica Alimentaria, CBA), stands at 18.1 percent, up from 6.2 percent in the first semester of 2023. For children under the age of 14, the figures are even more alarming—with 66 percent, or 6.9 million, now living in poverty and 27 percent indigent, or over 3 million children, unable to afford the most basic necessities of life, condemned to a life of hunger, with little or no education.

This month, municipal surveyors in the industrial and port city of Rosario (population 1.4 million) reported a 40 percent increase in the number of people scavenging garbage [cartoneros] in Rosario’s city center. Nationally over 150,000 workers live off the collection of cardboard and other materials, an occupation that did not exist prior to 2001, a mark of poverty which increases every year. Cartonero workers, many of whom are homeless, report that the recycling firms that buy their recyclable trash have cut down on the amount that they pay. Currently, each collector earns less than half of the minimum average daily wage.

Two new studies on mucosal vaccines and Long COVID underscore the criminality of the “forever COVID” policy

Benjamin Mateus

The ninth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is finally receding, with estimated daily new infections based on wastewater data now standing at 669,000 per day, down from the August peaks of over 1.3 million. However, experts predict that the tenth wave will begin in late fall and continue through the winter holidays, as has taken place every year of the pandemic so far.

COVID-19 wastewater levels in the United States indicating that 669,000 Americans continue to be infected every day [Photo by PMC, Michael Hoerger]

With one in 70 individuals currently infectious, the risk of coming into contact with someone in a classroom, work, or dining at a local facility with 25 to 50 people is considerable. And despite the relative lull in cases, there is more COVID-19 transmission now than during 56.1 percent of the pandemic. In other words, the “forever COVID” policy essentially means that COVID is now everywhere all the time.

Under these conditions, forced upon society by the capitalist ruling class, repeat infections act like a battering ram, taking a growing toll on the foundation of everyone’s overall wellbeing. There is a growing body of evidence that each hit weakens the organ systems, aging them biologically beyond the person’s stated age until sufficient injury begins to manifest in physically measurable symptoms.

At present, more than one billion cumulative COVID infections have occurred in the US, at a rate of around one per year per person, with somewhere between 3-4 infections on average among the entire population. Estimates place the number of Long COVID cases at over 410 million globally in just the first four years of the pandemic, while excess deaths are nearing 30 million.

Clearly, the pandemic is ongoing and remains a significant health risk for the global population. The criminality of the “forever COVID” policy is highlighted by the fact that virtually no funding is allocated to the development of next-generation mucosal vaccines, improved treatments during the acute phase of infection, or any treatments for Long COVID patients. While trillions are squandered on war and bank bailouts for the rich, nothing is provided for critical life-saving research.

Last week, results from the first clinical trial of a mucosal vaccine were released, showing remarkable levels of efficacy after a second dose.

The important study published by Chinese investigators demonstrated that an intranasally administered anti-COVID vaccine can induce robust mucosal immunity against the coronavirus in human subjects (128 healthcare workers). The study found that the vaccine provided substantial immune protection against COVID while demonstrating safety and tolerance.

Esteemed clinical researcher Dr. Eric Topol wrote on Twitter/X, “[two] doses of a COVID nasal vaccine spray led to more than a 50-fold increase in spike specific secretory IgA antibodies against 10 strains of SARS-CoV-2, indicative of potent mucosal immunity.” Furthermore, Topol added, “At least 86.2 percent of participants who completed two nasal vaccines doses maintained uninfected status, likely without even asymptomatic infection, for at least three months.”

Emergency room physician and indoor air quality proponent, Dr. Kashif Pirzada, replied, “This could potentially give a real ending to the pandemic. No more waves of illness, no more rushing for tests and antivirals if you’re elderly or vulnerable. Hope this comes out soon!”

However, large Phase 3 clinical trials are costly, requiring multiple participants to obtain statistically relevant information on clinical endpoints, not to speak of the research and development investment to identify a therapeutic that can be tested. Thus, under capitalism, there is virtually no investment in these large-scale trials and nothing is being done beyond offering boosters of the current vaccine, despite their greatly reduced efficacy in preventing transmission.

The mucosal vaccine study was conducted just as Chinese officials acquiesced to the demands of the imperialist powers to abandon their life-saving Zero-COVID public health program, resulting in the infection of virtually the entire population and the deaths of 1-2 million people. What could such a vaccine have meant to these millions that perished needlessly and the millions more globally since then?

This raises the broader question of why the international community, facing a devastating pandemic, could not bring its accumulated scientific bodies to address the need to develop a preventative treatment against COVID?

As a trigger event in world history, the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated and exposed the deep-seated contradictions in global capitalism, which demands the accumulation of profits at any costs. The ruling class has nothing but contempt for workers, refusing to invest in any social programs that can improve the lives of masses of people. Short sightedness, corruption, mistrust, and suspicion epitomize their actions, which are rapidly progressing to a world conflagration carrying the danger of nuclear war.

Simply put, the ruling class cares not one iota about mucosal vaccines, just as they harbor resentment against any public health policy that infringes on their ability to conduct business.

Refusing to invest in these life-saving technologies, the capitalist ruling class has condemned humanity to face a lifetime of reinfections with COVID-19. What are the implications of this criminal policy?

Multiple previous studies have highlighted the dangers posed by reinfections with SARS-CoV-2. A recent study uploaded as a pre-print publication on Research Square (under review with the journal Nature Portfolio) by the Patient-Led Collaborative has once again found similar results when attempting to characterize the association between reinfections and the chronic debilitating condition known as Long COVID.

Among 3,382 participants (22 percent never had COVID, 42 percent with one prior infection and 35 percent with two or more infections), the risk of Long COVID was 2.14 times more likely among those with two COVID infections and 3.75 times more likely among those who had three or more COVID Infections compared to just one. Limitations in physical functioning measured in their study included ability to dress, bathe, perform moderate activities like vacuuming and functioning socially. Reinfections led to poorer overall health and worse immune health, including more severe outcomes and longer recovery from other infections.

As the authors wrote:

Relative to those who did not report infections or experienced COVID-19 once, reinfections were associated with increased likelihood of severe fatigue, post-exertional malaise, decreased physical function, poorer immune health, symptom exacerbation before menstruation, and multiple other Long COVID symptoms. While vaccinations and boosters prior to infection are associated with lower likelihood of Long COVID, reinfections diminish their protective effect. The probability of reporting Long COVID remission is generally low (11.5 percent to 6.5 percent).

Fatigue Severity Scale and Post-Exertional Malaise probability as a function of the number of infections compared to no prior infections. [Photo by Patient-Led Research Collaborative / CC BY 4.0]

Another interesting finding of the study, which underscores the complete abandonment of public health efforts regarding COVID, is that a tiny number of those infected were prescribed antivirals during their acute COVID infections. Those with reinfections were also less likely to test, as the “forever COVID” policy has inured people from taking any protective measures to prevent infections.

The current alphabet soup of COVID strains is sees KP.3.1.1 dominate across the US and Europe, accounting for nearly 60 percent of all strains. However, a new variant known as XEC that was first detected in Germany in June has spread to more than 27 countries and accounts for six percent of all recently sequenced SARS-CoV-2 viruses in the US. Virologists expect this strain, derived from JN.1 through a complex recombination event and which has nearly twice the growth advantage, to overtake KP.3.1.1 and be the dominant variant during the winter season.

Variant proportions in the US [Photo: CDC]

In a COVID update by TACT [Together Against COVID Transmission], the authors explain the dangers posed by these evolutionary developments of the SARS-CoV-2 viruses, writing:

These variants can evade much of the immune responses from both vaccines and recent infections. Since they can evade antibodies to earlier variants, then that raises the risk of organ damage, vascular and neurological dysfunction, brain damage, and persistent infections which often leads to Long COVID. The unmitigated spread is raising concerns about their impact in the coming months.

Hospitalization rates for those 65 years and older and children were one of the highest during the summer from COVID and remain on par with the prior year’s summer/fall wave. The number of people that died from COVID In the week ending August 31, 2024, has climbed to 1,239, four times higher than the lows seen in June. At the present rate, it is expected that at least 60,000 people will officially lose their lives from acute COVID this year, not including deaths incorrectly attributed to another cause or due to the impact on the population’s health from accumulated infections.

These are not incidental and speculative issues. In a provocative report released by the Swiss Re Group, titled “The future of excess mortality after COVID-19,” one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance and insurance, who specialize in financing the risk of death, they said, “[If] the ongoing impact of the disease is not curtailed, excess mortality rates in the general population may remain up to three percent higher then pre-pandemic levels in the US and 2.5 percent in the UK by 2033.”

They advised their investors:

Based on current medical trends and expected advancements, we conclude that COVID-19 is still driving excess mortality both directly and indirectly. In the long term, lifestyle factors that contribute to poor metabolic health and lead to obesity and diabetes may become another compounding factor in population excess mortality. Insurers may wish to continue to monitor excess mortality and its underlying drivers in the general population closely, as well as the differences between general and insured populations.

Israel launches ground operations in Lebanon amid ongoing air bombardment

Jordan Shilton

The Israeli military launched its ground incursion into southern Lebanon early Tuesday morning. While Israeli officials claimed that ground operations would be limited in scope, scale and duration, the claims are no more believable in the case of Lebanon than in Gaza.

Underscoring the central involvement of American imperialism in the escalating region-wide war, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington is in “continuous conversation” with the Israeli military about its invasion, while public broadcaster Kan referred to “intensive coordination” between Israel and the US on how to deal with an Iranian attack.

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. [AP Photo/Hussein Malla]

Reuters reported late Monday that Lebanese army units were seen leaving positions on the Lebanon-Israel border and were retreating 5 kilometres inside Lebanese territory. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) announced a “closed military zone” encompassing several northern communities along the border, emphasising that entering the area was forbidden. An official told the Times of Israel that one goal of the operation would be to eliminate Hezbollah positions along the border. A meeting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet later Monday decided to proceed with the operation.

Heavy shelling and air strikes targeted several locations along the border. The IDF ordered residents in Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut and a traditional Hezbollah stronghold, to leave their homes. Shortly afterwards, major explosions were heard as at least eight strikes occurred shortly after midnight Tuesday morning, according to Lebanese news agency NNA, destroying several residential buildings.

The invasion of southern Lebanon follows a weekend of unrestrained violence by the Zionist regime, including the massacring of hundreds of civilians in air strikes across the country. The targeted assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah Friday claimed some 300 civilian lives, as six multi-story buildings were flattened in Beirut’s southern suburbs. In the 24 hours to Monday, 136 people were reportedly killed by Israeli strikes. The intensive bombing, which included the first strike on central Beirut Sunday night, has forced some 100,000 people to flee to neighbouring Syria, where a fratricidal conflict stoked by US imperialism for over a decade is ongoing.

Israel also struck the ports of Hodeidah and Ras Issa in Yemen, some 2,000 kilometres from its border, Sunday. The strikes, which targeted power plants and facilities used by the Houthis to import oil, killed six people and injured 57.

While Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets into northern Israel, the sustained attacks of the past two weeks appear to have seriously undermined its capabilities. Brussels-based military analyst Elijah Magnier told Al Jazeera that Israel has struck at least 3,000 to 3,500 Hezbollah missile units. “There are thousands of Hezbollah operatives who’ve lost their hands or their eyesight, and they’ve been evacuated to hospitals in Syria and Iran. Therefore, these fighters are out of the equation and can no longer participate in any potential war,” he added, referring to the consequences of Israel’s terrorist attack on September 17, when hundreds of communication devices exploded. In addition to Nasrallah, dozens of top Hezbollah commanders have been murdered.

In an indication of the indiscriminate character of the onslaught, akin to the ongoing slaughter of the Palestinians in Gaza, 14 Lebanese paramedics were killed in two days of bombing up to Sunday. On Monday, the health ministry reported the deaths of a further six paramedics in renewed air strikes.

Asked at a press briefing about the reports of a ground invasion, Miller confirmed US imperialism’s intimate involvement in the major escalation of the war. “They have informed us about a number of operations,” said Miller, referring to Israel. “They have at this time, told us that those are limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border, but we’re in continuous conversations about it.” With breathtaking cynicism, he added, “Military pressure can at times enable diplomacy.”

Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Antony Blinken became the latest US official to revel in the mass slaughter, hailing the assassination of Nasrallah. The Hezbollah leader was a “brutal terrorist” and “the region, the world are safer without him,” he said.

Behind the bogus public statements about a “limited” operation, Israel’s far-right regime is clearly launching a massive offensive to revenge the setback it suffered during the month-long 2006 war on Lebanon, when Hezbollah mobilised broad popular support against an IDF invasion. The United Nations confirmed that its 10,000-strong UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was tasked with monitoring the ceasefire agreement that brought the 2006 war to an end, was no longer in a position to carry out patrols due to the intensity of fighting.

Speaking to troops in northern Israel, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who infamously labelled Gaza residents as “human animals” as Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians began, declared, “the elimination of Nasrallah is a very important step, but it is not everything.

“We will use all the capabilities we have. If someone on the other side did not understand what the capabilities mean, it is all capabilities, and you are part of this effort.”

Netanyahu’s far-right regime intends to annex parts of Lebanon, alongside Gaza and the West Bank, as part of its US-backed drive to restructure the entire Middle East. Netanyahu and other leading officials have bluntly laid out this agenda, including in speeches to the US Congress in July and UN General Assembly last week.

Israel’s aggressive expansion of the conflict, which is rapidly assuming the dimensions of a Middle East-wide war, is made possible by the unflinching support it enjoys from US imperialism. As the World Socialist Web Site explained within days of Israel launching its destruction of Gaza, Washington endorsed the genocide because it viewed it as a critical component of the preparations for a region-wide war with Iran. In an October 23, 2023 Perspective column taking note of the US surging of troops and naval vessels to the region following the commencement of Israel’s assault on Gaza, the WSWS wrote,

The Biden administration is escalating the war in the Middle East and threatening to directly attack Iran as part of what it sees as a globe-spanning conflict for world hegemony, stretching from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and the Pacific. American imperialism, confronted with the economic rise of China and the global decline of the US economy, sees war as the means to assert world domination.

Over the past year, Washington has supplied billions of dollars in weaponry to Israel, including the 2,000-pound bombs that have turned Gaza into a wasteland and are now devastating Beirut and southern and eastern Lebanon.

The Pentagon announced Monday that Washington will send “a few thousand” more US troops to the region, increasing the number of US soldiers in the Middle East to 43,000, according to the AP. The bulk of the new forces consist of squadrons of fighter jets and attack aircraft. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated Sunday that he had extended the deployment by a month of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East. A second aircraft carrier strike group, the USS Harry Truman, recently departed from Virginia and is expected to arrive in the region in a week.

With their repeated escalatory actions, Israel and its US paymaster are attempting to goad Iran into some sort of response, which can then be used to launch a vicious attack on Tehran. Already this year, Israel assassinated seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members in Damascus and humiliated Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime by killing Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was visiting Tehran as a guest at the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. For their part, the Iranian regime and its bourgeois-nationalist allies throughout the region have nothing to offer in the face of this imperialist-led onslaught, other than vain pleas for an accommodation with the imperialist powers.