ABSTRACT
The US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization proxy war against Russia over Ukraine, the latest of US-led capitalism’s wars against countries not amenable to imperial subordination, did just that in early 2022. The US-led proxy war against Russia also brought deep historical fractures within the capitalist world into play, particularly between the United States and the United Kingdom, the two countries most enthusiastically prosecuting the war on the one hand, and Germany, France, Italy and Japan, on the other. When the pandemic punched in, it caught societies claiming to be at the fore-front of science unawares. Pandemic and war seem only to have deepened the rut into which neo-liberal financialised capitalisms have led the capitalist world for decades, increasing their domestic dysfunction and international malevolence while at the same time shrinking it back to its imperial core of 1914 with very few additions. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
