Webinar: The Rise of Authoritarianism and Hyper-Imperialism

Almost a quarter of a way into the 21st century, a new kind of right wing has emerged with leaders like Trump in the US, Erdogan in Turkey, Orban in Hungary, and Modi in India exerting dominance in the arenas of culture, society, ideology, and economy. This right wing is not necessarily concerned with overthrowing the norms of liberal democracy, nor does liberalism provide a shield against this new far right. Fascism is no longer a sufficient term, since it denies the intimacy between liberal and far right forces that we witness today.

At the same time, through provocations and threats, and the arming of Ukraine against the military incursion of Russia, the US has found the excuses it needed to expand NATO and subordinate almost all of Europe in the Global North, and in the Global South, banking on the provocations towards China in the South Seas and Taiwan, to expand NATO and its own military might in countries ranging from the Philippines to Australia to Argentina. In the Middle East, the United States also is coming near to completing its plans of hegemony with the arming of Israel in its campaign of genocide against Gaza/Palestine and threat of regional war throughout the Middle East.

As Vijay Prashad writes, it is a qualitative change within the imperialist system. The US is now approaching completion of its economic, political, and military consolidation into an integrated and militarily focused imperialist bloc. It aims to maintain a grip on the Global South as a whole and has turned its attention to dominating Eurasia, the last area of the world that has escaped its control.

Vijay Prashad, executive director of the Tricontinental Institute, is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power, written with Noam Chomsky. He is the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi).