Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

The current international situation is increasingly defined by the convergence of war, debt and authoritarian politics. Military escalation no longer produces destruction only on the battlefield; it reorganises economies, deepens financial dependencies, and reshapes political life far beyond zones of conflict. At the same time, governments invoke nationalism, security, and geopolitical rivalry to justify repression, militarisation, and new forms of social discipline.

The articles in this issue examine different dimensions of this evolving landscape. From the consequences of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and Lebanon to debates on anti-fascism, feminism, BRICS, and socialist strategy, they return repeatedly to the same question: how can internationalist politics be rebuilt in a world increasingly structured by competing powers, permanent crisis, and social fragmentation?

Several contributions revisit the Porto Alegre International Anti-Fascist Conference, not as an isolated event, but as part of a broader attempt to rebuild political coordination across movements confronting the rise of the far right and the escalation of imperialist conflicts. Reflections on anti-racism, feminism, and civil rights insist that anti-fascism cannot be reduced to institutional defence or electoral calculations. Authoritarian politics feed on racism, patriarchy, militarism, and social inequality. Any serious response must therefore englobe struggles that are too often treated separately.

At the same time, the conference discussions exposed unresolved tensions within contemporary anti-imperialist politics. The question is no longer simply how to oppose Western imperialism, but how to avoid replacing one geopolitical alignment with another. This debate runs through several texts in the issue.

Hinge, Not Pole : India in a Fragmenting Global Order examines the increasingly unstable position of regional powers attempting to navigate rivalry between major blocs while pursuing their own strategic ambitions. The article challenges simplified readings of multipolarity and shows how emerging powers are themselves embedded in structures of competition, militarisation, and capitalist expansion.

The critique of BRICS media develops this argument further. In many parts of the world, distrust toward Western media systems has created space for new state-aligned narratives presenting themselves as anti-imperialist alternatives. Yet geopolitical rivalry does not automatically generate emancipatory politics. Opposition to Western dominance, by itself, doesn't guarantee democracy, social justice or international solidarity. The article warns against confusing shifts in global power with genuine grass roots alternatives from below.

The material consequences of these rivalries appear sharply in the analysis of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and Lebanon. Beyond the devastation produced by war itself, the article highlights how militarisation expands debt and financial dependency. Reconstruction costs, military expenditure, sanctions, inflation, and economic instability are ultimately transferred onto societies already facing deep inequality. War increasingly functions not only as military confrontation but also as a mechanism of economic restructuring.

Against this landscape, the article on women’s resistance to imperialist violence insists on another political reality: systems organised around militarisation and dispossession are confronted daily through practices of survival, care, and collective resistance. Women’s struggles emerge here not as secondary questions, but as central terrains of anti-imperialist politics itself.

The issue also returns to older debates within the socialist tradition through the reflection on Ernest Mandel, Che Guevara, Revolutionary Cuba, and the transition to socialism. At a moment when capitalism increasingly presents crisis, inequality, and permanent insecurity as unavoidable realities, these historical debates regain relevance. The article revisits unresolved questions concerning planning, democracy, internationalism and revolutionary transformation without reducing them to nostalgia or historical commemoration.

Meanwhile, Gen Z in Revolt: From Dhaka to Kathmandu points toward emerging forms of political anger and mobilisation that are developing under very different historical conditions. Across South Asia, young people confront unemployment, corruption, authoritarianism, and shrinking democratic space while facing an increasingly precarious future. These movements remain politically uneven, but they reveal a generation no longer willing to accept permanent insecurity as normal.

Together, the articles in this issue describe a world entering a harsher and more unstable phase. Militarisation expands, while democratic space contracts. Competing powers present themselves as alternatives while reproducing new forms of domination. As social crises deepen, their costs are pushed downward onto populations already under pressure.

Yet the issue also makes clear that resistance has not disappeared. It is being reformulated across different struggles, generations, and political traditions. Sometimes these efforts remain fragmented; sometimes they converge. Porto Alegre was one such moment of convergence—not because it resolved strategic differences, but because it created space to confront them collectively.

The challenge ahead is not simply to denounce imperialism or authoritarianism in the abstract. It is to rebuild the forms.

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