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More than 40 years after its release, an exchange in the opening scene of Warren Beatty’s Academy Award-winning film Reds floats to the front of my mind whenever I think about war.
Master of Ceremonies: “I, for one, see no reason why we here at the Liberal Club shouldn’t listen to what Jack Reed has to say. What would you say this war is about, Jack Reed?”
Reed, standing, looking a bit confused and annoyed: “Profits.”
The one-word answer, while correct — Reed, as a staunch Communist, held to some fairly silly ideas on economics — was also incomplete.
World War One was indeed about profits. It was a clash of declining empires: Empires purpose-built to rake off a share of profits, taken by imperially protected business enterprises from colonized places and peoples, for the benefit of the imperial political classes.
World War Two largely killed off the old empires, but created new ones for its victors, the US and the Soviet Union.
Eighty years later, the declining remnants of THOSE two empires (and even smaller European remnants of the imperial age) rage against the dying of their light, scrapping over territory and the attached profits in the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and, of course, Ukraine.
Nearly three years into the second phase of that war (the first phase involved the 2014 secession from Ukraine of, and subsequent “frozen conflict” over, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea), I’ve still got friends who want to believe the war is over “democracy” versus “authoritarianism,” “protecting ethnic Russians from literal Nazis,” etc.
In fact, that war is, and always has been, about whether poor, politically corrupt — but resource-rich, and geographically located in ways that maximize its strategic importance — Ukraine will go forward as the US/EU/NATO imperial satrapy it became in 2014, or revert to its former status as a Russian imperial satrapy.
In other words, it’s about profits for Rome on the Potomac versus profits for Constantinople on the Moskva.
An odd bifurcation: Whenever I point this fact out on X, I’m accused of being “pro-Russia.” Whenever I point this fact out on a site where I frequently comment, I’m accused of being “pro-US/EU/NATO.”
But I’m going to stick to my guns — pardon the militaristic turn of phrase — on this one.
There are no “good guys” at the policy level here. The only moral principle at stake is whether it’s acceptable for imperial gangs to murder each other’s colonial serfs to benefit their own political classes.
I say no, but hey, that’s just me. Your mileage may vary. If it does, and if you think you must take a “side” in this war other than the side of peace, at least be honest with yourself about what you’re supporting.
Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.