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Core Argument

Against The Stream · 2025-01-09

The central thesis is that Donald Trump's second presidency represents a strategic recognition within a faction of the American ruling class that US imperialism can no longer maintain its post-Cold War position of global dominance. Trump's apparent "madness" — the threats toward Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, and Mexico — contains a coherent method: the United States must retrench behind its natural borders, abandon its global commitments (particularly in Europe and Ukraine), and consolidate a hemispheric sphere of influence akin to the Monroe Doctrine era. This is not a retreat from imperialism but a strategic reconfiguration of it.

Woods argues that the Biden administration's final months represent the dying convulsions of the opposing faction — those who refuse to accept American decline and instead attempt to provoke a wider war with Russia, dragging Europe into a conflict already lost. The struggle between these two wings is not a contest between good and bad imperialism but a genuine strategic division within the ruling class over how to manage the transition from unipolar to multipolar capitalism.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on the Leninist theory of imperialism as developed in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, particularly the understanding that the world is returning to a condition of inter-imperialist rivalry more characteristic of the period before 1914 than the post-1945 era of US hegemony. Woods explicitly invokes this comparison, arguing that the "rules-based international order" is merely a euphemism for American diktat, and that its collapse reveals the underlying reality of competing imperialist powers.

The argument also deploys a classical Marxist understanding of the state as an instrument of class rule, but with a nuanced appreciation of fractions within the ruling class. The Biden-Trump conflict is presented not as a clash of principles but as a contest between two strategies for preserving US imperialism under conditions of relative decline. This is consistent with the Trotskyist tradition's emphasis on analysing the internal contradictions of the ruling class without falling into liberal framings of "democracy versus authoritarianism."

Woods also draws on Trotsky's 1923 prediction that the centre of world history would shift from the Atlantic to the Pacific, arguing that this has now been realised and that Europe — particularly Britain — has become strategically peripheral to US interests.

Conjunctural Relevance

The episode is situated in the immediate aftermath of Trump's congressional certification on 7 January 2025, and addresses several concrete developments:

Ukraine: Woods argues the war is definitively lost for Ukraine and that no amount of additional Western arms can change this. He characterises Biden's lame-duck escalation — including authorising missile strikes into Russian territory and cutting off Russian gas to Europe — as a deliberate attempt to provoke a direct NATO-Russia confrontation that would tie Trump's hands. The economic consequences for Europe are already visible: German industrial output down 20%, British chemicals production down by more than a third, and the destruction of Nord Stream (which Woods attributes to the US) accelerating deindustrialisation.

Syria: The collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024 is presented as a US-orchestrated operation, with evidence that American mercenary forces were prepared weeks in advance. Woods argues this destabilises the region further, brings Turkey and Israel into potential conflict, and does not serve Israeli or American strategic interests — it is the reckless act of a faction unwilling to accept limits.

Iran: Woods identifies Iran as the next target, noting G7 discussions about making Iran the "main enemy" in 2025. He warns that a US or Israeli war on Iran would be qualitatively different from previous Middle Eastern conflicts, given Iran's military capacity, the likelihood of Russian backing (a mutual assistance treaty is due to be signed in January 2025), and the potential for Chinese involvement. The Iranian population, despite internal discontent, would rally against foreign aggression.

Europe: The European ruling class is portrayed as trapped and intellectually bankrupt, having sacrificed its own industrial base and energy security to serve American strategic interests. Trump's backing of far-right parties (Meloni, AfD) is interpreted as a weapon against the European establishment that opposed his election.

Economic nationalism: Woods identifies the end of globalisation and the rise of trade wars, tariffs, and economic nationalism as the dominant tendency, predicting intensified economic crisis, unemployment, and class struggle.

Where the Argument Continues

The episode deliberately leaves open several questions that are developed elsewhere in the corpus:

The nature of the post-American world order: Woods sketches a multipolar world but does not fully elaborate its dynamics. The Spectre of Communism series on the rise of China and the BRICS provides deeper analysis of how these powers relate to each other and to the declining US hegemon.

The internal dynamics of the American ruling class: The episode identifies two wings but does not map their social basis — which sections of capital back which strategy, and how the conflict will resolve. Earlier Against the Stream episodes on the 2024 election and the Biden administration's internal crises develop this.

The revolutionary perspective: Woods ends by stating that inter-imperialist rivalry will produce war, economic crisis, and ultimately revolution, but does not develop the strategic conclusions for the revolutionary movement. This is the subject of the RCI's broader theoretical output, particularly the writings on the transitional programme and the tasks of communists in the current conjuncture.

The specific situation in Britain: Woods dismisses Britain as "an unimportant little island off the coast of Europe" but does not analyse the implications for the British ruling class or the British working class. Other Against the Stream episodes on the British political crisis develop this.

Connections

Primary texts: Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism is explicitly recommended. Trotsky's writings on the shift from the Atlantic to the Pacific are referenced.

Related episodes: Against the Stream episodes on the 2024 US election, the Ukraine war, the crisis of European capitalism, and the rise of China. Spectre of Communism episodes on the BRICS and the changing world order.

Broader Marxist tradition: The analysis sits within the Trotskyist tradition's understanding of inter-imperialist rivalry, the theory of permanent revolution (implicit in the argument that wars produce revolutions), and the critique of Stalinism (implicit in the characterisation of the post-war order as a frozen balance between two imperialist blocs).

Contemporary thinkers: Woods does not engage with academic IR theory or liberal internationalism except to dismiss them. The analysis is closest to the tradition of Marxist geopolitical analysis associated with figures like David North and the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Key Quotes

  1. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. [...] If Trump is drawing the correct conclusion — that America is no longer able to maintain the position that they are the sole world power and can dictate whatever they please in any part of the world — those days are over."

  2. "The war in Ukraine is lost and there's absolutely nothing that anyone can do. [...] They now talk about reducing the recruitment age to 18 — sending young kids, unprepared, untrained, poorly armed, to fight against this mighty Russian army. Cannon fodder. Sending all these young kids to be slaughtered in this slaughterhouse for what? For the prestige of politicians like Biden."

  3. "We're going back to a situation far more similar to the 19th century or to the period when Lenin wrote his marvellous book Imperialism. [...] Was that a recipe for a peaceful world? 1914 is the answer to that question."

  4. "The centre of gravity of world history has passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific. [...] Europe is no longer the centre of attention as it once was, and the sooner the Europeans wake up to that fact, the better."

  5. "Globalisation is finished. Instead, you have the growth of economic nationalism, the struggle for markets and spheres of influence. Trade wars will be the norm. That is a recipe for economic crisis, poverty, unemployment — and therefore a recipe for class struggle."