War is the Health of the State

International of Anarchist Federations, May 2014: http://i-f-a.org/index.php/statements

In today´s world, as in the past, war is a necessity for States to establish domination over other parts of the planet, to unite their own populations behind them against an external Enemy, to boost their own arms industries which are a growing part of their own economies. Increasingly, large corporations and financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank in conjunction with states like the USA, France, China, Russia etc impose their economic domination through military force. Moreover the development of the nuclear power industry leads to a nuclear society of control and centralisation and a looming threat to human life and the environment. New technology (drones etc.) is used to kill more and more people and for increased State surveillance including the control of Fortress Europe borders against immigrants from Africa.

The search for minerals for these industries informs the fight by the different power blocs to establish control over important sources of uranium, oil and other minerals.
War is intimately bound up with environmental destruction as with the defoliation of the jungle during the Vietnam War and the huge environmental damage with the bombing of oil refineries during the Gulf Wars.

War involves the displacement of whole populations, enforced migration and the establishment of huge refugee camps. It triggers famine with attacks on crops and harvests. Mass rape is readily used as a weapon of terror and as a symptom of the distorted masculinity bred by militarism.
As well as manufactured threats like that of Islamic fundamentalism and once again those of the Russian Bear or of Western imperialist aggression, increasingly the threat of internal disorder , often provoked by the State itself, is used to create an internal enemy, The Enemy Within- whether this is youth gangs or political groups. The growing militarization of society is thus justified, with a developing presence of troops in the streets and at transport hubs, and an increasingly militarised police force.
The competing power blocs- USA, Russia, China, the European Union etc- seek their own spheres of influence on a global level, leading to an increasing tension as can be seen with the Ukrainian situation.

We oppose the drift towards the militarization of society and the drive towards war. Disputes over borders are used as a means by power blocs and nation states to trigger conflicts. The answer is not the solution of micro-nationalism (Scotland, Catalonia, etc) with the development of new small States with their own armed forces but a free federation of the peoples, with the destruction of the war industries, the disbanding of the armies and the disappearance of borders and the overthrow of capitalism itself. On a practical level we oppose their drive to war and the militarization of society with campaigns against military recruitment, support to all deserters and war resisters, mass civil disobedience and blockades and strikes against the shipment of arms and armies.

No borders
No wars
The sharing of all resources by the populations of the whole planet
WAR AGAINST WAR!