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Friends,

The past few months have been less fruitful than usual in terms of article production. This is due to the fact that I’ve spent the summer grinding away at my fifth book, which focuses on governmental and grassroots Canadian engagements with Africa during the Cold War. It is a book about Canadians (at the grassroots) in solidarity with African liberation, and Canadians (in government) aligned with the forces of colonialism and imperialism. It is about the Canadians who answered the call of African liberation fighters, and the Canadians who sought to ignore or silence those same freedom fighters; it is about Canadians on the right side of history, and Canadians on the wrong side. Expect it to hit bookstore shelves in 2028.

Now, to catch you up:

• Palestinian history is not up for debate (Canadian Dimension)

I co-wrote this article with Tanya Cheal, a peace and social justice activist on Treaty 1 Territory and an active member of Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Since the article was published in early July, the Zionist meltdown over the Canadian Museum of Human Rights’ acknowledgement of Palestinian dispossession has continued. The Asper family recently announced that it is pausing funding to the CMHR, and right-wing media has engaged in a continuous smear campaign against the Nakba exhibition. All the more reason to visit and lend your support.

• Carney won’t support Cuba against US aggression, so we must (Canadian Dimension)

Shortly after I finished writing this article, the Mark Carney government abstained on a United Nations vote to decide whether to proceed with a debate on ending the US government’s “economic, commercial and financial embargo” against Cuba. The Canadian Network on Cuba’s statement on the Carney government’s disgraceful abstention reads:

While 9 countries voted against holding the debate, including the United States, Israel and Ukraine, Canada was among the 30 countries who abstained. This shameful and cowardly act is but another sign that the Carney government, despite its lip service to Canadian sovereignty and independence from the United States, is in fact in lock step with U.S. foreign policy.

The humanitarian crisis in Cuba, which is purely the result of a nearly six-decade campaign of imperialist aggression against the island, intensifies each day. Ottawa’s decision to align itself with this aggression - while simultaneously claiming that Canada is “at war” with the country whose imperialist policies Carney currently supports - should be a national scandal.

As the article’s title states, Canadians at the grassroots need to fill the solidarity vacuum left by Carney’s humiliating collaborationism.

We are not powerless. The Carney government may be indifferent to Cubans’ suffering, but we at the grassroots have the strength and numbers to educate fellow Canadians about Cuban realities and to offer material support for Cuba’s independence and sovereignty. It’s the least we can do for a small country that US imperialism has punished so mercilessly.

• Canada Out of NATO Now! w/ Owen Schalk & Tamara Lorincz (Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed)

This webinar, organized as part of the Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed political education series, aimed to show Canadians that NATO is not a defensive alliance, but an imperialist one that has instigated and expanded conflict, undermined diplomacy, fueled arms races, and tied Canada to wars and geopolitical confrontations that do not serve the interests of Canadians. Give it a watch.

• Upcoming book talk on Canada & NATO (organized by the Toronto Association for Peace and Solidarity)

Lastly, for those who live in Toronto, I will be giving a book talk on Canada & NATO: Myth of a Global Peacekeeper at the Shevchenko Museum (1604 Bloor St W) on September 19th at 7pm. The book ($25) and refreshments will be available. Come out if you can!

As always, solidarity,

Owen

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Friends,

This month, I launched my newest book, Canada & NATO: The Myth of a Global Peacekeeper, at McNally Robinson in Winnipeg. The discussion was hosted by Sarah Borbridge, a prominent Winnipeg-based peace activist and anti-imperialist organizer. If you couldn’t attend the event, the recording is available to watch here!

Now, to the month’s publications…

• After the Jamahiriya (Africa is a Country)

For this analysis of “Qadhafi nostalgia,” I interviewed important Libyan academic Dr Mustafa Fetouri. The article examines Qadhafi nostalgia as a grassroots phenomenon, rooted in a longing for public order, economic stability, and functional institutions—all of which were destroyed by NATO bombs in 2011. As Dr Fetouri put it in our interview:

The working and middle classes [of Libya] have borne the brunt of the post-2011 economic collapse, insecurity, and institutional fragmentation. For many, this nostalgia is not necessarily a yearning for a specific political ideology of the past, but rather a longing for the ‘state of order’ and the basic life dignity that has since evaporated.

I delve into the various political formations that have emerged out of the so-called “Green Resistance” since NATO’s destruction of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya; namely, the Popular National Movement (PNM), led by Dr Mustafa al-Zaidi, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya (PFLL), led by the late Saif al-Islam Gaddafi until his assassination earlier this year (an event about which I wrote last month for NB Media Co-op).

• Is China capitalist or socialist? (Canadian Dimension)

This long read on the Chinese economic system argues that, despite sweeping marketization during the Reform and Opening Up period, China today retains a form of socialism. Borrowing from interviews I conducted with author Helena Sheehan and political economist Minqi Li, the essay explores continuities and ruptures in China’s development from the triumph of the revolution in 1949, through the reform period, up to the “New Era” of Xi Jinping’s leadership today.

The piece argues that “policy in China is not dictated by short-term profit and the anarchy of production,” and therefore, “China’s state is not capitalist in nature.” Read the essay for a fuller explanation of why I think those who describe China as capitalist miss the mark.

• As Israel eyes executions, Canada targets Palestine solidarity (Canadian Dimension)

In the same week that the Israeli Knesset passed its racist death penalty law, a bill that specifically targets Palestinians for execution, the Government of Canada forcibly dissolved Samidoun, an important support network for political prisoners in Palestine. This article examines the hypocrisy of the Carney government claiming to oppose Israel’s racist executions bill on the grounds that it “dehumanizes Palestinians,” while at the same time, Ottawa escalates its crackdown on Palestine solidarity at home, including through Samidoun’s criminalization.

Samidoun’s dissolution is not separate from the Canadian state’s years-long campaign to undermine Palestine solidarity, a draconian campaign that has utilized censorship, job loss, smear campaigns, state and non-state intimidation, targeted criminalization, and overt police violence against opponents of apartheid and genocide (last year, and at greater length, I detailed the repression of Palestine solidarity in Canada following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation of October 7, 2023 for Cosmonaut Magazine).

As my Canadian Dimension article argues:

The criminalization of Samidoun has dismantled a key network for Palestinian prisoner solidarity at precisely the moment such solidarity is most needed. Ottawa can voice its objections to the horrors of Israel’s executions bill all it wants. That does not change the fact that Canada is deeply implicated in the conditions that made such a law possible.

• Defending Canada’s food supply means defending supply management (National Farmers Union)

In my capacity as a member of the National Farmers Union, Region 5 (Manitoba), I wrote the above defence of Canada’s supply management system. Though supply management is not without its shortcomings, the system nonetheless protects dairy, poultry, and egg farmers from extreme forms of consolidation. It safeguards many small-scale farmers, and aims to support a reliable and affordable food supply in several industries.

As someone whose family farm collapsed after the Manitoba government privatized the single-desk hog marketing system in 1996, I understand the need for government action to combat corporate power in the agricultural sector. An end to supply management would be a major setback for small-scale farmers, and a corporate bonanza for large agribusinesses in both Canada and the US. For that reason, the Canadian right’s efforts to delegitimize and abolish supply management are extremely worrisome, and organizations that defend supply management, such as the NFU, should receive the support of conscientious Canadians from coast to coast.

As always, solidarity,

Owen

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Hello friends,

My fourth book, Canada & NATO: The Myth of a Global Peacekeeper, has hit bookstore shelves. This week, retired teacher Joseph Hnatiuk reviewed Canada & NATO in the Winnipeg Free Press, describing it as “well-documented” and “a worthy study,” but also “sometimes naive,” claiming that the book suffers because it “flirt[s] with utopian ideals of peace and goodwill.”

Is peace “utopian?” Is it “naive” to oppose imperialist wars of aggression? Buy a copy of Canada & NATO and decide for yourself!

• Anti-imperial solidarities and Canadian complicity: From the Caribbean to Iran (panel discussion)

On March 30, I participated in a panel discussion about Canadian imperialism from the Caribbean to West Asia. My fellow panelists were Tamanisha John (Assistant Professor of Politics at York University), Brendan Devlin (Winnipeg-based writer and activist), and Kerry Sinanan (Associate Professor of global pre-1800 literature at the University of Winnipeg). Our presentations and the ensuing discussion followed the thread of Canadian foreign policy through the ongoing genocide in Palestine, UAE‑backed atrocities in Sudan, the illegal war on Iran, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, US attacks on Venezuela and Cuba, and much more. You can find the video above.

• What Saif Qadhafi’s killing means for Libyans (NB Media Co-op)

My take on the life and legacy of Saif al-Islam Qadhafi, the most politically influential of Muammar Qadhafi’s children, and what his February 3 assassination means for the Libyan people.

• Canadians must support Cuba against Trump’s barbaric siege (Canadian Dimension)

For this piece on the US blockade of Cuba, widened in January to include an illegal fuel blockade, I interviewed Isaac Saney, a member of the Canadian Network on Cuba’s executive committee and a Black Studies and Cuba specialist at Dalhousie University. The article excoriates Canada’s refusal to support Cuba with fuel and aid shipments in the face of accelerating US aggression.

After the article’s publication, Ottawa promised to send $8 million in aid to Cuba, but no fuel. This is not close to sufficient. The Canadian government needs to actively oppose US aggressions against countries in the region, vigorously advocate for the removal of the blockade, and commit to deepening economic ties, trade, and assistance to Cuba. This is exactly what Petition e-7082 urges Ottawa to do. If you haven’t already added your name to the petition, please sign before the deadline of April 20.

According to a recent poll, over half of Canadians support aiding Cuba even if it angers Washington. But if our government won’t offer more assistance to this small, peaceful Caribbean nation in the face of US assault, then it’s on average Canadians to pick up the slack. As the article argues:

Canada’s government refuses to stand up for Cuba, but Canadians at the grassroots can. We can support the campaigns of national solidarity organizations like the Canadian Network on Cuba. We can join regional solidarity committees in our cities. We can donate to fundraisers, petition Parliament, and travel to the island on work brigades or as tourists.

If Cubans can share what little they have with the world, Canadians can share some of our own resources with the people of Cuba when they need it most.

• Carney’s Iran hypocrisy (Canadian Dimension)

This article was an attempt to highlight the repulsive hypocrisy of the Liberal government’s support for the criminal, unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran. Through interviews with members of Peace Alliance Winnipeg and CODEPINK’s Canada chapter, the article foregrounds anti-war mobilizations across Canada, and the peace movement’s efforts to challenge Canadian participation in the illegal US-Israeli war.

Since the article’s publication, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s support for the war of aggression has become even more undeniable. Adding to Carney’s refusal to rule out Canadian participation in attacks on Iran, Defence Minister David McGuinty has said that Canada is “considering” aiding Gulf countries that are being hit by Iran’s defensive strikes. Meanwhile, Canadian officials have vocally condemned Iran for exerting control over the Strait of Hormuz.

While Ottawa has denounced Iran for exercising control over a strategic waterway on its border, the Carney government has kept silent about the US triple-tapping a girls’ school in the city of Minab, massacring 175 civilians, including 100 children. This is not even mentioning US-Israeli bombings of hospitals, universities, bridges - indeed, all manner of civilian infrastructure in Iran, which Ottawa has also refused to condemn.

Perhaps Ottawa’s silence on blatant US-Israeli war crimes is because the Canadian government is actively participating in this murderous criminal aggression, and not only through diplomatic support. Since the start of the criminal aggression on February 28, Canada has expanded sanctions on Iran, a concerted effort to increase Iran’s economic woes as it fights a defensive war against an empire that has vowed to bomb the country “back to the Stone Age.” At the same time, Carney has opened Canada’s airspace to US warplanes that are participating in the murderous assault on Iran. It’s possible that US military death machines, maybe even the butchers of the Minab girls’ school, are refueling in the skies over your head right now, courtesy of Mark Carney.

• Canada should break the US fuel blockade on Cuba (Spring Magazine)

About three weeks after the above article’s publication, a country did break the US blockade of Cuba and deliver hundreds of thousands of oil barrels to the fuel-starved island. That country was not Canada.

On April 1, the Anatoly Kolodkin, a Russian oil tanker, docked on Cuba’s northern coast, delivering 730,000 barrels of much-needed crude oil in what Russia’s government described as a humanitarian shipment. The Russian oil will grant Cubans a reprieve of several weeks from nationwide blackouts and onerous rationing. Russia has since announced that they will be sending a second shipment of oil to the island, a further (albeit temporary) respite from brutal US-imposed shortages.

The Anatoly Kolodkin shipment dwarfs what minimal aid Canada has sent to Cuba since the intensification of the US blockade in January. Ottawa’s continued inaction should be a profound source of shame for all people in Canada, and a reason to redouble our mobilization in support of the Cuban people through educational initiatives, travel, and material aid.

Solidarity,

Owen

Hello friends,

Before sharing this month’s publications, I want to draw your attention to a review of Targeting Libya published in Canadian military magazine Esprit de Corps in December. Reviewer Newell Durnbrooke offers the following assessment of the book:

Schalk’s book is an excellent dive into an epic story of dubious foreign affairs entanglements and questionable military actions. He covers the whole gamut of the Libya debacle, from the beginnings of Canadian business and government dealings in Libya, curiously timed visits by federal cabinet ministers, Canadian military participation in the 2011 NATO-led bombing of the country, CSIS collaboration with Libyan intelligence agencies and the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal that plagued the Justin Trudeau government. Then of course there is the blow by blow details of the criminal conviction of senior executives for bribery in the Canadian courts.

Earlier this month, CovertAction Magazine editor Jeremy Kuzmarov published an extensive article on Canadian militarization and Ottawa’s long-standing support for US imperialism. The article features sections on my first book, Canada in Afghanistan, as well as Targeting Libya. On the latter, Kuzmarov writes: “Owen Schalk’s recent book provides a damning indictment of Canadian foreign policy and its collaboration with the U.S. in waging illegal wars over the last 15 years.”

If you’d still like more information about Targeting Libya, you can watch the recording of the launch event held at McNally Robinson Winnipeg last week. Hosted by brilliant organizer, researcher, and writer Brendan Devlin, the launch featured wide-ranging discussion on Canadian foreign policy in Africa, the history of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, NATO’s 2011 war, and the atrocious situation in Libya today.

Now, the publications:

• Trump’s war on Venezuela is a war on Latin America (Canadian Dimension)

Published one day after the US military’s assault on Venezuela and their kidnapping of sitting president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, my article assesses the regional and global reaction to this illegal and unprovoked aggression. In particular, the piece focuses on the Canadian government’s refusal to join the international outcry against the US attack.

• A first-hand look at China’s centralized, long-term approach to emissions reduction (People’s Voice)

This article draws from my trip to China in November of last year, as well as my broader research into the Chinese government’s climate policies. The piece aims to explain why China continues to make strong strides in carbon emissions reduction, while by contrast, emissions reduction efforts in Canada and the US have stalled (or reversed).

• In Venezuela, the Grassroots Readies for Resistance (The Progressive)

Incorporating interviews with members of the Venezuelan grassroots, this article explores some of the ways in which Venezuelans are fighting back against US imperialism, including through communes, street collectives, and militias.

• Carney’s austerity agenda slices through the agriculture sector (People’s Voice)

On January 22nd, Prime Minister Carney announced sweeping cuts to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), the country’s largest agricultural research organization. These cuts are in keeping with Budget 2025’s “ambitious savings plan,” which is in fact an austerity agenda aimed at funneling public money into rampant militarization at the behest of Washington.

I argue that Carney’s agenda is clear: divert public funds from socially useful programs into the war chests of Western imperialism. These alarming developments demand mobilization and organization to oppose warmongering and social disinvestment, and to protect Canadian food security and sovereignty.

Solidarity,

Owen

Several months ago, I wrote the following long-form essay on foreign interventions in Somalia for Canadian Dimension magazine, but the piece was ultimately not published. As a result, I am posting it here for interested readers.

While researching this essay, I interviewed Mohamed Gabobe, a freelance journalist based in Mogadishu, and Dave DeCamp, news editor at Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar News, and one of the few US journalists who regularly covers Washington’s ongoing (and indeed intensifying) war in Somalia. The essay foregrounds the role of interventionist foreign powers in Somalia today, namely the US, the United Arab Emirates, and Türkiye. Additionally, the piece aims to illuminate how and why Somalia went from a sovereign, relatively stable nation under President Mohammed Siad Barre (1969-1991) to a country marked by regional fragmentation, a persistent Islamic State presence, and a civil war pitting a corrupt foreign-backed government in the capital against a popular insurgency in the countryside.

I wrote this piece before Israel became the first country to recognize Somaliland as an independent state. The Israeli government’s action was another example of a foreign power brazenly interfering in Somalia for its own purposes. In this case, Israel wants to establish a forward base that will allow its military to more easily bomb Yemen (there are also fears that Israel will attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza to the breakaway Somali region).

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland - which has prompted a global outcry - highlights once more the extent to which the political and social cohesion of Somalia, this once-sovereign nation, has been torn apart, principally by external forces.

Washington is currently ramping up its war in Somalia. Last year, the Donald Trump administration launched at least 128 airstrikes in the country, killing civilians with impunity. As Antiwar.com reports, these bombings were “more than double the previous annual record of 63, which President Trump set in his first term in 2019...the airstrikes launched in 2025 are more than were conducted in Somalia during the administrations of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush combined.” Although Trump’s escalation represents an “unprecedented bombing campaign” against Somalia, DeCamp notes that “the US air war in Somalia receives virtually no media coverage in the US.”

In a racist tirade last month, Trump said that Somalis “just run around killing each other” and that “their country’s no good for a reason.” The US president completely ignored his own military’s devastating war in Somalia, and the preceding decades of intervention and destabilization. Meanwhile Western media, by refusing to cover the US war, has assisted Trump in misinforming the American public about the situation in Somalia, which only feeds into his hateful scapegoating.

The Trump administration began 2026 with three days of airstrikes in Somalia. Evidently, the US war will not slow down any time soon. I hope my research will allow some readers to deepen their understanding of why this war continues, and why the US and other foreign powers are so determined to prevent Somalia from reunifying, rebuilding, and reclaiming its national sovereignty.

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The uses of Somalia

In April 2025, the New York Times reported that the Donald Trump administration had considered closing the US embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia. Debates within the State Department and the National Security Council (NSC) took place in the context of rapid gains by the militant group al-Shabaab outside the Somali capital. At the time, al-Shabaab had launched what Mogadishu-based journalist Mohamed Gabobe characterized as a “lightning offensive” across south-central Somalia, seizing dozens of towns. Isolationists in Trump’s administration advocated a US withdrawal, but the hawks, led by the president’s top counterterrorism advisor Sebastian Gorka, argued for just the opposite: an escalation of airstrikes against al-Shabaab.

Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign dubbed him the “pro-peace ticket,” but within the administration, Gorka’s aggressive militarist view won out. By late September, the US military had launched a record 79 airstrikes in Somalia, blowing past the previous record set by Trump’s first administration in 2019.

The folly of US policy in Somalia runs much deeper than Donald Trump’s latest escalation. US involvement in Somalia has a long history, going back to at least the 1980s. US administrations have offered a range of justifications for these interventions – anti-communism, humanitarianism, anti-terrorism – but they have all had the effect of destabilizing Somalia and making life worse for Somalis. One cannot understand ongoing US airstrikes, nor the enduring popularity of al-Shabaab, without grasping the fact that US interventions in Somalia are in fact motivated by the violent imperatives of imperialism.

In 1994, the American physician and anthropologist Paul Farmer published The Uses of Haiti, a book that delves into the sordid history of US interventions in the Caribbean country. As the title suggests, Farmer explores the ways in which Haiti has been “used” – i.e., exploited – by the United States. A similar framework can be applied to Somalia, a country of vast natural wealth which foreign powers, most significantly the US, have long sought to shape to their own uses.

Feeding the Killing Machine

Current US involvement in Somalia goes well beyond airstrikes. At present, there are 500 to 600 US troops on the ground in Mogadishu training Somali government troops. The US has trained and equipped the elite Danab Brigade, which contains up to 5000 soldiers, and funded the African Union (AU) mission in Somalia, which includes over 10,000 troops. Trump recently cut funding to the Somali government; when this action is viewed in the context of intensifying US strikes, it is clear that the administration continues to prioritize a military solution to the decades-long conflict.

Somalia’s 3333-kilometre coastline is the longest in Africa, and the country resides at a strategic point in the region where the Red Sea, which leads to the Suez Canal, connects to the Gulf of Aden and then the Indian Ocean. 25 percent of the world’s maritime traffic flows from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Somali territory holds massive amounts of untapped oil, natural gas, and minerals. But despite Somalia’s highly strategic location and abundant resource wealth, the country remains impoverished and unstable. Foreign military interventions only fuel the conflict.

Dave DeCamp is perhaps the only American journalist who regularly covers the US war in Somalia. Through the website Antiwar.com, a libertarian non-interventionist project associated with the Randolph Bourne Institute, and his podcast Antiwar News, DeCamp shines a light on the US forever wars of which many North Americans have little awareness.

“When Americans aren’t getting killed, it doesn’t make headlines, so people just don’t know about it,” DeCamp explained in an interview with the author. “[Somalia] goes on in the background, and it’s a relatively small-scale war. The US has launched 79 airstrikes in Somalia this year, which is a huge number when most Americans don’t know we’re at war there, but you look at Afghanistan – during the years of heaviest bombing, the US was launching thousands and thousands of airstrikes.”

According to DeCamp, the war is in part motivated by the logic of the US military-industrial complex, which expanded greatly during the War on Terror. “You have counter-terrorism experts who say this government cannot win the war against al-Shabaab, that they’ll have to cut some kind of deal eventually, but the US is just doubling down. They’re feeding the killing machine that was created [in the US] after 9/11. That might be one reason why [the war continues].”

Journalist Mohamed Gabobe agrees that there can be no military solution to the Somali war. Speaking from Mogadishu, Gabobe explained: “Al-Shabaab is embedded within Somali society. It could be the lady selling tomatoes on the side of the road. It could be the police officer at the checkpoint. At the end of the day, this is an ideology, and you cannot defeat ideology with bullets and bombs. I think the US doesn’t understand that, and if they do, they don’t care.”

Al-Shabaab’s resilience is rooted in the fact that it is an indigenous Somali resistance force with genuine nationalist credentials. Furthermore, areas controlled by al-Shabaab enjoy a level of stability that large areas of the country don’t. “When you live in a Shabaab controlled area,” Gabobe stated, “you have peace and access to justice. If you own a jewelry store, you can leave your doors open, go to sleep, and nothing will be missing in the morning. A significant amount of the country supports them.” By contrast, the US-backed government in Mogadishu is widely viewed as ineffective, corrupt, and kleptocratic.

“They’re violating Somalia’s sovereignty”

The comparisons between Somalia’s government and Afghanistan under Ashraf Ghani seem natural: both are unpopular and corrupt states sustained by external support. But as anthropologist Ahmed Ibrahim emphasizes in Responsible Statecraft, a sudden withdrawal of US support might not necessarily portend the swift fall of Mogadishu in the manner of Kabul in August 2021. This is because there are other actors with significant interests in Somalia, most notably Türkiye. As Ibrahim explains:

Türkiye has its biggest embassy and military training center, Camp TURKSOM, in Mogadishu. Somalia and Türkiye have signed a raft of military/security and economic agreements over the past decade and half. The Turkish trained “Gorgor” (eagle) regiment, along with the American trained Danab are the two most effective fighting units against al-Shabaab. As al-Shabaab made some gains over the past couple of months, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud made two trips to Ankara, where he has reportedly signed an agreement that would allow Turkish private forces to actively assist and lead Somali security forces in the fights against al-Shabaab. In light of Türkiye’s increasingly prominent role in Mogadishu’s security/military calculations, the scaling back of U.S. diplomatic presence in Mogadishu may have limited impact. We could, instead, see a deepening of Turkish military/security assistance to Mogadishu, and engagement in the fight against al-Shabaab.

Türkiye has built schools and hospitals in Somalia; it has also sold drones to the Somali military, which have caused harm to many civilians in the country. Turkish companies manage both the Port of Mogadishu and the Mogadishu airport. Turkish companies also absorb a large amount of Somali oil revenues, and in exchange for helping train and equip the Somali Navy, Türkiye receives 30 percent of revenues from Somalia’s exclusive economic zone. For Somalis, it is impossible to ignore the flood of Turkish capital. “It’s like they’re taking the whole country,” said Gabobe.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is increasing its foothold in Somalia, including by investing in the Port of Berbera and Port of Bosaso. “If those areas stabilize and develop,” Gabobe noted, “it will put the UAE in these markets.” The UAE has also pursued a minerals deal in Somalia’s Puntland region, which has provoked resistance among locals. On September 13, a drone strike killed a respected clan elder in Puntland named Omar Abdullahi Abdi. Abdi, who was involved in “peacebuilding and mediation,” opposed the minerals deal between Puntland authorities and the UAE. According to the newspaper Somali Guardian, many locals blame the UAE for Abdi’s assassination.

China is a relatively new actor in Somalia in comparison to the US, Türkiye, and the UAE. However, the Chinese presence in the Horn of Africa has expanded recently – China opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017, and China has been involved in development projects and humanitarian work in Somalia. This is China’s “soft approach to win hearts and minds,” said Gabobe, but of course China “understands the strategics of the Horn of Africa, just like the UAE and Türkiye.”

After the collapse of the Somali state in 1991, power in the country fragmented. Major breakaway regions include Puntland and Somaliland, the latter of which has openly courted the US for recognition. Ethiopia, Somalia’s neighbour and long-time foe, has used this fragmentation to its advantage: on January 1, 2024, the Ethiopian government vowed to recognize Somaliland independence in exchange for a port on the Gulf of Aden coastline. Somalia withdrew its ambassador to Ethiopia in response.

Gabobe explained that the weakness of the Somali state benefits outside powers: “[These autonomous regions] act independently and want to control their own money, their own security, and have their own foreign policy. When the US, UAE, Türkiye, even Ethiopia and Kenya deal with these semi-autonomous states, they know they’re violating Somalia’s sovereignty.” However, it is often easier for outside powers to get what they want by bypassing Mogadishu, as evidenced by the Ethiopia-Somaliland port deal.

This is the unenviable situation in Somalia today. The country’s resource wealth and strategic location have drawn the attention of numerous foreign powers, some of which have sought to use Somalia’s fragmentation to their advantage, while the central state lacks the monopoly on force that would allow it to prevent such exploitation.

This wasn’t always the Somali reality. Not long ago, Somalia had a strong central state and sovereign development priorities. It was a period that most Somalis look back on with nostalgia, and one which went up in flames due to US intervention.

The 1980s: Backing Barre

Prior to independence in 1960, Somalia was divided between British and Italian Somaliland. Both administrations sought to repress anti-colonial resistance, including the Dervish Movement, led by the legendary Mohammed Abdullah Hassan. The British extracted a variety of resources from Somaliland, including gypsum, salt, tin and phosphatic guano, while the Italian government aimed to extract crops like cotton, sugar, and bananas from its East African territory. Under the fascist Mussolini government, Italian forces seized lands in its Somaliland colony and established plantations, particularly for bananas, which the colonial administration maintained through forced labour.

After World War II, British and Italian Somaliland became protectorates. Fifteen years later, a united Somalia achieved its independence.

Following the assassination of President Abdirashid Shermarke in 1969, the Somali military launched a coup under the leadership of Mohamed Siad Barre, a Marxist who planned to implement a development program based on scientific socialism. Like many post-independence African countries, Barre sought development assistance from the Soviet Union. There were numerous successes. As Professor Elizabeth Schmidt explained in an interview with Jacobin:

Somalia [under Barre] did make significant strides in development, especially in the rural areas. There were mass literacy campaigns. Primary education was extended and became more widely available. Public health was a big achievement in the rural areas — just the basics, but still more than they had before — and economic development. These policies were considered quite progressive by leftists, while the United States worried about Somalia’s burgeoning relationship with the Soviet Union.

Journalist Mohamed Gabobe explained that today, many Somalis evaluate the Barre period positively. “You can hate him, love him, or be in between, but what’s for sure is that Somalia at the time was sovereign, it was secure. It controlled its own destiny. There wasn’t any outside control, and the country had self-respect in the international arena. That’s not the case today…The vast majority of Somalis have nostalgia for that time. They wish they could return to some sort of centralized power.”

In 1977, Barre’s government initiated the Ogaden War against neighbouring Ethiopia. The attack violated a central principle of the Organization of African Unity, which had urged African governments to accept colonial borders, however arbitrary, in the interest of continental stability. At the time, Ethiopia was governed by the Soviet-backed Derg; the USSR sided with Ethiopia and withdrew its support from Barre. The newly isolated Barre began to court the United States.

The US, eager to challenge the influence of socialism in the Horn of Africa – and access Somali resources – jumped at the chance to pull Barre toward the capitalist bloc. US oil giant Conoco had begun exploring for oil in Somalia in 1952, and by the 1980s, they and other US companies were eager to take advantage of Barre’s new openness to the West. As the Los Angeles Times reported:

Beginning in 1986, Conoco, along with Amoco, Chevron, Phillips and, briefly, Shell all sought and obtained exploration licenses for northern Somalia from Siad Barre’s government. Somalia was soon carved up into concessional blocs, with Conoco, Amoco and Chevron winning the right to explore and exploit the most promising ones.

At the same time, instability spread, intensified by the economic impact of the Ogaden War. Anti-government forces, including Islamists and clans targeted by Barre, united into a powerful opposition force. In 1991, they overthrew Barre, who by that time had been president of Somalia for 22 years. Barre fled to Nigeria, where he died of a heart attack in 1995.

The same year that Barre’s government fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Eastern Bloc influence in East Africa evaporated. As a result, Washington’s tack shifted. Schmidt explains:

With Moscow weakening politically and economically, the United States didn’t feel like it needed Somalia any more as a regional policeman in the Horn. It expressed a newfound concern about Siad Barre’s human rights abuses. Without the massive US support that he had been getting since the late 1970s, Siad Barre was an easy target. In January 1991, the warlords and their clan-based militias overthrew the regime and Somalia essentially collapsed into chaos. Southern Somalia fractured into fiefdoms ruled by rival warlords who clashed with the resurgent Islamist movement. State institutions disintegrated and nongovernmental actors had to provide services, to the extent that services were provided at all.

Somalia was in shambles, but US oil companies still hoped to maintain the contracts they had secured during the Barre period. This proved difficult as competing factions in Somalia vied to fill the power vacuum, a situation that set the stage for the US-led intervention of 1992.

The 1990s: State Collapse and the Oil Factor

In 1992, the US helmed a multinational military intervention in Somalia. The invasion may have been supported by the United Nations, but it was a US-tailored mission. Ostensibly undertaken to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Somalis, there was much more going on behind this justification.

The Somali state had collapsed in the early 1990s, but that didn’t impact US interest in Somali resources. A 1993 article by the Los Angeles Times notes:

Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside. That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation. According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration’s decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.

US military and oil policy were clearly intertwined; as a representation of this fact, Conoco rented its Mogadishu compound to American envoy Robert B. Oakley to serve as the de facto US embassy. At the same time, the World Bank’s main petroleum engineer asserted that Somalia “has commercial potential. It’s got high potential.”

Many doubted the humanitarian justification for US intervention. For one, the intervention began after the worst of the Somali famine had already transpired. Alex de Waal writes: “Launched in December 1992 just as the famine was waning, the despatch of troops had more to do with testing the newly emerging doctrine of ‘humanitarian intervention’ than saving Somalis.” One expert told the LA Times: “It’s left everyone thinking the big question here isn’t famine relief but oil – whether the oil concessions granted under Siad Barre will be transferred if and when peace is restored…It’s potentially worth billions of dollars, and believe me, that’s what the whole game is starting to look like.”

One Conoco executive brushed off accusations of self-interest in extremely unconvincing fashion, telling the Times: “With America, there is a genuine humanitarian streak in us…that many other countries and cultures cannot understand.” The same executive added: “We had these very good shows [of oil in Somalia]…We were pleased. That’s why Conoco stayed on…The people in Houston are convinced there’s oil there.”

In 1993, the US-led occupation forces began to directly target Somali warlords whom they did not favour. Washington’s main target was Mohamed Farrah Aidid, leader of the Somali National Alliance. US airstrikes killed an increasing number of Somali civilians in the leadup to the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident, during which Aidid’s forces shot down three American Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 US soldiers. The killings outraged the US mass media. These same outlets entirely ignored the fact that, during the same incident, US troops massacred hundreds of Somalis.

The Birth of al-Shabaab

In 1994, US forces withdrew from Somalia. Amid the ensuing statelessness and civil war, Islamist forces began to secure large areas of the country, in which they effectively took on state functions, establishing order and providing healthcare and education. “That was very much welcomed by the Somali population,” notes Schmidt.

In 1998, al-Qaeda attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania drew the US back into East Africa. After 9/11, the US presence there exploded, and Ethiopia became the closest US ally in the Horn (the Derg had fallen seven years earlier). The US and Ethiopia succeeded in imposing a new government on Somalia in 2004, led by a corrupt former military official named Abdhullahi Yusuf Ahmed. Despite foreign support, Yusuf’s government was extremely weak. He held on for two years before the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an insurgent Islamist organization, took control of most of Somalia and established the country’s first functioning state since 1991.

The George W. Bush administration, fiery with a “War on Terror” zeal that aimed to disguise its material interests in Somalia, supported Ethiopia’s 2009 invasion, which toppled the ICU and imposed another frail and unpopular government in Mogadishu.

During the Cold War, the US had tried to weaken socialism in the Horn of Africa by drawing Barre toward the capitalist bloc; during the 1990s, the US justified its involvement in Somalia through supposed humanitarianism. In the 2000s, the US government deployed the rhetoric of counterterrorism to legitimize its support for the invasion of Somalia and the overthrow of its first functioning state in over a decade.

After the 2009 invasion, “Somalia became the forefront of America’s War on Terror in Africa,” in the words of Mohamed Gabobe. But while the justifications changed, the concrete interests remained the same: oil and gas, minerals, a strategic location, and the arms industry’s constant search for profit.

Al-Shabaab formed as a radical offshoot of the ICU. Its first recorded attack took place in 2007; in subsequent years, the group targeted not only US troops, but African countries that had supported the invasion of Somalia. In this context, the US launched its “shadow war” in Somalia against the Islamist resistance forces.

In 2012, al-Shabaab declared its loyalty to al-Qaeda, a move that seemingly vindicated the US war on the organization. However, the reality is more nuanced. As Schmidt explains:

We always hear about Al-Shabaab as being affiliated to Al-Qaeda. True enough, it is today, but it didn’t affiliate with Al-Qaeda until 2012, whereas the invasion had been launched in 2006. For six years, it was not affiliated with Al-Qaeda, although Al-Qaeda proclaimed its support for the insurgency. Again, it was the foreign invasion backed by the United States that brought Al-Qaeda into Somalia.

Al-Shabaab has garnered wide support, particularly in central and southern Somalia, because of its opposition to foreign military intervention and its ability to function as a de facto state in areas under its control. This situation – a popular insurgency in the countryside fighting against a weak foreign-backed government – continues to this day. At the same time, various countries like the US, UAE, and Türkiye aim to take advantage of Somalia’s instability and decentralization to serve their own interests.

The Forever War Grinds On

Under President Barack Obama, the US military escalated its drone war in Somalia. Donald Trump ramped up the war even more, hitting a record 63 airstrikes in 2019. Joe Biden scaled back the drone war, but redeployed ground forces that had been withdrawn by Trump in his final weeks in office. Now Trump’s second administration has blown past its previous record for airstrikes in Somalia; in May 2025, the administration conducted what it called the “largest airstrike in the history of the world,” which killed 14 Somalis.

US airstrikes will not crush al-Shabaab. The organization is deeply rooted in Somali society and highly resilient, while the devastating civilian impact of US bombing ensures that very few Somalis will be won over to the American side.

Despite Somalia’s resource wealth, the state is weak and impoverished, the centralized power of the 1970s and ‘80s long ago pulled apart by internal division fueled by external intervention. Mohamed Gabobe likens Somalia’s present conditions to two other countries: Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). On Afghanistan, Gabobe asserts that Somalia is “nothing close to an actual government,” but comparable to the “corrupt, kleptocratic” administration of Ashraf Ghani; like Ghani’s government, “once the West cuts the cord, it’ll come falling apart.” Somalia is also similar to the DRC because of its resource wealth. As Gabobe puts it: “It’s a resource curse…I think the continued US intervention is just to fuel the flames. Make sure the insurgency doesn’t die out, because they won’t die out as long as the US intervenes. That will justify the US presence in the country for many more years,” which will allow them to take advantage of Somalia’s oil, minerals, and strategic coastline.

Whatever “uses” to which US imperialism wants to put Somalia – as a hub of natural resources, a pliable government on a strategic coastline, or merely a justification for maintaining a profit-generating war machine – it is patently obvious that foreign interventions do not benefit Somalis, and only serve to deepen support for the resistance to foreign occupation.

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Hello friends,

First, an exciting announcement: my fourth book, Canada & NATO: The Myth of a Global Peacekeeper, will be published in March 2026. Please keep it in mind while shopping for books this spring. The description reads:

Global military spending is reaching record levels ($2.44 trillion in 2024), driven mostly by the US and its NATO allies. Canada has contributed to this global militarization by increasing its military spending massively since the end of the Cold War and pledging to meet the two percent of GDP target by 2032.

Canada & NATO: The Myth of a Global Peacekeeper disrupts the popular perception of NATO in the West—that it is a defensive, collective security organization—and explains that this is a myth. The book aims to prove five central points: 1) NATO has always been an offensive alliance, 2) the wars it wages are not just, 3) its existence and expansion stirs global tensions and raises the risk of global war, 4) it undermines Canadian sovereignty, and 5) it diverts resources that can serve the social needs of Canadians into a largely US-owned arms industry. Schalk thus makes a compelling argument that Canadians should oppose NATO and support their government’s withdrawal from the alliance.

At the moment, I am actively pursuing several more book ideas, one of which appears to be on the cusp of being acquired for publication. Stay tuned for updates!

• The nationalization threat that shook Canadian oil interests in Libya (Canadian Dimension)

Published in early November, this excerpt from Targeting Libya details how Canadian oil and engineering giants faced a reckoning when Libya moved to reclaim control of its resources in 2009. The conflict over Canadian access to Libyan resources, almost entirely ignored by mainstream media at the time, provides context essential for understanding the Canadian government’s decision to participate in the destruction of Libya two years later.

• Canada pursues Gulf markets as its weapons fuel war in Sudan (Canadian Dimension)

This article shows that Ottawa has long pursued an arms-export policy that prioritizes profit over principle, routinely enabling violence abroad while distancing itself from the consequences. This pattern has been laid bare by the appearance of Canadian weapons in Sudan’s genocidal war.

As the piece explains, Canadian weapons sold to the United Arab Emirates are showing up in the hands of the Rapid Support Forces as they commit mass killings and atrocities. This while Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to deepen ties with the UAE in the name of “trade diversification.” The article concludes:

Far from “building Canada strong,” the prime minister’s visit to Abu Dhabi marks the culmination of a decade-long push to secure access for Canadian capital in a lucrative Gulf market. If that requires overlooking the victims of Canadian weapons sales and the brutal consequences of UAE policy in Sudan, the government has shown it is more than willing to do so. In Canadian foreign policy, profit doesn’t simply outweigh human suffering—it eclipses it entirely.

• Beyond the Headlines: Canadian Freelance Journalist Report from China (Canadian Freelance Union)

In late November, I travelled to China as part of a delegation of Canadian freelance journalists. Our delegation visited Xinjiang and Beijing, where we met with China-Canada trade and policy experts and observed cutting-edge technological developments shaping global industries.

Upon returning to Canada, I participated in the above webinar, organized by the Canadian Freelance Union, during which I described what I observed on the ground in China and outlined my views on the future of Canada-China relations. Next month, I hope to publish an article or two containing further details on my trip, particularly my observations on China’s massive strides in renewable energy, the scale of which is truly staggering.

• As Trump threatens Venezuela and Nigeria, Libya offers lessons in resource wars (Canada’s National Observer)

Since the publication of this article on the lessons of NATO’s destruction of Libya, the Trump administration has increased its aggressions against the two other countries on which I focus in the piece: Venezuela and Nigeria. The US government has stolen several Venezuelan oil tankers, while the CIA has drone-bombed a port in Venezuela, marking the first known US military strike against the South American country; meanwhile, on Christmas Day, Trump launched an airstrike in Nigeria, supposedly to target ISIS fighters (although US forces struck an area with no history of an ISIS presence).

The article foregrounds Ottawa’s conspicuous silence regarding the US government’s vile global aggressions. This silence speaks volumes, especially given the fact that Carney’s Liberals won the April 2025 election on a platform defending sovereignty and territorial integrity. As I write in the piece:

Canadians need to learn from the Libya intervention. We must critically analyze claims made against nations targeted by Washington for economic and political reasons. NATO’s intervention in Libya, in which Canada played a prominent role, was a war for resources and geopolitical influence that caused immense harm to Libyans and the African continent. The world doesn’t need another such war.

Finally, check out my recent interviews with Venezuelans if you haven’t already. You can find my interview with a Venezuelan communard here, and my conversation with a spokesperson from ALBA Movements here. With luck, I will be able to share more interviews with Venezuelans on the ground next month.

Solidarity,

Owen

It was popular mobilization that restored Hugo Chávez to power following the short-lived coup of April 2002, and it was the Maduro government’s continued empowerment of the grassroots that buoyed national production and distribution networks during the worst of the sanctions period. These social movements may focus on diverse areas of work - housing, racial justice, feminism, et cetera - but they share a revolutionary zeal, a common commitment the Bolivarian process, and an ever-deepening relationship with the thousands of self-governing communes across Venezuela. Many of these movements are active members of the national chapter of ALBA Movements, a forum for discussion and coordination amongst Latin American social organizations that was established in 2008 with Chávez’s support.

ALBA stands for the “Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.” It was founded in 2004, during a time of “intense mobilization and protests against neoliberalism,” particularly against the ill-fated Free Trade Area of the Americas being pushed from Washington. In this context, Venezuela and Cuba saw the need to build an alternative project of regional integration, one based on social justice over profiteering, sovereignty over the neoliberal erosion of the state and independence. ALBA was the result. From two founding members, the organization has grown to ten countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela. Member countries have vocally condemned the Donald Trump administration’s violent aggressions against Venezuela, including the theft of oil tankers and the bombing of civilian vessels on the Caribbean.

Shortly after its founding, Chávez proposed the creation of an ALBA council of social movements, one that would encompass the entire region and include movements from countries whose governments may not have been aligned with ALBA’s ideals of sovereignty and self-determination. Founded in 2008, the ALBA Movements network now includes hundreds of social movements from Latin America, around 50 of which are based in Venezuela. Their work continues to this day. In June 2025, more than 60 ALBA Movements delegates met in Caracas to discuss and debate the major challenges facing the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. As Florencia Abregú reported for People’s Dispatch:

In a continental context marked by geopolitical tensions, economic crisis, and a conservative offensive, ALBA Movements reaffirms itself as an articulation that seeks to contest meaning and power from a popular, feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial perspective. What was discussed in Caracas was not just a work agenda, but the need to consolidate a project of integration from below, capable of sustaining and projecting the struggles of our peoples in the 21st century.

In mid-December, I interviewed Hernán Vargas, a spokesperson for ALBA Movements, about the current situation in Venezuela and the region. Our wide-ranging discussion touched on the historical and present role of social movements in Venezuela’s socialist transformation, the impact of US sanctions and war on these movements, and the state of grassroots anti-imperialist resistance in the context of compounding US attacks. Like last week’s interview with a Venezuelan communard, I hope the following transcript illuminates the social forces at play in Venezuela’s revolution in a way that galvanizes readers in the imperial core into anti-imperialist action. As Vargas stresses in his closing message to the peoples of North America: those in the imperial core have a responsibility to fight against international capitalism. Part of that fight is learning from, and defending, revolutionary struggles elsewhere in the world.

What are ALBA Movements’ current activities and its future goals? How would you describe its ideological perspective?

ALBA Movements arose from Chávez’s proposal at a 2008 presidential summit of ALBA-TCP [Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples' Trade Treaty]. ALBA-TCP is the agreement between some governments towards promoting ALBA as a mechanism of regional integration. In one of the summits, Chávez proposed ALBA-TCP as the mechanism of articulation of the social movements. This started a process of discussion among different social movements in the continent, because Chávez said that the social movement council in ALBA should be a political project for any social movement in the continent that feels represented in the principles of ALBA.

In Venezuela, we have been working with around 50 different organizations. We have peasant organizations. There’s La Union Comunera, which is a platform of different communards in the country. We have a platform of Afro-Venezuelan communities, which is called the Cumbe. We have a platform of youth. We have different feminist collectives that are also part of our [ALBA Movements] chapter in Venezuela.

The first continental assembly of ALBA Movements was in 2013. At that assembly, we decided that the movements in each national chapter need to find common ground. We identified 6 shared goals.

First, militant internationalism and solidarity. This is a way to recognize different processes of international exchange. For example, I’m part of an urban platform called Movimiento de Pobladores - we struggle in the city, for land, housing, self-managed ways of building houses for the poorest people - and we have something like twenty years of exchange with different organizations that also struggle in the urban land; for example, in Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.

The second common goal is decolonization of the culture, and the battle of ideas. The third one is about the new democracy and people’s power. The fourth one is the defence of the rights of Mother Nature. The fifth one is about the people’s economy, a new economy from below. And the sixth is about the feminist struggle, and the diversity of feminist and women’s struggles on the continent. This is our common agenda of struggle.

ALBA Movements was formed shortly before the US imposed its brutal unilateral sanctions on Venezuela. How did sanctions impact the activities and projects of movements in the Venezuelan chapter?

The sanctions have had consequences in the common livelihood. In 2013, the year ALBA Movements was created, Venezuela’s national oil income was about $56 billion. In 2019-2020, following the sanctions, our national oil income decreased to around 1 percent of the previous income – from $56 billion in 2013, to between $700 and $900 million in 2019-2020. [These figures were confirmed by Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, in September 2021. Her report to the UN noted that Venezuela was living on “1% of its pre-sanctions income”]. That represents the demolition of the national income, and the national capacity to sustain the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The state’s capacity to invest massively decreased, and we have been adjusting to that situation, trying to find answers collectively.

In the last ten years, we have seen the recreation of life in Venezuela. We have been recreating our national production system. We have been forced into different kinds of production and organization to reactivate the national economy. The social movements and communities, as well, have seen a process of re-composition – how to sustain, how to survive, how to produce, how to generate exchange between the cities and the countryside? For one, we have strengthened processes of exchange between communes in the countryside and social movements in the cities in order to guarantee food.

Since September, the US aggression against Venezuela has entered a new, more intense phase. How are the social movements on the ground responding to these US attacks?

Our social movements are people from below. We are all part of the communes and the communal councils. We have been promoting the commune as the grassroots cell of articulation and unity. Hugo Chávez proposed that Venezuelan socialism was based on the commune, and the commune should be the space for self-governance, but also for the defence of sovereignty, building a new economy, building new social relations, and building a new way of distribution.

I mention that because, in the last two years or so, and especially in the latest escalation by the US, we have centered three important lines of action. The first one is to register ourselves as volunteers for the national people’s militia, which is a branch of our national military system that allows the people to participate in national defense. In the past three months, around 8 million people have volunteered for the national militia.

The second line of action is participation in the communes. This requires a more extensive description. In Venezuela, we have something like 5300 communes across the whole country, organized into systems of self-governance. Each commune freely elects the people who are going to work in different community commissions – for the water system, the electrical system, et cetera. Since 2024, the communes have introduced a new mechanism of governance. President Maduro announced in May that efforts to recover the economy, achieve economic stabilization, and increase the national income must be focuses on the communes. That’s why we introduced this new mechanism called National People’s Consultation.

I will explain the National People’s Consultation in three steps. 1) Each commune proposes the most important community projects that must be executed in order to solve the community’s main problems. 2) Each commune votes on which project is most important. Whichever project wins will be directly financed by the government. 3) The national government directly transfers the resources to the commune to execute the project they’ve decided upon. Since last year, we’ve done this seven times, with three months between each national consultation. This means that the communes have completed something like 30-35,000 community projects over the last months.

The third line of action relates to organization from below. In the last months, President Maduro gave the guideline that the United Socialist Party (PSUV) should collectivize the grassroots structures. Here, our socialist party has a structure of different levels. The last level, in the grassroots, has a representative from the party in each street of the country. We have 246,000 streets in the country, so that means there are 246,000 representatives of the party at the street-level. So last month, Maduro said that we should not only have a representative on each street, but a collective on each street. He also said that each street in the country should have an assembly to discuss who will be part of their collective. That’s an important process, because in the last weeks, we have leapt from 246,000 street representatives to around 2,460,000 organized in collectives.

What activities and projects have these street collectives undertaken?

The collectives discuss the most important issues in each street. They organize the population and prepare for different necessities in the scenario of a US aggression against Venezuela – they organize the population for food sovereignty, for the defence of each territory, they gather social intelligence for any possible attack that could happen in any community.

Are collective members expected to join the national militia?

Not necessarily. We have done a massive national registration for volunteers in the people’s militia, but it’s not a requirement to be part of the grassroots street collective.

Why do you believe the US is choosing this moment to increase its aggression against Venezuela?

The US is trying to guarantee its dominance and hegemony, particularly in Latin America. Previously this was just a hypothesis, but now it’s a certainty, as we read last month with the latest National Security Strategy of the State Department. The US wants to reassert its dominance in the Western Hemisphere. To achieve this, Trump is proposing to have a ‘Trump Corollary’ within the Monroe Doctrine.

The Monroe Doctrine aims to guarantee three levels of dominance over Latin America: military, economic, and political. In Venezuela, we have faced an attack at all three levels. Additionally, the US has tried to dominate the narrative around Venezuela. They say we have a dictatorship, that we violate human rights, that we have no democracy. But the reality in Venezuela is very different from that. The US blockade is not just economic – it’s also a blockade of reality. All the things I have described to you show that we have a very healthy and strong democratic system, in which people participate at many levels, but that’s something nobody knows about.

In the last year, we have been able to stabilize our national economy a little, to increase our national productivity. Most of the common consumption goods are produced here, in Venezuela. Something like the 80% of the most important food goods are produced here, and that’s a consequence of the blockade - it’s the positive side, if you can say that. But of course, the economic attack has been one of the most damaging actions by the US.

Recently, the US government has started a military attack against Venezuela. They have attacked boats in the Caribbean. I think this is a threat to anyone trading with Venezuela in the Caribbean, more than an actual fight against drug trafficking, because all the different sources you can check will show you that most of the drugs consumed in the US move through the Pacific Ocean. And of course, Venezuela is not remotely an important producer of drugs. It’s a bizarre narrative. They have killed something like 90 people, and some of them are Colombian fishermen, others are Venezuelan fisherman - executed in the Caribbean.

They are trying to strengthen the siege against Venezuela. They seized an oil tanker, and that same day, the State Department released new sanctions against some companies and their representatives.

There was a book by Richard Nephew about the international sanctions against Iran. [Nephew served in Barack Obama’s principal deputy coordinator of sanctions policy, and Joe Biden’s deputy Iran envoy. In his book, The Art of Sanctions, Nephew boasts that US sanctions against Iran tripled the price of chicken, drove up unemployment, and sabotaged the country’s automotive industry]. In that book, [Nephew] concludes that the sanctions against Iran have functioned as a kind of lab – they’ve been researching these sanctions, learning things that they have now put into practices against different countries. Venezuela, of course, is one of the places where they are putting these strategies into action.

But it’s not just Venezuela. It’s the whole region. Trump has publicly endorsed the far-right candidate in Chile. He did the same in Honduras’s recent election, and before that, in Argentina with Milei. This is electoral pressure. Lawfare. In Argentina, they have basically banned the most popular leader, Cristina Fernández, from running. Something like that happened before in Brazil as well [with Lula]. When they can’t fix elections, they just fix the courts. When that doesn’t work, they impose a blockade, like in Venezuela and Cuba.

That’s how we interpret the Trump Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine. The US is retiring a little from the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, retreating into its ‘backyard.’ They want to secure their position in the Western Hemisphere so they can stabilize themselves for upcoming conflicts – maybe in the Middle East, maybe with China or Russia. That’s how we view this from Venezuela.

What message do you want to convey to the peoples of Canada and the United States?

We need the people of Canada and the US to go into the streets, to go against this whole elite system of governance, which is actually decreasing the conditions of life in Canada and the US. Each year, the conditions in North America are becoming more difficult for the working class. Although their governments are targeting different countries in the Global South, promoting extraction, internal conflicts, even wars, that is not even accompanied by a better livelihood for their own populations.

When the 21^st century stated, Latin America was not only a zone of peace, but we also promoted new projects of democracy. We rejected the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The governments of the Global North have strengthened their attacks in order to demolish these alternatives. Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua are resisting, but the Global North is attacking us with their biggest guns.

It’s important that the population in Canada and the US gains consciousness of this reality, because it is also a danger for them, for their children. I think the Global North has a big responsibility. International capitalism is threatening the continuation of life on the planet. It’s up to the people of the North to save the world.

Despite what Western capitalist governments say, Venezuela is not suppressing democracy. In fact, Venezuelan democracy is deepening thanks to close cooperation between the state and the communal movement, a fruitful collaboration of which El Maizal Commune is an eminent example.

Venezuela’s communes are a nationwide experiment in radical democracy. Thousands of them dot the South American country; nodes of democratic self-governance, the communes own their local means of production and exercise sovereignty over their community’s food, housing, culture, division of labour, even the banking and justice systems. As John Bellamy Foster notes, “All of this had been legally constituted by the passage of the Organic Laws of Popular Power in 2010, including, most notably, the Organic Law of the Communes and the Organic Law of the Communal Economic System.”

The communes form the essence of Hugo Chávez’s vision of Venezuelan socialism. In his famous “Strike at the Helm” speech of October 20, 2012, Chávez called for an acceleration of the communal project toward the goal of a “communal state.” His insistence on “the commune or nothing” still resonates across Venezuela today.

Under Maduro, the Venezuelan government has continued to promote the communal project, including through a series of expansive national consultations, launched in May 2024, that aim to transfer greater economic resources and political power to the communes. This is the deepening of democracy to which I refer. Through these consultations, the Venezuelan state is actively transferring economic and political power to local, self-governing units throughout the country - a stunningly democratic development that looks quite different from the image of Venezuela that prevails in Western mainstream media, that of a shaky dictatorship desperately clinging to power.

El Maizal Commune is a central pillar of Venezuela’s communal movement. With 28 communal councils, 3500 member families, and a vast territory in the states of Lara and Portuguesa, El Maizal is among the largest and most consolidated of the over 5000 communes in Venezuela today. It is recognized as such by the central government. After all, Minister of Communes Ángel Prado, appointed in 2024, was formerly El Maizal’s main spokesperson.

Lana Vielma is a young teacher from El Maizal. Her steadfast commitment to socialism, national independence, and Chavismo reflects the views of the commune movement writ large. I interviewed Vielma for a forthcoming article in The Progressive that will focus on how the communes and social movements in Venezuela are responding to the latest phase of US attacks. Although my article quotes Vielma several times, I have decided to publish the interview’s full transcript below. With US aggression against Venezuela increasing daily, it is vitally important for anti-imperialists in North America to understand the actuality of Venezuela’s socialist democracy. That way, we in the imperial core can enhance our arguments for solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution and better organize against imperialist intervention.

In what year was El Maizal Commune established, and what is its current structure in terms of membership, ideological formation, organization, and productive activities?

El Maizal was born in 2009. It was directly founded by Commander Hugo Chávez, who, while inaugurating a road next to a landowner’s land, heard about the struggle of the peasants there. He went to that territory and declared it the property of the peasants. Since then, El Maizal Commune has consolidated itself, especially in terms of production and the economy, but also in terms of organization and the construction of political power.

El Maizal Commune is quite extensive. I couldn’t define the number of members since it is a large territory made up of 28 communal councils. We currently have about 10 production units, which are directly owned communal social enterprises. Our main source of income is livestock farming. We currently have breeding stock; I can’t explain that very well, because it’s not my area. I dedicate myself more to communications. But the most stable source of our production units are the livestock production units called Argimiro Gabaldón.

We also have the PCC (Communal Production Cooperative) for planting, which is more specifically for planting corn. We have greenhouses where vegetables, herbs, and all kinds of things are planted. We have a school for political, ideological, and technical training, which at this moment is the training school of the Communal Union. Good people from all over the country have passed through there, and every month more people come to our courses. These courses are directed to different sectors of the Venezuelan political organizations and movements, including young women leaders and even children.

We have our little school, the Cornfield School, which is a beautiful project. The children who are involved with the school have an education adapted to their reality, their needs, and our way of seeing the world. It isn’t conventional education, but rather liberating and transformative education that informs activists for life and peace.

You mentioned that the school offers a liberating and transformative education. What do the students learn there, and what are the commune’s teaching methods?

Our commune has created a fairly comprehensive educational system that ranges from the initial education of boys and girls from preschool through all educational levels: preschool, primary, and secondary. Then there’s our school of political, ideological, and technical training. The primary school, named the Argelia Laya Educational Complex, is named in honour of the social activist, that tireless fighter for women’s rights. In honouring that leader, our educational complex is based on the educational principles of Simón Rodríguez and Paulo Freire.

At the school, the sons and daughters of producers and social activists who are active in the commune or in the communal movement study. I, personally, am a teacher at that educational complex. I teach a subject called Gender Equality. The subjects we teach aren’t in the formal curriculum of national education. We teach another subject called Communal Horizon, which is precisely about understanding our path within the construction of the community. The boys and girls not only study math, physics, chemistry, or language, but they also sow seeds, they connect with their communities, they work on proposals and projects, they talk about Chávez, they talk about Che, they talk about our historical figures.

A large part of the food consumed in the school is produced right there in our garden. We have a holistic approach to culture, sports, recreation, many things. We affectionately call it “the little school” because it’s our project, the seed of the community. At this moment we’ve reached the third year, but the idea is to reach the fifth year. We’re already forming our Bolivarian high school.

How have the illegal sanctions imposed by the US impacted the El Maizal community, specifically its activities, projects, and collective work?

Sanctions impacted terribly on the entire population, including us. When Commander Chávez was alive, and the communes began to be founded, there was prosperity. There were many commune projects that were approved for execution – housing, infrastructure, high schools, cafeterias, sports fields. When the criminal sanctions against our country began, many of those things were paralyzed. The sanctions also affect the income of the people who live in our territory, our way of life, our way of relating to each other.

The US aims to put us against the wall, but even in the most adverse situations, we have grown. We see ourselves transformed and reinvented. We have created alternative ways.

I understand that El Maizal is a leading example of the communal movement in Venezuela and is part of the Communal Union, which seeks to build socialism from the ground up. How does El Maizal relate to other communes and similar social movements?

The Communal Union has the mandate of Commander Chávez, who said that Venezuela needed a unified network of communes. There couldn’t be a single isolated commune, because then the capitalist system would swallow up the germ of the socialist project. The main objective of the Communal Union was to found the Confederation of Communes. What a new system of organization! Under this system, the people have power; the people decide directly what to do with their wealth, their resources, and from that, they achieve greater social well-being.

The Communal Union has several fundamental objectives. One is life – socialism. We raise the banner of communal feminism. We are loyal to Chávez above all else, to the revolutionary Chavista project, and to radicalism as a counter to reformism. The Communal Union says yes, the Chavista project is possible. There are many people forming communes, generating transformative economic and political projects. At this moment, we are in 20 [of the 23] states of the country.

The Landless Workers’ Movement of Brazil is our reference in organizational matters, and we propose a social movement as solid as this one, a movement for the real transformation of our country. Many people visit us. Many people listen to the Communal Union. We’re getting to know more communities, trying to get many others to join this project. The more we get, the more we see the real transformation of the state.

In light of the recent campaign of military aggression by the U.S. government against Venezuela, based on unfounded accusations of drug trafficking, how have the commune’s members responded to this new phase of hostility? What is the current mood among the members of El Maizal regarding this threat?

From the very first moment the President of the United States began to launch his infamous declarations threatening Venezuela, the communards were one of the first movements to enlist and place themselves at the service of the homeland. This has to do with our nature, with defending the territory, defending life in our territory. We will defend against any threat. Within the communities, we have been carrying out reconnaissance, preparations, and training, practicing the techniques to face aggressions. Defending the territory is a war of the entire people.

Venezuela is written with a ‘V,’ like Vietnam and victory. That is also our legacy. We have already defeated empires. The essence of the communards is also rebellion, which means standing firm against all threats of colonization. If they colonize us again, we will respond with greater political maturity, with better preparation and organization, and we are always ready to take up any fight.

What are the community members’ perspectives on the future of El Maizal and the community project? And from their point of view, how do they envision the future of Venezuela in general?

The future of Venezuela is so great. We see the commune as a life project; that is, everything is possible in the commune. Everything you can imagine, everything you can dream, everything you can create is possible on the commune. Anything you want to transform in society is possible to do through the tool of the commune. For us, the commune goes far beyond a number of communal councils or projects resulting from popular consultation. It’s a wonderful tool that, at this moment, has brought many people together throughout the country.

We believe that we need to accelerate real and radical transformations. We call for radicalism in our proposals. We see how every time the left cools down or moves to the center, it loses ground. We call for radicalism because it is the only way to defend ourselves against imperialism, against aggression. This is the call we make: not to be passive subjects, but to take a stand, to participate, because this system only works with participation. If there is no participation, it doesn’t work. If there are no leaders, no people who assume responsibilities, no people who take on the task of revolutionizing everything that needs to be revolutionized, then the commune doesn’t work.

There’s a people here waging an immense battle, but we’re winning. That’s the most beautiful lesson we want the world to know.

Below you will find my recent interview with Dimitri Lascaris of the Reason2Resist YouTube show. When you have a free hour, give it a watch.

Description:

On November 17, 2025, the UN Security Council betrayed the Palestinian people by adopting a resolution that endorsed Donald Trump’s criminal and fraudulent “peace plan” for Gaza. That resolution, Resolution 2803, is by no means the first time that the UN Security Council has stabbed Arab and Muslim peoples in the back. Another notorious example of the Security Council’s contempt for the rights and interests of Arab and Muslim peoples is UNSC Resolution 1973. Adopted on March 17, 2011, Security Council Resolution 1973 approved a no-fly zone over Libya. This led directly to NATO’s destruction of the once-prosperous African country.

Few people are as knowledgeable about NATO’s destruction of Libya, and the UN Security Council’s complicity in Libya’s destruction as Canadian researcher and author, Owen Schalk. A new book by Owen examines the role of Canada – a NATO member – in the destruction of Libya. The book is titled “Targeting Libya – How Canada went from building public works to bombing an oil-rich country and creating chaos for its citizens.”

You can learn more about Owen’s new book here:
https://formaclorimerbooks.ca/product...

Hello friends,

First things first: my third book Targeting Libya was published this month. Grab a copy if you can. I guarantee that even those with a wide-ranging knowledge of Canada’s role in Libya over the past five decades will learn something new about Canadian corporate power in the region, the evolution of the Muammar Qadhafi government, and the Canadian state’s role in destroying what was then Africa’s most prosperous country.

• How Canada Helped Destroy Libya (Orchardcast)

An interview in which I detail the history of Canada’s relationship to Libya, and the Canadian government’s outsized role in bringing about the destruction of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

• Mark Carney’s silence on Venezuela reveals complicity (Canadian Dimension)

This article frames Carney’s silence on US aggression toward Venezuela through the Canadian prime minister’s past role in undermining Venezuelan sovereignty. Specifically, the article zeroes in on Carney’s tenure as governor of the Bank of England. Readers likely remember that in 2019, the Bank of England denied Venezuela access to $1 billion in gold reserves stored at the bank. These gold reserves represented 15 percent of Venezuela’s international reserves; accessing them would have been a crucial lifeline for Venezuela during the country’s economic collapse. However, many are unaware that Mark Carney - the bank’s governor at the time - personally refused to grant Venezuela access to its own gold after he was lobbied by the first Trump administration, the British Foreign Office, and the right-wing Venezuelan opposition. This fact directly implicates Carney in the US-led hybrid war against Venezuela.

As I write in the piece: “Seen in this light, Carney’s silence on [US aggression toward Venezuela] is no longer passive. His past actions show a willingness to undermine Venezuela, support Washington’s regime change agenda, and empower opposition figures. Should the Trump administration escalate toward a direct strike, one can safely assume Carney will maintain his pose of ‘detachment.’ But in the case of Venezuela, silence from Mark Carney is not neutrality. It is tacit approval.”

• Canadians show solidarity with the Alliance of Sahel States (Media Co-op)

An article on the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), its history and present challenges, and AES solidarity in Canada. For this piece, I interviewed two Pan-African organizers about their work to support the AES, and what Canadians can do to assist this new anti-imperialist confederation in West Africa.

• Canada flying in lockstep with the United States (Canadian Dimension)

This article summarizes the current state of the Department of Defence’s looming F-35 purchase, touching on a recent US warning of “consequences” should Canada purchase warplanes from another source. Though unconfirmed, the F-35 purchase will almost certainly go forward given Carney’s accommodation of Trump’s demands and the longstanding pro-US orientation of the Canadian Armed Forces. As the article explains, the F-35 purchase is one of several capitulations that reveal Carney’s empty campaign promises for what they were: a calculated political rug pull.

Solidarity,

Owen

I include the original English text below.

Why Canada is giving in to Trump: A Marxist analysis

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has not stood up to US President Donald Trump. In fact, he never intended to do so. Carney rode a wave of Canadian nationalism to power in April 2025, but his five months as prime minister have brought little but capitulation to Trump alongside deepening integration into the US military machine. Most Canadians despise the Trump administration – recall Canadian audiences booing the US national anthem at NHL games, and the “Buy Canadian” consumer surge – but for Carney, not to mention the opposition Conservatives, Washington continues to set the agenda. This despite the fact that the increasingly multipolar world has brought manifold opportunities for Canada to diversify its trade relationships – if only Canada’s ruling class wanted to take advantage. This raises the question: why does Canada refuse to diversify relations in the face of Trump’s threats? And what does it mean for Canadians, and the world, that Canada’s ruling class has chosen US-aligned imperial rearmament over non-alignment and international peace?

Atlanticism and great power competition

The Cold War is over, but the Canadian ruling class still views itself as part of an Atlanticist project of economic and military cooperation between Canada, the US, and Western Europe. The alliance is bound together by NATO, a military coalition dominated by Washington.

NATO was never a defensive alliance – in fact, its creation in 1949 was part of a multipronged effort by the US government and its allies to recreate American capitalism and accumulation conditions in Western Europe, an effort that included economic (through the Marshall Plan) and cultural (through the Congress for Cultural Freedom and like organizations) components. During the Cold War, NATO’s theatre of operation was largely restricted to Western Europe. When the Cold War ended, NATO transformed from a security force for the consolidation of Western European capital into a brazenly imperialistic alliance that wages war wherever its members, the most important being Washington, decide that US-led global capitalism most requires bolstering, be it the former Yugoslavia or Afghanistan, Libya or Ukraine.

While NATO’s pre-Ukraine wars were largely motivated by a desire to globalize capitalism into areas not yet conquered by the Western alliance, great power competition between the US and its allies on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, has changed the battlefield. Post-Cold War NATO has adapted from targeting small nations that have not sufficiently integrated into (or subjugated themselves to) the US-led imperial order, to inciting proxy conflicts designed to weaken Washington’s great power competitors. At every stage of NATO’s development, Ottawa has eagerly aligned itself with imperial Western objectives.

In the era of Russia and China’s rise, a central tenet of the Atlanticist alliance has been massively increased military spending, even to the order of 5 percent of GDP as Trump recently dictated. This is perhaps the most significant area in which Mark Carney abandoned his campaign promises and caved to Trump’s demands.

A Marxist analysis – one rooted in historical and dialectical materialism – will note that Trump and Carney are not the true decision-makers. They are skin-deep representatives of subcutaneous material relations between ruling classes – i.e. capitalist classes – in their respective countries. These national capitalist classes view Russia and China’s rise, and the emergence of BRICS more broadly, as a threat to the imperialist processes by which they extract cheap labour and raw materials from countries in the Global South. Canada’s globe-spanning mining industry, which comprises 60 percent of the world’s mining companies and operates with shocking impunity across Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and elsewhere, is perhaps the most striking manifestation of the way in which Canada benefits from the inequitable global arrangement that BRICS aims to undermine.

Far from recognizing the shifting realities of global affairs and using this reality to their advantage, Canada’s ruling class continues to identify its interests with those of Washington and the Atlantic alliance. In other words, Canadian capitalists and their political representatives want to remain in Trump’s good graces, because they profit from the world order that Trump and NATO are seeking to secure. As a result, appeasement, not confrontation, has become Ottawa’s de facto approach to the Trump administration. Russia and China, not the US, continue to draw Ottawa’s diplomatic ire and military attention. This flies in the face of promises made to the Canadian electorate, revealing the stunning extent to which the views and interests of Canada’s ruling class diverge from those held by the majority of Canadians. Such a divergence highlights the importance, to the Canadian state, of media propaganda to reorient Canadians’ ire toward Russia and China, the countries the ruling class considers to be the true threat to Canada given the bourgeoisie’s unwavering identification of Canada with the Atlantic alliance and US-led global capitalism.

Elbows up?

Since January 2025, the Donald Trump administration has threatened Canada with economic sabotage and annexation. Shortly after taking office for the second time, Trump imposed so-called “retaliatory” tariffs on Canada, namely, 25 percent tariffs on products from Canada and 10 percent tariffs on Canadian energy and mineral resources. Canada responded with 25 percent tariffs on a range of US goods, and since then, the countries have engaged in a commercial tit-for-tat, accompanied by statements from the US president describing plans to “annex” Canada through “economic force.”[i]

US belligerence toward its northern neighbour fueled popular resentment against the US, dramatically reshaping Canadian political discourse leading up to Canada’s April 2025 election. Canadians have come to regard the US as a much greater threat to Canada than Russia and China, the two perpetual bugbears of Canada’s political establishment and commentariat.[ii] The incumbent Liberal Party, which had suffered a collapse in favourability after a decade in power, received an upsurge of support in the wake of Trump’s aggressions. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, whose “Canada First” rhetoric and reactionary social policies had wedded him to Trump in the eyes of Canadian voters, lost the election despite months of polls predicting a crushing Conservative victory. The Liberal Party under Mark Carney secured a minority government.

Carney promised an “elbows up” approach to the Trump administration (a term from hockey describing an effective way to protect oneself from the opposing team). The prime minister asserted that the process of “deepening integration” between the US and Canadian militaries had ended. “We are in a position now where we co-operate when necessary,” he said, “but not necessarily co-operate.”[iii] But is Canada truly rolling back its integration with the US, or is the Canadian ruling class merely trying to appease public opinion while it renegotiates its terms of membership in the Atlantic alliance?

The false promise of diversification

Presently, a range of countries in the Global South, united in the BRICS economic bloc, are seeking to insulate themselves from the fluctuations of an increasingly sclerotic and irrational US-led global order. This has involved increased South-South cooperation, including on the green technologies in which China excels, and the construction of alternatives to US-controlled financial networks like the SWIFT system, which will allow member states to reduce their exposure to the unilateral sanctions that have become a central tool of American economic power in recent years.

Cumulatively, BRICS’s 10 members and 10 partner countries comprise 56 percent of the world’s population and 44 percent of global GDP.[iv] They are the global majority in population and may soon become the global majority in economic production. Meanwhile, 95 percent of Canadian exports flow to the United States, despite the US market comprising 5 percent of global consumers. If the Canadian government wanted to pursue economic diversification as a hedge against US interference, the most sensible option would be a turn toward the global majority as represented by the BRICS bloc.

Given US capitalism’s unreliability, volatility, and deepening stagnation, Canada could theoretically protect itself from the vicissitudes of US capitalism through increased trade with BRICS in general and China in particular. On the military side, Canada could assert its sovereignty by disentangling itself from the US military-industrial complex and ending its increasingly costly commitments to the US-led NATO alliance, which under Carney now total 5 percent of Canadian GDP or $150 billion annually. Taken together, nonalignment in foreign policy and an economic turn toward the global majority (as represented by BRICS) would secure a range of advantages for Canada, most importantly its independence, that would in turn guarantee Canadian relevance on the international stage for years to come.

Discussions of Canada’s future since Carney’s victory lack such ambition. His trade diversification programs focus largely on the European Union, which is plagued by low productivity and sluggish growth, particularly since the imposition of sanctions on Russian energy in 2022.[v] Carney has also deepened Canada’s security integration with Europe, which is hardly a diversification given the dominant role played by the US in the North Atlantic alliance. When Carney’s policies are analyzed for substance rather than style, one sees that the Canadian government is 1) not taking advantage of dynamic BRICS markets, instead sticking to an Atlanticist view of trade diversification that does little to insulate Canada from US economic coercion, and 2) aligning itself even more closely with US military and geopolitical objectives. The prime minister’s policies look exactly like the “deepening integration” era on which his victory supposedly turned the page.

Carney’s unwillingness to shift toward the global majority illuminates his Atlanticist myopia. It also speaks to the difficulty of subordinate Western powers, including Canada, in recognizing the declining advantages of US empire and adapting to a non-Western global order. Far from adapting, Canada’s ruling class is entrenching itself more deeply in an imperialist economic and military alliance that once afforded immense privileges to the Canadian economy, but whose returns are steadily shrinking in the multipolar era. Functionally, this has meant obeying Trump’s arms spending demands and resisting the emergence of a multipolar world through aggressive military actions aimed at Russia and China.

Carney has attempted to brand his embrace of militarism as an economic renaissance for Canada. Political analyst Abbas Qaidari describes Carney’s presentation of his government’s militarist policies as “a distinctly Canadian form of Keynesian militarism — one rooted not in jingoism or expansionism, but in a sophisticated fusion of fiscal credibility, productive state intervention, and strategic narrative control.” The Carney government, Qaidari claims, “is recasting defence as a source of sovereign economic agency.”[vi] Such an analysis ignores the imperial dimension of this policy – specifically, the fact that the Trump administration has demanded more arms spending from NATO states in order to confront the multipolar world that is consolidating around Russia and China. Understood in this context, it becomes evident that Carney’s decision to pursue Atlanticist militarism is part of a wider Western strategy of attacking multipolarity in order to bolster an ailing Western-oriented world order. Carney’s militarism benefits those who are committed to maintaining US-led imperialism, and the Atlantic arms industry that fuels the militarization of NATO members and NATO expansion; it does not benefit the majority of Canadians who are urging their government to pursue genuine diversification of trade and military relationships.

Canada and imperialism

The US-led global system that prevailed after the end of the Second World War was a fundamentally imperialist one. As Samir Amin’s work argues, capitalism has been characterized by a “polarization between centers and peripheries since its origin (the sixteenth century), which has only increased over the course of its later globalized development.” In this way, Amin questions Lenin and Bukharin’s view that twentieth-century imperialism was a “new” stage of capitalism, adding: “The nineteenth-century pre-monopolist system was not less imperialist [than the twentieth-century monopolist system]. Great Britain maintained its hegemony precisely because of its colonial domination of India.”[vii]

From its founding, Canada’s settler-capitalist state benefitted from its integration with the British imperial system.[viii] As Canadian political economist John Rapley notes: “From the early days of European settlement, Canada was woven into the triangle trade that tapped into the surpluses generated by the slave economies of the Caribbean and American south, enabling European settlers to profit from African forced labour while keeping a comfortable distance from the institution’s horrors.”[ix] A Canadian capitalist class emerged and consolidated under the tutelage of the British Empire. By the early twentieth century, investigate journalist Gustavus Myers found that “less than fifty men control $4,000,000,000, or more than one-third of Canada’s material wealth, as expressed in railways, banks, factories, mines, land and other properties and resources.” Myers also described the amount of British capital present in Canada as “stupendous” – more than $2 billion, or almost $55 billion in today’s dollars.[x] British capital powered itself by the extraction of super-profits in the empire’s colonies, and it was through the depositing of these super-profits in the early Canadian context that Canada was able to industrialize and, by 1867, consolidate itself into a fledgling nation. In short, British capital extracted imperialist rent from India and other colonies and redirected that surplus value toward Canada and other “white dominions,” helping their economies to grow at a rapid pace. “In this way,” writes Rapley, “Canada sat at the pinnacle of a web of global exploitation, able to secure most of the economic benefits of imperial domination while bearing few of its costs: colonial wars, expensive navies, imperial administrations.”[xi]

As political economist Jerome Klassen notes: “If the capitalist world system is constituted by an imperialist structure of power through which economic surpluses are distributed unevenly through the competing strategies of nation-states and their respective capitalist classes, then Canada must be located near the top of this hierarchical system, and the question of Canadian imperialism must be explored.”[xii]

Following the Second World War, Canada moved from under the British imperial umbrella to that of the United States. Canada participated eagerly in the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions, which are dominated by the Western and particularly US perspective, and in April 1949, Canada became a founding member of NATO. In the early Cold War, the US identified North America as a single “strategic unit” and secured a steady flow of Canadian energy resources and minerals; Canada simultaneously increased its economic and military integration with the US, the world’s new imperial metropole, and the strength of Canada’s economy became tied to the American military and US imperial ventures.[xiii]

Canada’s ability to benefit from markets secured by Western imperialism without bearing the brunt of maintaining military and political apparatuses for the extraction of imperialist rent allowed Canada to maintain a social welfare system, including universal healthcare, and channel military spending toward international peacekeeping missions rather than aggressive military campaigns (although aggressive campaigns were waged against Indigenous peoples within Canada itself who opposed the spread and consolidation of Canadian capital, including during the 1870 Red River Resistance, the 1885 Northwest Resistance, and the 1990 Kanesatake Resistance). These peacekeeping missions were often described as evidence of Canada’s values of multilateralism and compromise, which contrasted with US militarism – however, it was precisely due to the imperialist system maintained by US military power that Canada’s ruling class was able to redirect value toward social welfare and peacekeeping endeavours. Political economist Paul Kellogg describes Canada’s strategy in this era as one of “military parasitism,” meaning that “Canadian capitalism invested in, and profited from, spheres of influence ‘kept safe for capitalism’ by Canada’s closest ally—the highly militarized United States.”[xiv] Furthermore, the Canadian military was never solely a peacekeeping force, as political scientist Todd Gordon outlines:

Since the Second World War, the Canadian military has participated in at least five imperialist interventions in foreign countries: Korea (1950-1953), Iraq (1991), Yugoslavia (1999), Haiti (2004), and Afghanistan (since 2002). Canada did not participate in the Vietnam War. But it did sell billions of dollars of war materials to the U.S. at the time and used its seat on the International Commission of Control and Supervision – the international force established in 1954 to oversee the implementation of the Geneva Accords that ended the First Indochina War – to support the American war effort. Canada sent two naval destroyers to the region near the end of the U.S. war to back up Canadian soldiers serving in it. And while Canada did not officially participate in the 2003 Iraq War, Canadian soldiers and officers on exchange programs have nevertheless been fighting with the American military and taking command positions in the occupying forces.[xv]

Some of these interventions, undertaken in the context of an ascendant Russia and China, can be partially understood as efforts to stem the emergence of a multipolarity that challenged the Western imperialist system and Canada’s position of privilege within it. As Klassen notes, the war in Afghanistan, to which Canada contributed 40,000 troops over thirteen years, was “used to counter Chinese expansion, privatize Afghan resources, and generally expand the space of global capitalism and the American empire.” More specifically, Klassen argues that Canada was “waging war to expand western hegemony across Eurasia and the wider world system, to elevate Canada’s political, economic, and military rank within that system, and to expand the interests of Canadian capital on national, regional, and global scales.”[xvi]

As Canadian capital globalized in the late twentieth century, Canadian companies increasingly took advantage of cheap labour and resources in the Global South, aiming to secure a greater share of the northward flow of super-profits. This was accompanied by a decline in Canada’s peacekeeping contributions at the United Nations and a growth in Canadian participation in imperialist wars, as noted by Gordon above. Klassen describes this process as the emergence of “armoured neoliberalism,” a “fusion of militarism and class warfare in Canadian state policies and practices” which had a three-fold aim: “to globalize Corporate Canada’s reach; to secure a core position for the Canadian state in the geopolitical hierarchy; and to discipline any opposition forces – both state and non-state – in the world order.”[xvii]

In the early 1980s, the global debt crisis hammered Global South countries and “the advanced capitalist countries used the IMF and the World Bank to alter radically the political and economic landscape of the Third World.”[xviii] These Western-led financial institutions provided debt relief in exchange for economic liberalization. As a result, “markets were opened to First World capital, public utilities and land privatized, social spending and subsidies cut, currencies devalued, and natural resources commodified, all of which sparked an investment wave in pursuit of natural resources, cheap labour supplies, and fire-sale assets.”[xix] Canada joined the southward rush. Between 1990 and 2005, Canadian direct investment in Global South markets grew substantially, increasing “at a greater rate than the Canadian economy.”[xx]

This did not correlate to a Canadian geopolitical drift out of the Atlanticist bloc. Rather, it corresponded with Canada’s increased contributions to military conquests aimed at the expansion of North Atlantic power. Canada’s interest in the Global South was classically imperialist in the sense that the Canadian state was concerned first and foremost with the spread of Western hegemony and the ability of Canadian companies to obtain sources of surplus value to power the growth of the Canadian economy; moreover, the reforms imposed on Global South nations actively undermined their national sovereignty. Canada’s southward focus was clearly not a mutually beneficial arrangement, as evidenced by widespread grassroots opposition to Canadian companies, particularly mining companies, in countries across Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, directed particularly at these companies’ corrupt practices and negative ecological impact.[xxi] In subsequent years, Southern countries’ preference for China-led economic alliances, which notably do not undermine national sovereignty through the imposition of neoliberal reforms, was evidenced by the rapid growth of BRIC (founded in 2008, expanded in 2014 to include South Africa) and the Belt and Road Initiative (founded in 2013).

As these South-South economic blocs have consolidated, the US-led capitalist world order has lost influence, and key sources of Western super-profits appear less willing to sacrifice national sovereignty in exchange for foreign investment. Rather than view the arrival of a multipolar world order as an opportunity, the Canadian state apparently feels threatened by the prospect of losing potential fountains of surplus value. The threat is deeply felt in the United States too; US anxiety about a multipolar world has led to aggressive interventions abroad, including in Ukraine, and fuelled the rise of what Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster terms “MAGA imperialism.”

The first Trump administration launched the New Cold War on China in an effort to defeat its leading global competitor; in Latin America, meanwhile, Trump sought to eradicate the socialist alternatives represented by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Republic of Cuba. In the Middle East, Trump sought to subjugate the region to Israeli hegemony. For its part, Canada supported these objectives, imposing sanctions of its own on Venezuela and committing a judicial kidnapping of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou at Trump’s behest, while continuing arms shipments to and diplomatic support for the increasingly openly genocidal state of Israel.

The Joe Biden administration expanded the US war on multipolarity to include the war in Ukraine, the ultimate goal of which is to weaken Russia, as stated by former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.[xxii] Canada has been deeply involved in the war against Russia; furthermore, the Canadian military has deployed to the South China Sea for provocative exercises off China’s coast, indicating Canada’s commitment to a two-front campaign aimed at challenging Russia and China simultaneously. These foreign policy trends have continued and in fact intensified under Mark Carney’s supposedly “elbows up” defence of Canadian sovereignty and independence.

Missing the BRICS boat

Mark Carney’s most significant response to Trump’s aggressions has been an increase in oil shipments from the Trans Mountain Pipeline to China.[xxiii] However, when all potential areas for collaboration with China and BRICS are surveyed, these shipments come across as extremely minor. In the context of Canada’s continuing support for US geopolitical objectives, they are even less impressive.

For almost two decades, Canadian economists and observers have warned that Canada is not taking advantage of the opportunities presented by BRICS. In 2008, one year prior to the first official meeting of the BRIC bloc, the Conference Board of Canada think tank noted that Canada was making few efforts to deepen links with BRIC economies. That year, less than 2 percent of Canadian exports went to China, while Canadian investment in China represented less than 1 percent of Canada’s total outward foreign direct investment; Canadian investment in India, meanwhile, was “all but invisible.” The think tank noted: “Canada is missing out on the enormous opportunities offered by the BRIC countries…Canada’s share of trade and investment with the BRICs is small and linkages with these countries…need to be deepened.” Senior Research Associate Sheila Rao argued that “there are also huge export and investment opportunities for Canada in these countries. China and India are resource hungry, have massive infrastructure needs, and their enormous and growing middle-class population is boosting demand for products worldwide.”[xxiv]

In 2011, the London-based professional services network PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) again noted Canada’s surprising lack of interest in BRIC. A PwC report argued that “Canada has been less acquisitive than most of its developed nation peers in the coveted emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC nations).” Kristian Knibutat, PwC’s “Canadian deals leader,” stated: “In terms of deal volumes, Canada has been slow to the switch in striking deals in these key emerging markets…in the long term, Canadians will have to increase investments in the BRIC regions to stay competitive.”[xxv]

Some Canadian capitalists, including Rick Waugh, chief executive officer of Scotiabank, criticized the ruling class’s lack of initiative in diversifying trade relations. In 2013, Waugh told the Toronto Board of Trade: “Our historical near-total reliance on the US may have been enough in the last century, but it hasn’t prepared many of us for the next century…It has made us complacent – too comfortable to sit back and be happy trading with ourselves or with the big market in our back yard, rather than sharpening our skills to take on the bigger world.”[xxvi]

In 2016, Professors Laura MacDonald and Jeremy Paltiel warned that Canada’s insistence on deepening ties with the US at the expense of BRICS was unwise. “The earlier choice of governments to pursue deeper economic integration with the United States at the expense of trade diversification proved problematic in an era of stagnation of the American economy and the rise of new economic powers,” the authors argued. “Canada faces not just an economic crisis but also a crisis of identity, as it confronts powerful new challengers to the global order that Canada contributed to establishing, as well as benefitted from.” They continued: “The Canadian government’s response has been inadequate, and…Canada is falling behind in the reshuffling global order. While this record may reflect the limitations of the previous Canadian administration [Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper], we believe it also relates to deeper problems that beneficiaries of the status quo face in accommodating new challengers… In light of the relative decline of the United States, its strongest economic partner, there are strong economic incentives for Canada to diversify its trade and investment relations.”[xxvii]

This diversification did not happen.

As the second Trump administration loomed, The Globe and Mail, one of North America’s oldest newspapers and Canada’s so-called “newspaper of record,” published an article by Emerson Csorba outlining the necessity of a Canadian shift toward the global majority. In the article, Csorba called for Canada to pursue BRICS membership. “The idea behind membership in BRICS,” the author argued, “is that it is better to engage directly in this forum than to keep a distance, which almost surely promises increasing dependence on America and a negligible Canadian role in geopolitics.” Csorba continued:

While benefitting economically, Canada can protect its interests by cultivating relations with a wider variety of partners. There is historical precedent in Canada’s strategic engagement with the USSR, China and Cuba as interlocutor for America during the Cold War. Canada can also engage further with platforms such as La Francophonie, connecting with rising powers in the Global South…Canada cannot assume, as has been the case in the past, that America will serve as its protector.[xxviii]

In July 2025, amidst Carney’s various capitulations to Trump, The Globe and Mail published another article calling for Canada to “free ourselves of the US and forge closer ties with China.” The publication of this article in a major Canadian newspaper showed that even privately owned, capitalist media could not ignore the popular upswell of anti-US sentiment in the country. The authors, Julian Karaguesian and Robin Shaban, stated:

To achieve economic sovereignty, Canada must break free from the made-in-Washington narrative that China is an unreliable trading partner bent on world domination. Instead, Canada must forge its own relationship with China – a relationship anchored in Canadian, not U.S., interests…To achieve economic independence, Canada must pivot. Between 2018-19 and the end of 2023, Mexico-China trade grew 66 per cent while maintaining U.S. ties. Why can’t we? We also need to improve technology transfer from China in ways that increase our economic strength, expedite our innovation and protect our sovereignty…The greatest threat to Canadian sovereignty isn’t Chinese interference, it’s our servility to a U.S. that increasingly treats us as a vassal. When 95 per cent of global consumers live outside America, the fact that we rely on one increasingly unreliable partner for 75 per cent of our exports isn’t strategy, it’s strategic malpractice.”[xxix]

Nevertheless, the Carney government is still deepening its military integration with an aggressive US administration and pursuing trade diversification within a short-sighted Atlanticist framework, which does little to secure Canadian sovereignty vis-à-vis the US and in fact serves US interests by keeping Canada under Washington’s domination.

Mark Carney: MAGA imperialist?

The second Trump administration views China as the primary opponent of US hegemony. As such, Trump has sought a ceasefire in Russia in order to focus American efforts on combatting Chinese global influence. Trump’s foreign policy team is stacked with anti-China hawks like Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and Elbridge Colby, who push a far-reaching “strategy of denial” against China aimed at hobbling the country’s economy; Russia, to these individuals, is not a comparable threat. At the same time, Trump and his team of financial advisors – namely Peter Navarro, Scott Bessent, and Stephen Miran – have destabilized the global economy through sweeping tariffs packages aimed at browbeating the world into greater subservience to US demands.

Miran claimed that Canada, among other countries, could be easily pressured into complying with US interests.[xxx] He appears to have been proven right.

While the second Trump administration represents a historic rupture in Canadian popular opinion toward the US, with public views trending extremely negative, Canada’s political leadership has not adapted to this on-the-ground reality. Indeed, at the level of national governance, Mark Carney is simply the latest stage in a smooth, multi-decade continuity that has seen Canada support US imperial objectives against challenges from the periphery and semi-periphery. Not even Trump’s threats of annexation have disrupted that continuity.

Carney and Trump share something in common: neither are willing to adapt to the emergent non-Western world order. When Trump’s “MAGA imperialist” administration took office in January 2025 – Bellamy Foster defines MAGA imperialism as “a rejection of the traditional U.S. role as a hegemonic world power in favor of a hypernationalist America First imperium” – it brought an agenda of reclaiming US hegemony in an era of deepening South-South cooperation.[xxxi] Bellamy Foster asserts that Trump’s bellicosity toward allied governments, including the European Union, may generate “interimperialist rivalry” amongst the Western powers, but as of yet, this does not appear to be taking place in any substantive way. Europe, like Canada, has taken an accomodatory stance toward Washington, including through massive rearmament programs aimed at removing the burden of European defence from the US Empire.[xxxii]

In fact, military spending increases by NATO members were a key demand of the MAGA imperialist vision: as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in February 2025, “Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of NATO. As part of this Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine… The U.S. is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific.”[xxxiii] As such, NATO members are assisting the Trump administration’s imperial recalibration toward China by shouldering the burden for the Atlanticist war against Russia’s economic ascendence. Mark Carney’s government has unconvincingly asserted that Canada’s capitulation to Trump’s military spending demands – which constitute the largest arms spending increase in Canadian history – are in fact evidence of Canada’s commitment to security diversification, as Canadian rearmament is taking place under NATO auspices. However, those familiar with NATO’s history understand that the US calls the shots in the alliance. As Richard Nixon once remarked, NATO was “the only collective body that ever worked” because “we [the US] were in charge.”[xxxiv]

Under Carney, Canada will likely join Trump’s North American missile defence system, the “Golden Dome,” which will cost Canadians $61 billion. Carney will likely spend $19 billion on US-made F-35 warplanes, whose spare parts will be owned and controlled by the US government.[xxxv] Neither of these initiatives will protect Canadian sovereignty; they will subjugate Canadian military imperatives to the United States even more.

According to Indian Marxist economist Prabhat Patnaik, Trump’s vision of an “America First” empire is “imperialism’s revival strategy.”[xxxvi] His MAGA imperialist administration wants China, BRICS, and by extension the global majority to fail so that the US Empire remains globally dominant, maintaining a steadily expanding flow of super-profits in the form of labour and natural resources from peripheral economies. Despite anti-US public opinion in Canada and a popular openness toward new trade relationships, Prime Minister Carney has chosen imperial entrenchment over the global majority, US-linked militarism over the promise of multipolarity. This does not bode well for Canada’s future, nor the security of the global population.

The dangers of militarism over multipolarity

The Canadian response, or lack thereof, to Trump’s economic pressures and threats of annexation is representative of the capitalist state’s complacency, created by centuries of imperialist privilege. Ottawa’s meager response to US decline has exposed the reality that Canada’s political establishment is unwilling to abandon its privileged position in the increasingly obsolete status quo of US-led imperial capitalism.

Capitalist imperialism (first the British, then the US) enriched the Canadian economy, and specifically its settler capitalist class, from the country’s origins until the near present, but inexorable shifts in today’s global order have exposed Canada’s reliance on US imperialism as primarily a disadvantage in terms of Canada’s global relevance and the material livelihoods of most Canadians. Nevertheless, Canadian capitalists and politicians have made few moves to bring Canada closer to the global majority, despite the public’s appetite for bold and far-reaching changes in Canada’s trade relationships.

For Canada, the dangers of pursuing US-linked militarism over sovereign integration into the multipolar world are manifold. If the Canadian government fails to recognize this, then Canada will sink into irrelevancy as US hegemony declines. Under a ruling class committed to capitalism and Atlanticism, such a fate appears inevitable.

[i] Quoted in Rhianna Schmunk, “Trump says he would use ’economic force’ to join Canada with U.S.” RCI, January 7, 2025, https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2131198/trump-says-he-would-use-economic-force-to-join-canada-with-u-s.

[ii] Kelly Geraldine Malone, “Growing number of Canadians view the U.S. as a top threat, poll shows,” Global News, July 8, 2025, https://globalnews.ca/news/11280397/united-states-threat-canadians/.

[iii] Quoted in Sean Boynton, “U.S. Golden Dome among ‘options’ for Canada’s defence, Carney says,” Global News, May 21, 2025, https://globalnews.ca/news/11190806/carney-golden-dome-us-trump-security/.

[iv] Ben Norton, “BRICS expands to 56% of world population, 44% of global GDP: Vietnam joins as partner country,” Geopolitical Economy, July 4, 2025, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/07/04/brics-expansion-population-gdp-vietnam/.

[v] Matthew Karnitschnig, “Europe’s economic apocalypse is now,” Politico, December 19, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-economic-apocalypse/.

[vi] Abbas Qaidari, “How Mark Carney is turning military spending into a force for economic renewal,” Policy Options, June 19, 2025, https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/june-2025/defence-spending-economy/.

[vii] Samir Amin, “Contemporary Imperialism,” Monthly Review, July 1, 2015, https://monthlyreview.org/2015/07/01/contemporary-imperialism/.

[viii] Humber College professor Tyler Shipley writes this about settler capitalism and Canada: “Canada was rooted in the desire to establish a private market in land and labour and create the conditions for capitalist wealth accumulation. Thus, like any settler capitalist state, Canada was designed to destroy the Indigenous inhabitants – by extermination, expulsion, assimilation or whatever other method – and replace their societies with one that would be dominated by a handful of wealthy capitalists and the laws and institutions that support a capitalist society.” Shipley, Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination (Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2020), 2.

[ix] Rapley, “Canada benefits from a world order that empires built. As the latest one declines, so does our economy,” The Globe and Mail, August 25, 2023, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-benefits-from-a-world-order-that-empires-built-as-the-latest/.

[x] Myers, History of Canadian Wealth (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1914), i-iii.

[xi] Rapley, “Canada benefits from a world order that empires built,” The Globe and Mail.

[xii] Jerome Klassen, “Empire, Afghanistan, and Canadian Foreign Policy,” in Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), edited by Klassen and Greg Albo, 12.

[xiii] Quoted in Stephen J. Randall, United States Foreign Oil Policy Since World War I (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 266.

[xiv] Quoted in Schalk, “Canada’s Militarization and the End of U.S. Hegemony,” Monthly Review, September 6, 2024, https://mronline.org/2024/09/06/canadas-militarization-and-the-end-of-u-s-hegemony/.

[xv] Gordon, Imperialist Canada (Winnipeg: ARP Books, 2010), 305. Written in 2010, Gordon does not mention NATO’s destruction of Libya, in which Canada played a major role.

[xvi] Klassen, “Empire, Afghanistan, and Canadian Foreign Policy,” 17, 30.

[xvii] Klassen, “Joining empire: Canadian foreign policy under Harper,” Canadian Dimension, October 7, 2015, https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/joining-empire-canadian-foreign-policy-under-harper.

[xviii] Gordon, “Canada in the Third World: The Political Economy of Intervention,” in Empire’s Ally, 215.

[xix] Gordon, “Canada in the Third World,” 216.

[xx] Gordon, Imperialist Canada, 175.

[xxi] There is voluminous scholarship on this topic including: Alain Denault and William Sacher, Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012); Capitalism & Dispossession: Corporate Canada at Home & Abroad (Halifax & Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2022), edited by David P. Thomas and Veldon Coburn; Gordon, Imperialist Canada; Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber, Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America (Halifax & Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2016); Paula Butler, Colonial Extractions: Race and Canadian Mining in Contemporary Africa (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015); Peter McFarlane, Northern Shadows: Canadians and Central America (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1989); Testimonio: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2021), edited by Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell; Shipley, Canada in the World and Ottawa and Empire: Canada and the Military Coup in Honduras (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2017); Yves Engler, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy (Vancouver & Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing and RED Publishing, 2009) and Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation (Vancouver & Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing and RED Publishing, 2015).

[xxii] Julian Borger, “Pentagon chief’s Russia remarks show shift in US’s declared aims in Ukraine,” The Guardian, April 25, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/25/russia-weakedend-lloyd-austin-ukraine.

[xxiii] “China emerging as top customer for Canadian oil shipped via Trans Mountain Pipeline,” CBC, May 16, 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/china-canada-oil-trans-mountain-pipeline-1.7537530.

[xxiv] “Canada missing out on opportunities to build relationships with BRIC countries,” Canada NewsWire, January 11, 2008.

[xxv] “Canada an ‘underachiever’ in emerging BRIC market deal-making,” Canada NewsWire, June 24, 2011.

[xxvi] Quoted in Laura MacDonald and Jeremy Paltiel, “Middle power or muddling power? Canada’s relations with emerging markets,” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, January 2016, vol. 22, no. 1.

[xxvii] MacDonald and Paltiel, “Middle power or muddling power?”

[xxviii] Emerson Csorba, “Canada should get closer to the non-Western BRICS economic alliance,” The Globe and Mail, November 20, 2024, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-canada-should-get-closer-to-the-non-western-brics-economic-alliance/.

[xxix] Julian Karaguesian and Robin Shaban, “Let’s free ourselves of the U.S. and forge closer ties with China,” The Globe and Mail, July 14, 2025, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-lets-free-ourselves-of-the-us-and-forge-closer-ties-with-china/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter.

[xxx] John Bellamy Foster, “The Trump Doctrine and the New MAGA Imperialism,” Monthly Review, June 2025, vol. 77 no. 2, 7, 16.

[xxxi] Bellamy Foster, “The Trump Doctrine,” 2.

[xxxii] Bellamy Foster, “The Trump Doctrine,” 9.

[xxxiii] Hegseth, “Opening Remarks by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at Ukraine Defense Contact Group,” Brussels, February 12, 2025, https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/article/4064113/opening-remarks-by-secretary-of-defense-pete-hegseth-at-ukraine-defense-contact/.

[xxxiv] Schalk, “Carney’s military buildup benefits the US, not Canada,” Canadian Dimension, June 13, 2025, https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/carneys-military-buildup-benefits-the-us-not-canada.

[xxxv] Kevin Maimann, “Donald Trump says Golden Dome would cost Canada $61 billion US,” CBC, May 27, 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/golden-dome-61-billion-1.7545414 ; David Pugliese, “Spare parts for Canada’s F-35 fleet will be controlled by the U.S.,” Ottawa Citizen, May 5, 2025, https://ottawacitizen.com/public-service/defence-watch/f-35-fighter-jet-spare-parts-u-s-canada.

[xxxvi] Quoted in Bellamy Foster, “The Trump Doctrine,” 3.

Hello friends,

I have decided to launch this newsletter as a way to keep you informed about my writing, research, and publications. Please anticipate one monthly newsletter containing links to articles I've published that month, and an additional article each month pertaining to current events and/or documents on Canadian foreign policy that I manage to wring loose from the sluggish and deliberately counter-intuitive Access to Information process.

• Mark Carney’s Quiet Capitulations to Trump (The Progressive)

Written in early July, this article does not contain the latest updates on Canada's apparent decision to join US President Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defence system (all but confirmed in the first week of August), or the looming F-35 purchase, on which the Carney government has announced that it will defer to the military, which means the purchase will almost certainly go forward. Instead, the article focuses on Carney's alignment with Trump on military spending, border policies, climate inaction, and foreign policy, namely the genocide in Gaza and the June 2025 US-Israeli war on Iran.

• What is BRICS and where is it going? (Canadian Dimension)

An attempt to unravel some of the contradictions and potentialities of the BRICS alliance, while explaining why Canadian membership in BRICS would mark the arrival of a substantively independent Canadian domestic and foreign policy.

• Panama Fights For Freedom (North American Congress on Latin America)

For this investigation into Panama's ongoing uprising against US imperialism and the comprador regime of José Raúl Mulino, I conducted an in-depth interview with Joyner Myron Sánchez, deputy secretary general of the anti-imperialist political organization Juventudes Revolucionarias. A separate transcript of my interview with Sánchez can be found at Canadian Dimension.

• Canada dismissed Kyrgyzstan’s environmental concerns as ‘pretext’ in mine dispute, documents reveal (Canadian Dimension)

Using documents obtained through an Access to Information request, my article shines much-needed light on Ottawa’s response to Kyrgyzstan's 2021 nationalization of the Canadian-owned Kumtor gold mine, which is one of the largest and most lucrative mines in Central Asia. Unsurprisingly, these documents show that officials in Ottawa coordinated with the mine’s former owner Centerra Gold as well as international financial institutions in the aftermath of the Kyrgyz state’s takeover; the Canadian government also attempted to discredit Kyrgyzstan's valid ecological concerns by dismissing them as a "pretext” for nationalization.

• What Lockerbie Meant for Libyans (Scottish Left Review)

Drawing on research I did while writing my upcoming book Targeting Libya, this article explores the impact of US-led sanctions on the Libyan economy in the 1990s. These sanctions cost the oil-rich country billions of dollars and directly contributed to the Qadhafi government's disastrous decision to open up economically to the West in the early 2000s.

• Making a Felt Rug in Kyrgyzstan (Cosmonaut Magazine)

For a change of pace, read my recent creative non-fiction piece on travelling Central Asia and investigating the legacy of the Soviet Union in the region.

• Targeting Libya: How Canada went from building public works to bombing an oil-rich country and creating chaos for its citizens (Lorimer Books)

Lastly, I’d be grateful if you checked out my upcoming book (release date September 2) on Canada’s little-known role in shaping Libya’s history from 1969 to the present. With roughly two years of research behind it and strong endorsements from Yves Engler, David Pugliese, Matteo Capasso, and others, I think this is my best book yet. Preorder on the Lorimer website, or wait to buy a copy in person. Targeting Libya will very likely be stocked at a bookstore near you.

Solidarity,

Owen Schalk