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Cambodian genocide

2026-08-29T09:45:19Z

Jadenw815: Fixed a link reference

'''Cambodian genocide''', also referred to as the '''Khmer Rouge genocide''', was the mass killing, forced labor, starvation, disease, forced displacement, and political repression carried out under [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Democratic Kampuchea]], the state ruled by the [[Khmer Rouge]] from 1975 to 1979. The regime was led by genocidal anti-communist [[Pol Pot]] and attempted to remake Cambodian society through an extreme agrarian program, abolishing money, attacking religion, emptying cities, and forcing much of the population into rural labor camps. Approximately 1.7 million people died, around one fifth of Cambodia's population at the time.<ref>https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/cambodian-genocide-program</ref>
[[File:Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum.jpg|thumb|Prison cells at Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, one of the most infamous prisons used by the Khmer Rouge.]]Although Democratic Kampuchea claimed communist legitimacy and is often described in anti-communist sources as a communist regime, many communists reject Pol Pot's politics as a nationalist, ultra-left, anti-Vietnamese deviation rather than socialism. The Khmer Rouge's rule destroyed working-class organization, attacked urban life, targeted minority groups, and produced a coercive agrarian state hostile to proletarian democracy. The regime was also closely aligned with the [[People's Republic of China]] against Vietnam and the Soviet Union, especially during the conflicts that developed into the [[Third Indochina War]].<ref>https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/03/mertha-documents-chinese-tutelage-khmer-rouge</ref>

== Background ==
Cambodia attempted to maintain a neutral position during the [[Vietnam War]], but this position became increasingly unstable as the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, China, and other powers treated Southeast Asia as a major Cold War battlefield. In March 1970, Prince [[Norodom Sihanouk]] was overthrown by General [[Lon Nol]], who established the anti-communist Khmer Republic. The coup pulled Cambodia more directly into the war and weakened the neutralist position that Sihanouk had attempted to maintain.

After the coup, Sihanouk allied with the Khmer Rouge from exile. This gave the insurgency greater nationalist legitimacy among many rural Cambodians, since Sihanouk remained a widely recognized symbol of Cambodian independence. The Khmer Rouge therefore grew not only through its own organization, but also through the crisis produced by war, displacement, and the collapse of the old political order.

=== The Khmer Republic and U.S. intervention ===
After Sihanouk's overthrow, the [[Khmer Republic]] under [[Lon Nol]] became increasingly dependent upon the [[United States]] for military, economic, and political support. The Nixon administration regarded Lon Nol's government as useful to the wider U.S. war against the Vietnamese revolutionary forces operating in Indochina. In April 1970, [[Richard Nixon]] wrote that the United States needed to make a "bold move" to demonstrate support for Lon Nol, while [[Henry Kissinger]] and other officials considered covert arms deliveries and other measures to strengthen his government.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Memorandum From President Nixon to His Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)|date=22 April 1970|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v01/d64|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Memorandum for the Record|date=10 April 1970|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v06/d225|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>

U.S. policymakers viewed Cambodia partly through its relationship to the war in neighboring Vietnam. A National Security Council memorandum described the preferred outcome as an anti-communist Cambodian government capable of preventing Vietnamese communist forces from using Cambodian territory against [[South Vietnam]]. After the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Cambodia in June 1970, Nixon committed the United States to sustaining Lon Nol's government with weapons, funding, air support, training, and economic assistance. By 1971, the administration considered hundreds of millions of dollars in military and economic assistance essential to achieving U.S. objectives in Cambodia.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Memorandum From Roger Morris, Winston Lord, and Anthony Lake to Henry Kissinger|date=22 April 1970|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v06/d250|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Editorial Note on United States support for Cambodia|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v07/d1|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Memorandum From the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs|date=20 October 1971|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v07/d271|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>

To anti-imperialists, the Khmer Republic can therefore be understood as a U.S.-backed client regime incorporated into Washington's wider strategy for Indochina. Cambodia was not merely an isolated civil-war battlefield: its government, armed forces, air war, and survival became tied to U.S. efforts to contain Vietnamese communist forces and preserve the anti-communist order in South Vietnam. This dependency does not mean every action of Lon Nol's government was dictated directly from Washington, but the regime's military survival became deeply dependent upon U.S. imperial support.

== U.S. bombing and destabilization ==
Under President [[Richard Nixon]] and National Security Adviser [[Henry Kissinger]], the United States expanded the war into Cambodia. U.S. bombing campaigns, including [[Operation Menu]] and later bombing under [[Operation Freedom Deal]], targeted Vietnamese communist bases and supply routes but also devastated rural Cambodian society. Researchers Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen argue that the bombing drove many ordinary Cambodians toward the Khmer Rouge and helped transform a relatively small insurgency into a mass movement.<ref>https://apjjf.org/taylor-owen/2420/article</ref>

The bombing destroyed villages, displaced peasants, damaged agriculture, and deepened hatred toward the U.S.-backed Lon Nol government. The Khmer Rouge used this devastation in its propaganda and recruitment, presenting itself as the force capable of resisting foreign intervention and the collapsing Khmer Republic. Although the United States did not create the Khmer Rouge as an organization, U.S. policy helped create the conditions in which the Khmer Rouge could grow.

The expansion of the war into Cambodia also produced major opposition inside the United States. In May 1970, protests against Nixon's Cambodia campaign culminated in the [[Kent State massacre]], where the Ohio National Guard killed four student protesters. In 1973, the Paris Peace Accords ended direct U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but U.S. bombing in Cambodia continued until Congress cut off funding in August 1973.

== Khmer Rouge seizure of power ==
By 1974 and 1975, Lon Nol's government was collapsing. The Khmer Rouge surrounded [[Phnom Penh]], and on 17 April 1975 they captured the capital. Soon after taking power, the regime forcibly evacuated Phnom Penh and other cities, sending millions of people into the countryside. The Khmer Rouge claimed that this evacuation was necessary for revolutionary reconstruction and protection from possible U.S. bombing, but in practice it began a vast system of forced labor, starvation, political repression, and mass death.

The regime declared the beginning of "Year Zero", attempting to destroy the old society and build a new agrarian order. Money, markets, many schools, religious institutions, and private property were abolished. People associated with the former Khmer Republic, urban life, education, religion, foreign influence, or suspected opposition were targeted as enemies of the revolution. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the Khmer Rouge as promoting a radical agrarian ideology based on one-party rule, rejection of urban and Western ideas, and abolition of private property.<ref>https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/cambodia/origins-of-the-khmer-rouge</ref>

== Genocide and mass repression ==
From 1975 to 1979, Democratic Kampuchea carried out mass killing, forced labor, starvation policies, forced transfers, political purges, and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. Deaths resulted from execution, torture, hunger, disease, exhaustion, and the destruction of normal social life. Victims included former officials of the Khmer Republic, intellectuals, Buddhist monks, ethnic Vietnamese, Cham Muslims, suspected dissidents, and many ordinary peasants and workers accused of disloyalty.

The security prison S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, became one of the most infamous sites of Khmer Rouge repression. Prisoners were tortured, forced to confess to imaginary conspiracies, and then executed. Across Cambodia, local prisons, worksites, cooperatives, and execution sites became part of the regime's machinery of terror.

In 2018, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted senior Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of genocide, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. The judgment found that they were guilty of genocide against ethnic Vietnamese, while Nuon Chea was also found guilty of genocide against the Cham. <ref>https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-legal-materials/article/trial-chamber-case-00202-against-nuon-chea-and-khieu-samphan-extraordinary-chambers-in-the-courts-of-cambodia/0A1B861657D78185D9BDB0C9A5AA9DCA</ref>

== Third Indochina War and Vietnam's intervention ==
The fall of Democratic Kampuchea took place within the wider [[Third Indochina War]], a period of conflict involving Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Laos, Thailand, and rival Cold War blocs after the communist victories in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in 1975. Relations between Democratic Kampuchea and [[Vietnam]] deteriorated after 1975. Khmer Rouge forces carried out attacks along the Vietnamese border, killing civilians and escalating conflict between the two states.

In December 1978, Vietnam launched a major invasion of Cambodia. Vietnamese forces entered Phnom Penh in January 1979 and overthrew the Khmer Rouge government, establishing the [[People's Republic of Kampuchea]]. Vietnam's intervention ended the Khmer Rouge's rule over most of Cambodia, but it also intensified the Third Indochina War by bringing Cambodia into the wider Sino-Soviet split and the conflict between China and Vietnam. <ref>https://www.routledge.com/The-Third-Indochina-War-Conflict-between-China-Vietnam-and-Cambodia-1972-79/Westad-Quinn-Judge/p/book/9780415545051</ref>

The overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea ended the Khmer Rouge's control over most of Cambodia, but it did not destroy the movement. Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge forces retreated toward the Thai-Cambodian border, where they continued to operate as part of the anti-Vietnamese resistance.

== China and Democratic Kampuchea ==
Democratic Kampuchea was closely aligned with the People's Republic of China. China provided political, military, and diplomatic support to the Khmer Rouge, and Pol Pot's regime was shaped in part by its relationship with Maoist China. This alignment was especially important because Vietnam was increasingly aligned with the Soviet Union, making Cambodia a battlefield in the Sino-Soviet split as well as the Third Indochina War. <ref>https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/03/mertha-documents-chinese-tutelage-khmer-rouge</ref>

This relationship complicates anti-communist attempts to present the Cambodian genocide as a simple result of communism in general. Democratic Kampuchea was not aligned with Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, or the Soviet Union, and it fought violently against Vietnam, which was the state that overthrew it. The genocide was carried out by the Khmer Rouge state itself, but its rise and survival were shaped by U.S. bombing, civil war, Chinese support, Thai border policy, and wider Cold War conflict.

== Ford administration and the Mayaguez incident ==
The Ford administration's most direct confrontation with Democratic Kampuchea came shortly after the Khmer Rouge victory. In May 1975, Khmer Rouge naval forces seized the American cargo ship SS Mayaguez. President [[Gerald Ford]] ordered a military operation in response, leading to combat between U.S. forces and Khmer Rouge forces near Koh Tang.<ref>https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196018/final-combat-the-mayaguez-incident-at-koh-tang/</ref>

The incident showed that the United States and the Khmer Rouge were not simple allies during the Khmer Rouge's time in power. However, after Vietnam overthrew Democratic Kampuchea in 1979, U.S. policy shifted toward opposing the Vietnamese-backed government and favoring the anti-Vietnamese diplomatic position.

== International support after 1979 ==
After the fall of Democratic Kampuchea, Cold War politics shaped the international response. The United States under President [[Jimmy Carter]], China, Thailand, and other U.S.-aligned states opposed Vietnam's intervention and refused to recognize the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. Instead, Democratic Kampuchea retained Cambodia's seat at the United Nations after 1979, despite the Khmer Rouge's responsibility for the genocide. The Association for Asian Studies describes this as a situation in which the Khmer Rouge retained the UN seat in spite of its widely known atrocities. <ref>https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea/</ref>

In 1982, the Khmer Rouge joined with royalist and republican anti-Vietnamese factions to form the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. This coalition continued to hold Cambodia's UN seat for years. Although the coalition included non-Khmer Rouge factions, the arrangement allowed the Khmer Rouge to remain internationally relevant after its overthrow. China and ASEAN states pressured the Khmer Rouge to join this wider anti-Vietnamese coalition along the Thai border. <ref>https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea/</ref>

== Thailand's role ==
Thailand became central to the post-1979 conflict. After Vietnam overthrew Democratic Kampuchea, Khmer Rouge forces and other anti-Vietnamese Cambodian factions operated along the Thai-Cambodian border. Yale's Cambodian Genocide Program describes the Vietnamese intervention as transforming the Khmer Rouge from Thailand's enemy into a useful anti-Vietnamese ally from Bangkok's perspective.<ref>https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/thailands-response-cambodian-genocide</ref>

Thailand also hosted large numbers of Cambodian refugees, but the border camp system became entangled with the armed struggle against the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. Some camps and border zones became linked to Khmer Rouge and other anti-Vietnamese forces. This made the refugee crisis inseparable from the wider Cold War proxy struggle over Cambodia after 1979.

== Legacy ==
The Cambodian genocide remains one of the most severe mass atrocities of the twentieth century. It devastated Cambodian society, killed a large share of the population, and left lasting trauma across generations. It also became a major ideological weapon in Cold War politics, often used by anti-communists to equate the Khmer Rouge with all communism while ignoring the role of U.S. bombing, the Lon Nol regime, Chinese support, Thai border policy, and Western diplomatic support for anti-Vietnamese forces after 1979.

The Cambodian genocide cannot be understood only as the product of Pol Pot's ideology. It must also be understood in the wider context of colonialism, the Vietnam War, U.S. imperial intervention, the collapse of Cambodian neutrality, the destruction of rural society, the Sino-Soviet split, the Third Indochina War, and Cold War opposition to Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge carried out the genocide, but the conditions of war and the later international protection of anti-Vietnamese forces show how imperialist and geopolitical interests helped shape both the rise and survival of the movement.

== References ==
<references />

The Economist

2026-08-29T08:02:32Z

Jadenw815: Created stub on The Economist covering its history, ownership, classical-liberal and pro-market political orientation, liberal internationalism, election endorsements, anonymous authorship, and Marxist analysis

{{Stub}}
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin:0 0 1em 1em; width:300px;"
! colspan="2" |The Economist
|-
| colspan="2" style="text-align:center;" |[[File:The_Economist_Logo.svg|240x240px]]
|-
!Founded
|1843
|-
!Founder
|James Wilson
|-
!Headquarters
|London, [[United Kingdom]]
|-
!Political orientation
|[[Classical liberalism]]Economic liberalism
Free-market capitalism
Liberal internationalism
|-
!Editor-in-chief
|Zanny Minton Beddoes
|}
'''The Economist''' is a British weekly news magazine, newspaper and digital media organization founded in 1843 by businessman and politician James Wilson. It covers international politics, economics, business, finance, science, technology and culture and is published by The Economist Newspaper Limited, part of The Economist Group.<ref>{{Web citation|title=About us|url=https://www.economistgroup.com/about-us|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

The publication was originally established to campaign against the protectionist Corn Laws and in favor of [[free trade]]. Its own institutional history describes its intellectual tradition as rooted in nineteenth-century [[classical liberalism]], particularly the ideas of [[Adam Smith]], individual economic freedom, free trade and limited government interference in markets.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist Group brand style guide|url=https://design-system.economist.com/documents/The_Economist_Group_brand_style_guide-Nov-2017.pdf|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

To Marxists, ''The Economist'' is a prominent organ of international [[bourgeois media]] whose political outlook generally defends capitalist markets, private property, globalization and the institutions of the liberal capitalist world order. Although it frequently supports socially liberal reforms and criticizes reactionary populism, authoritarianism and sections of the political right, its economic and political analysis remains fundamentally within the framework of [[capitalism]] rather than [[socialism]].

== History ==
''The Economist'' was founded in 1843 by James Wilson, a Scottish businessman and manufacturer who opposed the Corn Laws, which placed tariffs and restrictions on imported grain. The publication was created as part of the political campaign for free trade and explicitly sought to influence merchants and businesspeople.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist Group brand style guide|url=https://design-system.economist.com/documents/The_Economist_Group_brand_style_guide-Nov-2017.pdf|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

The newspaper survived the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and expanded its coverage beyond trade and economics into politics and international affairs. Under editor Walter Bagehot during the nineteenth century, it developed a particularly strong interest in government, finance and the United States.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist Group brand style guide|url=https://design-system.economist.com/documents/The_Economist_Group_brand_style_guide-Nov-2017.pdf|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

Despite its modern magazine format, ''The Economist'' traditionally describes itself as a newspaper. It publishes weekly in print and continuously through digital platforms, podcasts, video and other media.<ref>{{Web citation|title=About us|url=https://www.economistgroup.com/about-us|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

== Ownership ==
''The Economist'' is published by The Economist Group, a privately held British media company. The company's ownership structure is divided among several classes of shares and is deliberately structured so that no single shareholder can obtain majority control.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Environmental, Social and Governance|url=https://www.economistgroup.com/esg|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

As of 2026, Exor holds approximately 43.4% of The Economist Group's share capital. In April 2026, Stephen Smith and his family holding company acquired a 26.95% stake previously held by Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and the ERANDA Rothschild Foundation. The company states that no single shareholder constitutes a controlling party.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist Group annual report and accounts 2026|url=https://www.economistgroup.com/pdfs/reports/TEG_Annual_Report_2026.pdf|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

The Group also maintains special trust shares intended to protect editorial independence. The editor of ''The Economist'' is appointed subject to approval by independent trustees rather than directly by ordinary commercial shareholders.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Environmental, Social and Governance|url=https://www.economistgroup.com/esg|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

From a Marxist perspective, such safeguards may provide genuine independence from direct interference by any single capitalist owner without removing the publication from the broader structure of private ownership and bourgeois media production. Its editorial independence therefore differs from independence from capitalist class interests as a whole.

== Political orientation ==
''The Economist'' describes itself as neither conventionally left-wing nor right-wing but as belonging to what it calls the "radical centre". Its political tradition is rooted in classical liberalism and opposition to restrictions upon individual economic and personal freedom.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist Media Bias|url=https://www.allsides.com/news-source/economist-media-bias|website=AllSides}}</ref>

The publication has historically supported free trade, globalization, privatization, market competition, open immigration and socially liberal reforms. It has also supported causes such as drug legalization, same-sex marriage and environmental policies including carbon pricing while remaining strongly committed to private enterprise and capitalist markets.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist Open Future style guide|url=https://design-system.economist.com/documents/OF_styleguide_080818.pdf|website=The Economist}}</ref>

Media-bias organizations disagree over how to place ''The Economist'' within the contemporary political spectrum. AllSides currently rates its online news coverage as '''Lean Left''', while Media Bias/Fact Check rates it '''Least Biased''' overall and notes that its economic positions generally lean to the right because of its support for free markets and economic liberalism.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist Media Bias|url=https://www.allsides.com/news-source/economist-media-bias|website=AllSides}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist - Bias and Credibility|url=https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-economist/|website=Media Bias/Fact Check}}</ref>

These classifications largely measure positioning within mainstream liberal and conservative politics. From a socialist perspective, ''The Economist'' remains a bourgeois publication because its disagreements with conservatives or social liberals generally occur within the boundaries of capitalist property relations and liberal parliamentary politics.

== Capitalism and class character ==
''The Economist'' has historically presented capitalism, markets and international commerce not simply as economic institutions but as central mechanisms for human development. Its founding philosophy explicitly drew upon Adam Smith's belief that private profit-seeking coordinated through markets could produce wider social benefits.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist Group brand style guide|url=https://design-system.economist.com/documents/The_Economist_Group_brand_style_guide-Nov-2017.pdf|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

This places the publication in direct ideological opposition to Marxist political economy. Whereas Marxists understand capitalism as a class system based upon private ownership of the means of production and exploitation of wage labor, ''The Economist'' generally treats competitive markets and private enterprise as productive institutions that should be preserved and reformed rather than abolished.

The publication frequently advocates policies associated with economic liberalism, including deregulation, privatization, free trade and international capital mobility, while generally opposing protectionism and extensive state ownership. Its social liberalism therefore coexists with a strongly capitalist economic outlook.

From a Marxist perspective, this combination illustrates the difference between social liberalism and socialism. Support for civil liberties, immigration, reproductive rights or LGBTQ+ rights does not by itself challenge bourgeois ownership of the means of production or the power of capital over labor.

== Liberal internationalism ==
''The Economist'' generally supports international institutions, multilateral cooperation, trade integration and a liberal international order led by capitalist states. Its foreign-policy outlook is commonly associated with [[liberal internationalism]] rather than isolationism or socialist anti-imperialism.

The publication has frequently supported Western alliances and institutions while criticizing authoritarian governments, protectionism and nationalist movements. It tends to frame international conflicts through questions of liberal democracy, markets, international law, state capacity and geopolitical stability rather than through Marxist theories of [[imperialism]].

From an anti-imperialist perspective, this framework can obscure the class and material interests underlying military alliances, foreign investment, sanctions, resource competition and intervention by powerful capitalist states.

== Elections and endorsements ==
''The Economist'' does not maintain permanent loyalty to a single political party and has endorsed candidates from different bourgeois political traditions. Its historical endorsements have included conservatives such as [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[Margaret Thatcher]] as well as liberal or centrist figures such as [[Bill Clinton]], [[Barack Obama]] and Hillary Clinton.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist - Bias and Credibility|url=https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-economist/|website=Media Bias/Fact Check}}</ref>

This pattern is consistent with its classical-liberal orientation. The publication generally evaluates candidates according to support for markets, liberal institutions, internationalism, institutional competence and social freedoms rather than loyalty to a single electoral party.

From a socialist perspective, these endorsements remain choices between competing managers of capitalist states rather than support for independent proletarian political power.

== Anonymous authorship ==
Most articles in ''The Economist'' are published without individual bylines. The publication states that anonymous authorship is intended to maintain a consistent collective editorial voice rather than emphasizing individual journalists.<ref>{{Web citation|title=About us|url=https://www.economistgroup.com/about-us|website=The Economist Group}}</ref>

The magazine nevertheless employs a large international editorial staff and provides a public directory identifying many of its editors and correspondents. Zanny Minton Beddoes has served as editor-in-chief and previously worked at the [[International Monetary Fund]] and as an adviser to the Polish finance ministry.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Zanny Minton Beddoes|url=https://mediadirectory.economist.com/people/zanny-minton-beddoes/|website=The Economist}}</ref>

The use of anonymous authorship reinforces the publication's institutional voice. From a media-analysis perspective, it encourages readers to interpret articles as expressions of ''The Economist'' itself rather than as columns representing individual writers.

== Reliability and criticism ==
''The Economist'' is generally regarded as a highly factual mainstream publication. Media Bias/Fact Check rates it highly for factual reporting and reports no major failed fact checks in its current assessment.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Economist - Bias and Credibility|url=https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-economist/|website=Media Bias/Fact Check}}</ref>

High factual reliability does not imply ideological neutrality. A publication may accurately report individual facts while interpreting them through a consistent political framework. Marxist criticism of ''The Economist'' therefore concerns primarily its defense of capitalist political economy, free-market ideology and liberal internationalism rather than a claim that its reporting is generally fabricated.

The publication's influence among businesspeople, policymakers, investors, academics and political elites also makes it an important source for understanding the worldview of internationally oriented sections of the bourgeoisie. Its articles frequently articulate debates concerning how capitalism should be managed, reformed and defended.

== See also ==

* [[Bourgeois media]]
* [[Capitalism]]
* [[Liberalism]]
* [[Classical liberalism]]
* [[Neoliberalism]]
* [[Free trade]]
* [[Globalization]]
* [[Imperialism]]
* [[Liberal internationalism]]
* [[The New York Times]]
* [[The Washington Post]]
* [[BBC]]
* [[CNN]]
* [[Financial Times]]

== External links ==

* [https://www.economist.com/ Official website]

== References ==
<references />

Military intervention

2026-08-26T03:47:58Z

Jadenw815: Expanded military intervention article with clearer distinctions between direct intervention and military support, added historical U.S. interventions, Suez Crisis, socialist and anti-imperialist interventions, and additional sourced examples & major

'''Military intervention''' is the direct use of armed force, or direct participation in military operations, by one state, coalition, military alliance, or organized armed force within or against another country. It includes invasion, occupation, bombing, naval blockade, expeditionary warfare, direct combat support, the deployment of foreign forces in another country's civil war, and the organization or operational direction of proxy forces. Foreign military aid can accompany an intervention, but arms transfers, financing, training, or political support alone do not necessarily constitute military intervention.<ref name="UNcharter2">{{Web citation|title=Charter of the United Nations|date=26 June 1945|url=https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text|website=United Nations}}</ref>

An '''invasion''' is a narrower form of military intervention in which armed forces enter or attack a territory. An '''occupation''' is prolonged foreign military authority over territory following an invasion or other armed action. Under Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of a hostile army. Not every intervention produces an occupation, and not every foreign troop presence constitutes occupation when it rests on genuine and continuing consent.<ref name="ICRCoccupation2">{{Web citation|title=Occupation|url=https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/occupation|website=International Committee of the Red Cross}}</ref>

The [[United Nations Charter]] generally prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of states, while Article 51 recognizes individual and collective self-defence after an armed attack. International legality, however, does not by itself settle the political character of an intervention. [[Anti-imperialism|Anti-imperialists]] also examine the class forces involved, the history of colonialism and partition, the intervention's relationship to [[imperialism]], and whether it strengthens or destroys [[self-determination]].<ref name="UNcharter2" /><ref>{{Web citation|title=Actions with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression|url=https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/repertoire/actions|website=United Nations Security Council}}</ref>

Military interventions are not politically identical merely because armies cross borders. A fascist war of conquest, an imperialist regime-change war, an anti-fascist offensive, an intervention that ends mass extermination, and military assistance requested by an anti-colonial government may involve some of the same military forms while serving opposing social purposes. The political character of an intervention must therefore be analyzed according to its historical context, objectives, class content, conduct, and aftermath.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

== Concepts and distinctions ==

=== Self-determination ===
[[Self-determination]] is central to anti-imperialist analysis. The right of an oppressed or colonized people to free itself from [[colonialism]], foreign occupation, [[apartheid]], or national oppression is not politically equivalent to a settler-colonial or imperial power claiming a right to preserve its domination. Military intervention must therefore be judged according to who possesses sovereignty, who is denied it, and whether foreign force expands popular independence or substitutes outside rule.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

The same principle applies when a government requests assistance. Invitation may be relevant to legality and legitimacy, but it is not decisive by itself. Interventions frequently have local allies, collaborating elites, exile forces, client governments, or armed factions willing to welcome foreign support. A recognized government may invite an imperial power against a liberation movement, while a revolutionary government may request assistance against colonial or apartheid aggression. The decisive political question is what order the intervention defends and what material consequences follow.<ref name="ICRCoccupation2" />

=== Invasion, intervention and occupation ===
An invasion refers primarily to the entry of armed forces into or military attack upon another territory. Intervention is broader and can include airstrikes, artillery, naval operations, foreign combat troops, special forces, operational advisers, or direct participation in a civil war. Occupation describes the continuing exercise of effective foreign military authority over territory.<ref name="ICRCoccupation2" />

Military assistance should be distinguished from intervention. Supplying weapons, funds, equipment, intelligence, or training can strongly shape a war, but such support does not by itself amount to an invasion or direct military intervention. It becomes more clearly intervention when the foreign state deploys forces, carries out attacks, commands operations, or exercises substantial operational control over local armed forces.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)|date=27 June 1986|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70|website=International Court of Justice}}</ref>

An intervention may begin with a limited or defensible purpose and later become occupation, dependency, annexation, or foreign control. Its aftermath is therefore part of its political character. Anti-imperialist analysis asks whether the intervening force withdraws after defeating a specific danger, whether local sovereignty is restored, whether permanent bases remain, and whether the affected society is subordinated to the intervening power.<ref name="ICRCoccupation2" />

=== Political roles ===
Interventions can be distinguished by the forces and social relations they strengthen. These categories may overlap, and a single intervention can change political character over time.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

* '''Imperialist intervention''': military action that imposes client rule, seizes strategic territory, protects foreign capital, secures resources, or expands permanent military power
* '''Colonial or settler-colonial intervention''': conquest aimed at subordinating Indigenous or colonized peoples and restructuring land, population, law, and sovereignty for an outside power or settler population
* '''Counterrevolutionary intervention''': direct foreign armed action intended to destroy a socialist government, national-liberation movement, popular revolution, or anti-colonial reform process
* '''Fascist intervention''': conquest organized around fascism, racial hierarchy, extermination, colonial expansion, and militant anti-communism
* '''Anti-fascist or anti-genocide intervention''': military action that defeats fascist occupation, mass extermination, or a regime carrying out genocidal violence
* '''Revolutionary internationalist intervention''': deployment of armed forces by a socialist or revolutionary state to assist an anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, socialist, or anti-fascist struggle
* '''Contested intervention''': an intervention containing contradictory elements, mixed motives, or disputed consequences that cannot be reduced to one slogan

== Imperialist and colonial interventions ==

=== Imperialist and regime-change invasions ===
Imperialist invasions are wars fought to extend the political, military, or economic power of an imperial state. They are commonly justified through claims of security, democracy, civilization, counterterrorism, or humanitarian necessity, while producing occupation, client rule, state collapse, annexation, economic restructuring, or expanded foreign military presence.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

Major examples include:

* '''[[Iraq War|U.S.-led invasion of Iraq]]''': The 2003 invasion overthrew the Iraqi government and created a long occupation, mass death, displacement, institutional collapse, sectarian conflict, and extensive restructuring of the Iraqi state<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 1483 (2003)|date=22 May 2003|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/495555|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=The Iraq War, 2003–2011|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/2001-2008/iraq|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan''': The intervention began after the [[September 11 attacks]] and developed into a twenty-year occupation involving counterinsurgency, air war, foreign bases, client-state dependence, and extensive civilian suffering<ref>{{Web citation|title=The United States War in Afghanistan|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/2001-2008/afghanistan|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''NATO intervention in Libya''': [[NATO]] used United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 to launch an air campaign that developed from civilian-protection claims into direct military support for forces seeking regime change. The destruction of the Libyan state was followed by militia rule, foreign interference, and prolonged war<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 1973 (2011)|date=17 March 2011|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/699777|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK's future policy options|date=14 September 2016|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf|website=UK Parliament}}</ref>
* '''U.S. invasion of Panama''': Operation Just Cause overthrew [[Manuel Noriega]] in 1989 and reasserted U.S. military power in a strategically important canal state<ref>{{Web citation|title=The United States Invasion of Panama, 1989|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/panama|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. invasion of Grenada''': The 1983 invasion destroyed the remaining institutions of the [[New Jewel Movement]] after the overthrow and killing of [[Maurice Bishop]] and restored a political order aligned with the United States<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 38/7: The situation in Grenada|date=2 November 1983|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/28238|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>
* '''[[Gulf War|U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991]]''': Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait violated Kuwaiti sovereignty, while the U.S.-led response defended allied Gulf monarchies and contributed to a permanent expansion of U.S. military power in [[West Asia]]<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 678 (1990)|date=29 November 1990|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/102245|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>
* '''Suez Crisis''': In 1956, [[Israel]] invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula under a secret plan coordinated with [[United Kingdom|Britain]] and [[France]]. Britain and France then bombed Egypt and landed troops in the Suez Canal Zone after [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] nationalized the Suez Canal Company. The operation sought to regain Western control over the canal and weaken Nasser's anti-colonial government, but international pressure forced the invading powers to withdraw<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Suez Crisis, 1956|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/suez|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Editorial Note on the Protocol of Sèvres|date=24 October 1956|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d373|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>

=== United States interventions in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific ===
The rise of the United States as an imperial power was accompanied by repeated direct military interventions throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, U.S. forces invaded, occupied, or landed in countries across the region in order to protect strategic routes, commercial interests, friendly governments, and an expanding sphere of influence. These interventions formed part of the historical development of U.S. imperialism before the Second World War.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Spanish-American War, 1898|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/spanish-american-war|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>

Major examples include:

* '''[[Mexican–American War|U.S. invasion of Mexico, 1846–1848]]''': United States forces invaded Mexico, occupied Mexico City, and forced the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, through which Mexico ceded an enormous portion of its territory to the United States<ref>{{Web citation|title=Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)|date=2 February 1848|url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo|website=National Archives}}</ref>
* '''Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1893''': U.S. Marines landed in Honolulu during the overthrow of Queen [[Liliʻuokalani]] by planter and business interests. The United States later annexed Hawaii in 1898 despite substantial Native Hawaiian opposition<ref>{{Web citation|title=Annexation of Hawaii, 1898|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/hawaii|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Public Law 103-150: Apology Resolution|date=23 November 1993|url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/senate-joint-resolution/19/text|website=Congress.gov}}</ref>
* '''U.S. intervention in Cuba, 1898–1902''': The United States entered Cuba during the Cuban war for independence against Spain, defeated Spanish forces, and established a U.S. military government that remained until 1902. Cuba's formal independence was conditioned by U.S. influence, including the Platt Amendment and a claimed right of intervention<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Spanish-American War, 1898|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/spanish-american-war|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Transfer of government in Cuba and end of United States occupation|date=20 May 1902|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1905/d279|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. conquest of Puerto Rico, 1898''': U.S. forces invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War, after which Spain ceded the island to the United States. Puerto Rico remained under U.S. sovereignty rather than becoming independent<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Spanish-American War, 1898|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/spanish-american-war|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''[[Philippine–American War|U.S. conquest of the Philippines, 1898–1902]]''': After Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States, Filipino nationalists led by [[Emilio Aguinaldo]] resisted the replacement of Spanish colonial rule with U.S. rule. The resulting war killed thousands of combatants and large numbers of Filipino civilians and established U.S. colonial authority over the archipelago<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. participation in the intervention in China, 1900''': U.S. troops participated in the multinational expedition against the Boxer movement and entered Beijing alongside other imperial powers during the Boxer Rebellion, forming part of the foreign military intervention used to protect imperial privileges in China<ref>{{Web citation|title=Annual Message of the President, 1900|date=3 December 1900|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1900/message-of-the-president|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. intervention in Panama, 1903''': U.S. naval forces were deployed during Panama's separation from Colombia and prevented Colombian forces from effectively suppressing the secession. The new Panamanian government then granted the United States extensive rights over the Panama Canal Zone<ref>{{Web citation|title=Building the Panama Canal, 1903–1914|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/panama-canal|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Second U.S. occupation of Cuba, 1906–1909''': The United States again deployed forces and established a provisional military government in Cuba amid political conflict, demonstrating the interventionary powers created by the post-1898 settlement<ref>{{Web citation|title=Proclamation of provisional government in Cuba|date=29 September 1906|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1906p1/d475|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, 1912–1933''': U.S. Marines were stationed in Nicaragua for much of the period from 1912 through 1932 and intervened in internal political conflict, elections, and military affairs. The intervention generated armed resistance led by [[Augusto César Sandino]]<ref>{{Web citation|title=United States policy toward Nicaragua|date=28 March 1936|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1936v05/d688|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. occupation of Veracruz, 1914''': U.S. naval and Marine forces seized the Mexican port of Veracruz during the Mexican Revolution and occupied it for several months, constituting a direct military intervention in Mexican territory<ref>{{Web citation|title=United States occupation of Veracruz|date=1914|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1914/d467|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. invasion and occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934''': U.S. Marines invaded Haiti in 1915 and remained for nineteen years. The occupation gave the United States extensive control over Haitian finances and security institutions and forced major political changes, including the installation of a pro-U.S. president and constitutional changes permitting foreign land ownership<ref>{{Web citation|title=U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Haiti, 1915–34|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/haiti|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic, 1916–1924''': U.S. forces occupied Santo Domingo in 1916, after which the United States formally placed the Dominican Republic under military occupation and military government. The occupation continued until 1924<ref>{{Web citation|title=Proclamation of Occupation and Military Government in the Republic of Santo Domingo|date=29 November 1916|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1916/d265|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. Punitive Expedition into Mexico, 1916–1917''': U.S. Army forces under General John J. Pershing entered northern Mexico while pursuing Pancho Villa following his raid on Columbus, New Mexico, creating another direct U.S. military intervention on Mexican territory during the Mexican Revolution<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Mexican Expedition, 1916–1917|url=https://history.army.mil/News/2016/160300a_mexican_expedition.html|website=U.S. Army Center of Military History}}</ref>

These interventions are often grouped within the broader history of [[gunboat diplomacy]], the Roosevelt Corollary, and the [[Banana Wars]]. Their forms varied from brief troop landings to long occupations and colonial annexation, but together they demonstrate that direct U.S. military intervention in the Global South long predated the Cold War.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 1904|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/roosevelt-and-monroe-doctrine|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>

=== Settler-colonial invasions ===
A settler-colonial invasion aims not only to defeat an army but to transform land, population, property, and sovereignty in favor of settlers. It combines military conquest with land seizure, removal, settlement, racial hierarchy, assimilation, and the destruction of Indigenous political authority.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations|url=https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/about-us.html|website=United Nations}}</ref>

Several settler-colonial invasions and military expansions include:

* '''European conquest of the Americas''': European states invaded and colonized Indigenous territories through warfare, enslavement, massacres, settlement, forced conversion, disease, and land seizure, establishing the foundations of later settler states<ref>{{Web citation|title=Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations|url=https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/about-us.html|website=United Nations}}</ref>
* '''British colonization of Australia''': British settlement beginning in 1788 produced frontier wars, dispossession, massacres, and the imposition of British sovereignty over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands<ref>{{Web citation|title=Colonial period, 1788–1901|url=https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/atwar/colonial|website=Australian War Memorial}}</ref>
* '''French conquest of Algeria''': France invaded Algiers in 1830 and constructed a settler colony through military conquest, land confiscation, European settlement, and repression that lasted until Algerian independence in 1962<ref>{{Web citation|title=French Algeria|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Algeria/Colonial-rule|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''[[Mexican–American War|U.S. invasion of Mexico]]''': The 1846–1848 war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, through which Mexico ceded a vast territory to the United States and U.S. settler expansion advanced across Mexican and Indigenous lands<ref>{{Web citation|title=Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)|date=2 February 1848|url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo|website=National Archives}}</ref>
* '''Overthrow and annexation of Hawaii''': U.S. diplomatic and military support assisted planter and business interests in overthrowing Queen [[Liliʻuokalani]] in 1893, clearing the way for annexation despite Native Hawaiian opposition<ref>{{Web citation|title=Public Law 103-150: Apology Resolution|date=23 November 1993|url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/senate-joint-resolution/19/text|website=Congress.gov}}</ref>
* '''Israeli military expansion in Palestine''': Anti-imperialists analyze Israeli wars, occupations, settlement building, forced displacement, and annexationist policies as part of a continuing settler-colonial project against the Palestinian people<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 2334 (2016)|date=23 December 2016|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/853446|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem|date=19 July 2024|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/186|website=International Court of Justice}}</ref>

=== Colonial invasions and occupations ===
Colonial invasion establishes direct foreign rule over another people. Colonial warfare frequently combines military conquest with taxation, forced labor, resource extraction, cultural suppression, racial hierarchy, and counterinsurgency.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The United Nations and Decolonization|url=https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/about|website=United Nations}}</ref>

Examples include:

* '''[[British Raj|British conquest of India]]''': The East India Company and later the British Crown subordinated much of the Indian subcontinent through wars, annexations, military repression, taxation, and colonial administration<ref>{{Web citation|title=The British in India|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/India/The-British-1600-1740|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''French conquest of Indochina''': France conquered Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and imposed colonial administration, plantation extraction, taxation, and violent repression of anti-colonial resistance<ref>{{Web citation|title=Vietnam under French colonial rule|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Vietnam/Effects-of-French-colonial-rule|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''Japanese colonization of Korea''': Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and imposed colonial rule, forced assimilation, land seizure, repression, and forced labor until 1945<ref>{{Web citation|title=Korea under Japanese rule|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Korea/Korea-under-Japanese-rule|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''Japanese colonization of Taiwan''': Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 and consolidated colonial rule through military campaigns, police power, assimilation, and an economy organized around imperial needs<ref>{{Web citation|title=Taiwan as part of the Japanese empire|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Taiwan/Taiwan-as-part-of-the-Japanese-empire|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''Italian colonization of Somalia''': Italy established colonial rule over Somali territories as part of its wider imperial expansion in the Horn of Africa<ref>{{Web citation|title=Italian Somaliland|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Somalia/Italian-Somaliland|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''[[East Timor genocide|Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor]]''': Indonesia invaded in 1975 and imposed annexation, military occupation, massacres, forced displacement, and famine until the independence process of 1999–2002<ref>{{Web citation|title=Chega! The Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste|date=2005|url=https://www.etan.org/etanpdf/2006/CAVR/Chega!-Report-Executive-Summary.pdf|website=CAVR}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 384 (1975)|date=22 December 1975|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/93713|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>

=== Fascist invasions ===
Fascist invasions are wars of conquest organized around racial domination, colonial expansion, militant anti-communism, extermination, forced labor, and authoritarian empire.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Introduction to the Holocaust|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust|website=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}}</ref>

Major examples include:

* '''Italian invasion of Ethiopia''': Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 and used chemical weapons, massacres, concentration camps, and colonial terror against Ethiopian resistance<ref>{{Web citation|title=The dispute between Ethiopia and Italy|url=https://libraryresources.unog.ch/leagueofnationsarchives/ethiopia|website=United Nations Archives Geneva}}</ref>
* '''Italian invasion of Albania''': Fascist Italy invaded Albania in April 1939, deposed King Zog, and incorporated the country into the Italian imperial system<ref>{{Web citation|title=Italian invasion of Albania|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Italian-invasion-of-Albania|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''German invasion of Poland''': Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, beginning the Second World War in Europe and imposing a genocidal occupation<ref>{{Web citation|title=Invasion of Poland, Fall 1939|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-poland-fall-1939|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>
* '''German invasion of France''': Germany conquered France in 1940 and established occupation alongside the collaborationist Vichy regime<ref>{{Web citation|title=German Invasion of Western Europe, May 1940|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-invasion-of-western-europe-may-1940|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>
* '''[[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the Soviet Union]]''': The 1941 invasion was a genocidal war of annihilation aimed at destroying the [[Soviet Union]], communism, and large sections of the population of Eastern Europe<ref>{{Web citation|title=Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>
* '''[[Second Sino-Japanese War|Japanese invasion of China]]''': Imperial Japan's war in China involved occupation, massacres, forced labor, puppet governments, biological warfare, and widespread atrocities<ref>{{Web citation|title=Second Sino-Japanese War|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Second-Sino-Japanese-War|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''Japanese invasions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific''': Japan's wartime expansion imposed military occupation, forced labor, resource extraction, and terror across the region<ref>{{Web citation|title=Japanese Expansion in Asia and the Pacific|url=https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-expansion-asia-pacific-1931-1945|website=The National WWII Museum}}</ref>

== Counterrevolutionary military interventions ==
Counterrevolutionary military intervention is direct foreign armed action intended to destroy a revolution, socialist government, communist movement, anti-colonial force, or popular reform process. It can take the form of invasion, expeditionary troops, air power, foreign combat units, or direct operational participation in a civil war. Purely financial, logistical, or weapons support is better classified as military assistance or proxy sponsorship unless it develops into direct participation.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)|date=27 June 1986|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70|website=International Court of Justice}}</ref>

Important examples include:

* '''Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War''': Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and other powers deployed forces against the [[Bolsheviks]] and supported the White armies between 1918 and 1920<ref>{{Web citation|title=Russian Civil War: Foreign intervention|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''[[Bay of Pigs Invasion]]''': The United States organized, trained, armed, and transported a counterrevolutionary exile force that invaded Cuba in April 1961 in an attempt to overthrow the [[Cuban Revolution]]<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Bay of Pigs Invasion and its Aftermath, April 1961–October 1962|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/bay-of-pigs|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''[[Vietnam War|U.S. intervention in Vietnam]]''': The United States deployed hundreds of thousands of troops, conducted a massive bombing campaign, and maintained the U.S.-backed southern state against communist-led national liberation and reunification<ref>{{Web citation|title=U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''[[Korean War|U.S.-led intervention in Korea]]''': U.S. and United Nations forces intervened on behalf of the Republic of Korea. After the Inchon landing, U.S.-organized forces crossed the 38th parallel and advanced into the North toward the Chinese border, transforming the intervention from defence of the South into an invasion of the North<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 83 (1950)|date=27 June 1950|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/112026|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=The Korean War, 1950–1953|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war-2|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''South African intervention in Angola''': Apartheid South Africa sent regular forces into Angola and fought the [[MPLA]] and Cuban forces while supporting [[UNITA]], internationalizing the Angolan Civil War and linking it to the regional struggle over apartheid and Western-backed counterrevolution<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 387 (1976)|date=31 March 1976|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/93727|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>

Foreign support for the Contras in Nicaragua, RENAMO in Mozambique, the Afghan mujahideen, and similar forces remains important to the history of counterrevolution, but arms, financing, training, or sponsorship alone are not treated here as direct military interventions. These cases are more precisely discussed as proxy warfare or foreign military assistance unless the sponsoring state directly deploys forces or conducts military operations.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)|date=27 June 1986|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70|website=International Court of Justice}}</ref>

== Revolutionary and anti-imperialist interventions ==
Revolutionary and anti-imperialist interventions are direct military actions carried out against fascism, colonialism, apartheid, genocide, imperialist invasion, or foreign-backed counterrevolution. They are not automatically progressive merely because they are carried out by a socialist state. Their political character depends on whether they strengthen the sovereignty and revolutionary capacity of the assisted people or replace one domination with another.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Nelson Mandela address to the people of Cuba, Matanzas, Cuba|date=26 July 1991|url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/nelson-mandela-address-to-the-people-of-cuba-matanzas-cuba-26-july-1991/|website=African National Congress}}</ref>

=== Anti-fascist intervention ===
Anti-fascist intervention refers to military action that defeats fascist aggression and occupation. The use of armed force against fascist armies is politically distinct from fascist conquest, although postwar occupations and spheres of influence must still be analyzed separately.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Union and the Eastern Front|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-soviet-union-and-the-eastern-front|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>

Major examples include:

* '''Allied invasion of Normandy''': The 1944 invasion was an armed entry into Nazi-occupied France, but its political content was the defeat of fascist occupation rather than conquest of France<ref>{{Web citation|title=D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/d-day-the-invasion-of-normandy|website=Imperial War Museums}}</ref>
* '''Allied invasion of Italy''': The 1943 campaign contributed to the destruction of Mussolini's fascist state and opened another major front against the Axis<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Allied Campaign in Italy 1943–45|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-allied-campaign-in-italy-1943-45|website=Imperial War Museums}}</ref>
* '''Soviet advance into Eastern Europe and Germany''': The [[Red Army]] destroyed the main body of the Nazi war machine and liberated territories occupied by Germany. Debates over later Soviet political domination in parts of Eastern Europe are analytically separate from the anti-fascist character of the war against Nazi occupation<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Union and the Eastern Front|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-soviet-union-and-the-eastern-front|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>

=== Revolutionary internationalist intervention ===
Revolutionary internationalism can include the direct deployment of armed forces by a socialist or revolutionary state to aid another revolutionary, socialist, anti-colonial, or anti-fascist force. It differs from ordinary military assistance when foreign forces actually enter the conflict and conduct military operations rather than merely supplying arms or advisers.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Nelson Mandela address to the people of Cuba, Matanzas, Cuba|date=26 July 1991|url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/nelson-mandela-address-to-the-people-of-cuba-matanzas-cuba-26-july-1991/|website=African National Congress}}</ref>

Cases of revolutionary internationalist or contested socialist-state intervention include:

* '''Cuban intervention in Angola''': Cuba deployed troops at the request of the MPLA government beginning in 1975 and fought apartheid South Africa and UNITA. Cuban forces later fought in the campaign culminating around [[Battle of Cuito Cuanavale|Cuito Cuanavale]], which [[Nelson Mandela]] later described as a turning point in the regional struggle against apartheid<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 31/6: The policies of apartheid of the Government of South Africa|date=9 November 1976|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/190978|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Nelson Mandela address to the people of Cuba, Matanzas, Cuba|date=26 July 1991|url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/nelson-mandela-address-to-the-people-of-cuba-matanzas-cuba-26-july-1991/|website=African National Congress}}</ref>
* '''Chinese intervention in the Korean War''': Chinese People's Volunteers entered Korea after U.S.-led forces crossed the 38th parallel and advanced toward the Yalu River. Anti-imperialists commonly interpret the intervention as defensive assistance to the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]] and protection of China's border from U.S.-led escalation<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Korean War, 1950–1953|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war-2|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''[[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet intervention in Afghanistan]]''': The Soviet Union entered Afghanistan in 1979 after requests from the Afghan government. It defended an allied government against armed counterrevolution but also deepened foreign dependency, escalated the war, and caused extensive civilian suffering, making its political character contested among anti-imperialists<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia''': The 1968 intervention was justified by Soviet leaders as defence of socialism but violated Czechoslovak sovereignty and suppressed an internally driven reform process<ref>{{Web citation|title=Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/soviet-invasion-czechoslavkia|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''[[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Soviet intervention in Hungary]]''': Soviet armed forces intervened directly to suppress the Hungarian uprising. The case remains a major example in debates over the distinction between socialist internationalism and hegemonic intervention<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Hungarian Uprising, 1956|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/hungarian-uprising|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>

Soviet arms and advisers to the Spanish Republic, socialist-bloc arms and technical assistance to Vietnam, and Soviet or Cuban assistance to other revolutionary movements are not listed as direct interventions solely on the basis of material support. Such aid can be politically and militarily significant without constituting an invasion or foreign combat deployment.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Spanish Civil War: Foreign intervention|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Spanish-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>

=== Anti-genocide interventions ===
An anti-genocide intervention is armed action that stops mass extermination or destroys a regime carrying out genocidal violence. Such interventions can be defensible, but their later occupation policies and political consequences still require separate analysis.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Definitions of Genocide and Related Crimes|url=https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition|website=United Nations}}</ref>

Important cases include:

* '''Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia''': Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea in December 1978 after border attacks and mass killings by the [[Khmer Rouge]]. Vietnamese forces captured Phnom Penh in January 1979 and ended Khmer Rouge rule, although the subsequent Vietnamese military presence and Cambodia's dependency remain debated<ref>{{Web citation|title=Report of the Group of Experts for Cambodia established pursuant to General Assembly resolution 52/135|date=16 March 1999|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/255955|website=United Nations}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Case 002/02 Judgment|date=16 November 2018|url=https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/case/topic/1299|website=Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia}}</ref>
* '''Tanzanian intervention in Uganda''': Tanzania and Ugandan exile forces overthrew Idi Amin after Uganda invaded Tanzanian territory. The intervention ended Amin's dictatorship and followed direct Ugandan aggression against Tanzania<ref>{{Web citation|title=Idi Amin: Presidency and exile|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''Allied and Soviet advances into Nazi-occupied Europe''': These military campaigns defeated regimes conducting genocide, colonial occupation, forced labor, and mass extermination<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Union and the Eastern Front|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-soviet-union-and-the-eastern-front|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>
* '''Rwandan Patriotic Front victory in Rwanda''': The RPF's military advance ended the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, although the later Rwandan political order and Rwandan interventions in Congo require separate analysis<ref>{{Web citation|title=Outreach Programme on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda|url=https://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/historical-background.shtml|website=United Nations}}</ref>

=== Reunification interventions ===
Reunification intervention is military action carried out in the name of restoring a country divided by colonial occupation, imposed partition, civil war, or Cold War settlement. Such actions cannot be judged solely by which side crossed a partition line first. The history of the division, foreign sponsorship, class forces, and rival state projects must also be examined.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China|date=21 July 1954|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp|website=Avalon Project, Yale Law School}}</ref>

Major cases include:

* '''[[Korean War|Korean reunification struggle]]''': North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950, but the conflict developed from Japanese colonialism, U.S.-Soviet division of Korea, competing governments, southern repression, uprisings, massacres, and border fighting<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 83 (1950)|date=27 June 1950|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/112026|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=What is the Jeju 4·3 Incident?|url=https://jeju43peace.or.kr/eng/sub01_01.do|website=Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation}}</ref>
* '''[[Vietnam War|Vietnamese reunification struggle]]''': The Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the [[National Liberation Front of South Vietnam]] fought a national-liberation and reunification struggle against a U.S.-backed southern state created within the partition that followed French colonial rule<ref>{{Web citation|title=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China|date=21 July 1954|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp|website=Avalon Project, Yale Law School}}</ref>
* '''[[Chinese Civil War|China and Taiwan]]''': The Taiwan question originates in Japanese colonial rule, the Chinese Civil War, the Kuomintang retreat to Taiwan, U.S. military protection, and the unresolved contest over Chinese sovereignty<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Chinese Revolution of 1949|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Yemeni reunification and later wars''': The 1990 unification of North and South Yemen did not resolve class, regional, tribal, and geopolitical contradictions, and later civil wars became arenas for regional military intervention<ref>{{Web citation|title=Unification of Yemen|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Yemen/Unification-of-Yemen|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>

== Invitation and legitimacy ==
=== Invitation does not settle political character ===
A foreign military force remains an intervention even when invited by a recognized government or local faction. Invitation can indicate consent from one authority, but it does not by itself prove that the intervening power supports popular sovereignty. Recognition can reflect imperial influence, partition, or the interests of dominant states rather than the will of the population.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

Several cases demonstrate this distinction:

* '''South Vietnam''': The South Vietnamese state welcomed U.S. military intervention, but anti-imperialists understand the war within the broader history of foreign intervention against national liberation and reunification<ref>{{Web citation|title=U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''South Korea''': The southern government welcomed U.S. and United Nations intervention, but the invitation did not erase partition, U.S. occupation, repression, massacres, or the civil-war character of the conflict<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Korean War, 1950–1953|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war-2|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Angola''': The MPLA government invited Cuba, and Cuban intervention is judged differently by anti-imperialists because it directly opposed apartheid South African intervention and foreign-backed counterrevolution<ref>{{Web citation|title=Nelson Mandela address to the people of Cuba, Matanzas, Cuba|date=26 July 1991|url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/nelson-mandela-address-to-the-people-of-cuba-matanzas-cuba-26-july-1991/|website=African National Congress}}</ref>
* '''Afghanistan''': The Afghan government requested Soviet assistance, but the existence of an invitation does not by itself resolve the consequences of the Soviet military presence or the political character of the war<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Iraq''': Some Iraqi exile forces welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but local support did not erase the foreign invasion, occupation, and restructuring of the Iraqi state<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 1483 (2003)|date=22 May 2003|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/495555|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>
* '''Libya''': Anti-Gaddafi forces welcomed NATO air power, but local support did not prevent the campaign from developing into direct support for regime change followed by state fragmentation<ref>{{Web citation|title=Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK's future policy options|date=14 September 2016|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf|website=UK Parliament}}</ref>
* '''Normandy''': Many French people welcomed Allied armies fighting Nazi occupation, illustrating that local consent can strengthen the legitimacy of intervention when it aligns with liberation from foreign conquest<ref>{{Web citation|title=D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/d-day-the-invasion-of-normandy|website=Imperial War Museums}}</ref>

=== Recognition is not legitimacy ===
International recognition does not automatically make a state popular, independent, or representative. South Vietnam, South Korea, rival Libyan authorities, and competing Chinese governments demonstrate how recognition can be shaped by foreign power and civil-war alignments. A recognized government can also be a client regime, a partition-created authority, or a state deeply dependent on foreign military protection.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

The political test is therefore broader: which class forces are strengthened, whether the assisted government or movement possesses a popular basis, whether sovereignty expands or contracts, what the foreign military actually does, and whether it withdraws after the stated objective or becomes a permanent source of domination.<ref name="ICRCoccupation2" />

== Contested interventions ==
Contested interventions combine real aggression, security concerns, competing national claims, civil war, foreign manipulation, and contradictory outcomes. Anti-imperialists analyze these cases concretely rather than assuming that every action by an opponent of the United States is progressive or that every Western-backed action is defensive.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

Examples include:

* '''Iraqi invasion of Kuwait''': Iraq's 1990 invasion and annexation attempt violated Kuwait's sovereignty. The U.S.-led response nevertheless strengthened U.S. dominance, allied Gulf monarchies, and long-term regional militarization<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 678 (1990)|date=29 November 1990|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/102245|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>
* '''Soviet intervention in Afghanistan''': The intervention defended an allied government and confronted externally supported counterrevolution, while also escalating the war, producing dependency, and causing mass suffering<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia''': Vietnam destroyed the Khmer Rouge regime and ended its rule, but the subsequent military presence raised questions about Cambodian sovereignty and dependency<ref>{{Web citation|title=Report of the Group of Experts for Cambodia established pursuant to General Assembly resolution 52/135|date=16 March 1999|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/255955|website=United Nations}}</ref>
* '''Tanzanian intervention in Uganda''': Tanzania responded to Ugandan aggression and removed Idi Amin, but the cross-border overthrow of a government still requires analysis of the political order established afterward<ref>{{Web citation|title=Idi Amin: Presidency and exile|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''[[Russian invasion of Ukraine]]''': The invasion violated Ukrainian sovereignty and produced occupation and annexation claims. Its background includes NATO expansion, the post-Soviet crisis, conflict after 2014, and disputes involving Russian-speaking populations, but these factors do not remove responsibility for invasion and occupation<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution ES-11/1: Aggression against Ukraine|date=2 March 2022|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3959039|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>

== Liberal interventionism ==
[[Liberalism|Liberal]] interventionism holds that powerful states can use military force for progressive purposes such as protecting civilians, enforcing human rights, defending democracy, or stopping dictatorship. Anti-imperialists argue that this approach often treats imperial states as neutral moral actors rather than states shaped by ruling-class interests, military alliances, arms industries, strategic competition, and histories of colonial violence.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK's future policy options|date=14 September 2016|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf|website=UK Parliament}}</ref>

=== Humanitarian pretexts ===
Humanitarian suffering and atrocities are real, but imperial powers apply humanitarian claims selectively. They may condemn abuses by enemy states while supporting allied governments responsible for occupation, dictatorship, or mass killing. Humanitarian language becomes an imperial pretext when it enables bombing, regime change, occupation, or destruction of sovereignty without producing durable protection for the affected population.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK's future policy options|date=14 September 2016|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf|website=UK Parliament}}</ref>

Military cases commonly discussed through humanitarian justification include:

* '''NATO bombing of Yugoslavia''': NATO presented the 1999 air war as humanitarian protection, but the bombing lacked Security Council authorization and expanded NATO military power in the Balkans<ref>{{Web citation|title=Operation Allied Force|url=https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49602.htm|website=NATO}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Security Council rejects demand for cessation of use of force against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|date=26 March 1999|url=https://press.un.org/en/1999/19990326.sc6659.html|website=United Nations}}</ref>
* '''NATO intervention in Libya''': The intervention was authorized around civilian protection but developed into close air support for forces pursuing regime change<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 1973 (2011)|date=17 March 2011|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/699777|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>
* '''U.S. intervention in Afghanistan''': Women's rights and democracy became prominent justifications for the war even though the initial intervention was launched as part of the War on Terror<ref>{{Web citation|title=The United States War in Afghanistan|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/2001-2008/afghanistan|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Military intervention in Somalia''': Humanitarian and peacekeeping mandates developed into coercive military operations, illustrating how relief operations and armed intervention can merge<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 794 (1992)|date=3 December 1992|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/154648|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>

=== Abstract invasion morality ===
The statement that every invasion is politically identical reduces history to the first visible border crossing. This approach cannot explain why Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union and the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France had opposite political meanings. Nor can it explain anti-colonial wars across partition lines, direct assistance requested by revolutionary governments, or interventions that terminate mass extermination.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>

Context does not automatically justify force, but the immediate trigger of a war is not always its full origin. Colonialism, occupation, imposed partition, repression, massacres, border clashes, foreign military involvement, and rival state-building can precede open war. Korea and Vietnam demonstrate why the immediate outbreak of conventional fighting must be placed within a longer history.<ref>{{Web citation|title=What is the Jeju 4·3 Incident?|url=https://jeju43peace.or.kr/eng/sub01_01.do|website=Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China|date=21 July 1954|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp|website=Avalon Project, Yale Law School}}</ref>

=== Invader-victim moralism ===
An invaded state has a right not to be conquered, but invasion does not make its ruling class progressive or innocent. Anti-imperialists can defend sovereignty without romanticizing a monarchy, dictatorship, client regime, settler state, or anti-communist government.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

Examples include:

* '''Kuwait''': Iraq's annexation violated Kuwaiti sovereignty, but the Kuwaiti monarchy did not become democratic or socialist because it was invaded<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 660 (1990)|date=2 August 1990|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/94220|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>
* '''South Korea under Syngman Rhee''': North Korea's attack did not erase the southern state's anti-communist repression, massacres, imprisonment, and dependence on the United States<ref>{{Web citation|title=Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea|url=https://www.jinsil.go.kr/eng/|website=Truth and Reconciliation Commission}}</ref>
* '''South Vietnam''': Foreign recognition and northern military action did not erase the southern state's dependence on the United States, repression, blocked reunification process, and role in the wider counterrevolutionary war<ref>{{Web citation|title=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China|date=21 July 1954|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp|website=Avalon Project, Yale Law School}}</ref>
* '''Ukraine''': Opposition to Russian invasion does not require ignoring NATO strategy, nationalist forces, Western military support, or the class contradictions of the Ukrainian state<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution ES-11/1: Aggression against Ukraine|date=2 March 2022|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3959039|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>

=== Land-area morality ===
The size of a state does not determine its political character. A smaller state can be colonial, fascist, or imperialist, while a larger state can be defending itself from invasion. France was smaller than Algeria but conquered it; Portugal was smaller than Brazil but colonized it; the Netherlands was smaller than Indonesia but ruled it; Japan was smaller than China but invaded it; and Nazi Germany was smaller than the Soviet Union but launched a genocidal war of conquest.<ref>{{Web citation|title=French Algeria|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Algeria/Colonial-rule|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>

Likewise, military weakness does not make a movement progressive. Reactionary armed organizations can be weaker than the state they fight while still serving oppressive or counterrevolutionary political aims. Rwanda is much smaller than the Democratic Republic of the Congo, yet Rwandan military operations and support for armed groups have repeatedly raised questions of Congolese sovereignty.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Reports of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/search?ln=en&p=Group+of+Experts+Democratic+Republic+of+the+Congo|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>

== Intervention in civil wars ==
Civil-war intervention is foreign direct military participation in an internal war, revolutionary struggle, partition conflict, or national-liberation war. It can include combat troops, air power, naval operations, special forces, mercenaries under state direction, and foreign command of combat operations. Military aid can internationalize a civil war politically and materially, but this article distinguishes such assistance from direct intervention when the foreign sponsor does not itself participate in combat operations.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)|date=27 June 1986|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70|website=International Court of Justice}}</ref>

=== Reactionary and imperialist civil-war interventions ===
Major cases of direct intervention include:

* '''Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War''': Foreign armies deployed in support of anti-Bolshevik forces<ref>{{Web citation|title=Russian Civil War: Foreign intervention|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>
* '''U.S. intervention in Vietnam''': U.S. combat troops and air power defended the southern state against the communist-led North and National Liberation Front<ref>{{Web citation|title=U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''U.S. and United Nations intervention in Korea''': Foreign forces preserved the southern government and later crossed into the North<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Korean War, 1950–1953|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war-2|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''South African intervention in Angola''': Apartheid forces invaded Angola and fought the MPLA and Cuban forces while supporting UNITA<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 387 (1976)|date=31 March 1976|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/93727|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>
* '''Rwandan and Ugandan intervention in Congo''': Rwanda and Uganda deployed troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Congo wars, contributing to the transformation of domestic conflict into a regional war<ref>{{Web citation|title=Reports of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/search?ln=en&p=Group+of+Experts+Democratic+Republic+of+the+Congo|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>
* '''Foreign interventions in Syria''': The Syrian Civil War became internationalized through direct Russian, Iranian, Turkish, U.S., and other foreign military operations in addition to foreign support for local armed groups<ref>{{Web citation|title=Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic|url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/iici-syria/independent-international-commission|website=Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights}}</ref>
* '''Saudi-led intervention in Yemen''': Saudi Arabia and allied states intervened directly through air power and other military operations while supporting local forces in the Yemeni Civil War<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 2216 (2015)|date=14 April 2015|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/791829|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>

=== Revolutionary and anti-imperialist civil-war interventions ===
Direct foreign military intervention can also strengthen anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, anti-fascist, or socialist forces. Socialist states additionally provided military advisers, weapons, training, air defence, logistical support, and technical personnel to liberation movements and allied governments throughout the twentieth century. These forms of military internationalism should be distinguished from one another: direct deployment of combat forces constitutes military intervention in the narrow sense, while arms, advisers, training, and logistical assistance constitute military support or indirect intervention.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Nelson Mandela address to the people of Cuba, Matanzas, Cuba|date=26 July 1991|url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/nelson-mandela-address-to-the-people-of-cuba-matanzas-cuba-26-july-1991/|website=African National Congress}}</ref>

==== Direct socialist military interventions ====
Examples of direct military intervention by socialist states include:

* '''Chinese intervention in Korea''': Chinese People's Volunteers entered the [[Korean War]] after U.S.-led forces crossed the 38th parallel, invaded the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]], and advanced toward the Chinese border. Chinese intervention reversed much of the U.S.-led advance and prevented the destruction of the DPRK<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Korean War, 1950–1953|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war-2|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Cuban intervention in Angola''': Cuba deployed combat troops at the request of the [[MPLA]] government during the [[Angolan Civil War]] and fought [[UNITA]] and invading apartheid South African forces. Cuban forces remained heavily involved in the conflict and later fought during the campaigns surrounding [[Cuito Cuanavale]], which [[Nelson Mandela]] described as a turning point in the struggle against apartheid in southern Africa<ref>{{Web citation|title=Nelson Mandela address to the people of Cuba, Matanzas, Cuba|date=26 July 1991|url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/nelson-mandela-address-to-the-people-of-cuba-matanzas-cuba-26-july-1991/|website=African National Congress}}</ref>
* '''Soviet intervention in Afghanistan''': The [[Soviet Union]] deployed military forces to the [[Democratic Republic of Afghanistan]] in December 1979 after repeated requests for assistance from the Afghan government. Soviet forces fought Islamist counterrevolutionary organizations backed by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other states. Anti-imperialists differ over the intervention: some emphasize defence of a socialist government against externally supported counterrevolution, while others emphasize the resulting dependency, escalation of the war, civilian suffering, and violation of Afghan sovereignty<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Cuban intervention in Ethiopia''': Cuba deployed approximately 16,000 combat troops to socialist Ethiopia during the [[Ogaden War]] after Somalia invaded Ethiopian territory in 1977. Cuban mechanized troops, pilots, artillery and other forces fought alongside Ethiopian troops while Soviet advisers and military supplies supported the Ethiopian counteroffensive. Cuban forces were restricted largely to the Ogaden front and were not intended to participate in Ethiopia's war against Eritrean separatists<ref>{{Web citation|title=Memorandum of Conversation on the Horn of Africa|date=1978|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v17p1/d62|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Cuban intervention in the Congo''': In 1965, [[Che Guevara]], Víctor Dreke and more than one hundred Cuban fighters entered the Congo to assist Lumumbist Simba forces fighting a government supported by Western powers and apartheid South Africa. Cuban personnel trained Congolese fighters and participated directly in combat before withdrawing later that year after military setbacks and the collapse of the rebellion<ref>{{Web citation|title=The First Ambassadors: Cuba's Contribution to Guinea-Bissau's War of Independence|date=1997|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/158071|website=Journal of Latin American Studies}}</ref>
* '''Cuban intervention in Guinea-Bissau''': Cuba sent military instructors, doctors, technicians and combat volunteers to assist the [[PAIGC]] during the [[Guinea-Bissau War of Independence]] against Portuguese colonialism. Cuban fighters served alongside PAIGC forces, and several were killed during the conflict, making the Cuban role more than purely logistical or advisory<ref>{{Web citation|title=The First Ambassadors: Cuba's Contribution to Guinea-Bissau's War of Independence|date=1997|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/158071|website=Journal of Latin American Studies}}</ref>
* '''Cuban intervention in Syria''': Cuba deployed thousands of troops, including armored units, to Syria following the 1973 Arab–Israeli war. Cuban forces served on the Golan front and participated in military operations against Israeli forces before withdrawing in the mid-1970s
* '''Cuban military involvement in South Yemen''': Cuban pilots and other military personnel assisted the [[People's Democratic Republic of Yemen]], including combat and training missions during conflict with North Yemen. Cuban involvement formed part of wider socialist military support for South Yemen
* '''Cuban deployment to Algeria''': Cuba sent hundreds of troops, tanks, artillery and military personnel to assist revolutionary Algeria during the 1963 [[Sand War]] against Morocco. Although Cuban forces were prepared for combat, the crisis ended before they participated extensively in fighting, making the case closer to an armed deployment than a major combat intervention

==== Socialist military support and advisers ====
The Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and other socialist states also provided extensive military support without necessarily deploying large combat formations. Such support could include weapons, aircraft, air-defence systems, military advisers, instructors, engineers, intelligence, transportation, logistical personnel, pilots, and technical specialists. These activities could materially determine the outcome of wars while remaining analytically distinct from full-scale foreign invasion or occupation.

Major examples include:

* '''Soviet support for Vietnam''': The Soviet Union supplied the [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]] with aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, artillery, radar systems, advisers, technical personnel and other military equipment during the war against U.S. intervention. China likewise provided extensive military assistance, engineering troops, weapons and logistical support
* '''Soviet support for the MPLA in Angola''': The Soviet Union supplied weapons, aircraft, armored vehicles, advisers, transportation and logistical support to the [[MPLA]], while Cuban forces provided the principal large foreign combat deployment. Contemporary U.S. assessments distinguished Soviet logistical and advisory participation from the much larger Cuban combat role<ref>{{Web citation|title=Soviet Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa|date=9 January 1976|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve06/d33|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Soviet support for socialist Mozambique''': The Soviet Union supplied the [[People's Republic of Mozambique]] and [[FRELIMO]] with military equipment, advisers and training while the government fought [[RENAMO]] and faced destabilization by apartheid South Africa
* '''Soviet and Cuban support for Ethiopia''': In addition to Cuba's combat deployment, the Soviet Union conducted a large military airlift, supplied aircraft, tanks, ammunition and other materiel, and deployed hundreds of advisers. Soviet General Vasily Petrov and other advisers played major roles in organizing Ethiopian military operations against the Somali invasion<ref>{{Web citation|title=Increased Support for Ethiopia by the USSR and Cuba|date=14 December 1977|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v06/d66|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Soviet military support for Somalia before the Ogaden War''': During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Soviet Union became the principal military supplier of the [[Somali Democratic Republic]], providing large quantities of weapons, approximately one thousand advisers, and access to Soviet military facilities at Berbera. When Somalia invaded Ethiopia in 1977, however, Moscow opposed the invasion, ended its alliance with Somalia, and shifted military support to Ethiopia<ref>{{Web citation|title=Soviet Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa|date=9 January 1976|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve06/d33|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Where Do We Go With Somalia?|date=24 August 1977|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v17p1/d26|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Soviet support for Egypt during the War of Attrition''': The Soviet Union supplied Egypt with aircraft, air-defence systems and thousands of advisers after the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. Soviet air-defence and aviation units eventually participated directly in combat against Israeli aircraft during the [[War of Attrition]], making the later phase an example in which military assistance developed into limited direct intervention<ref>{{Web citation|title=Soviet Military Role in Ethiopia|date=1978|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v17p1/d59|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Soviet support for Syria''': The Soviet Union supplied Syria with extensive weapons, aircraft, air-defence equipment, advisers and technical personnel during its conflicts with Israel. Soviet advisers operated at multiple command levels, while later Soviet and Russian involvement periodically expanded beyond advisory support
* '''Soviet support for Arab states in the October 1973 War''': The Soviet Union conducted a major resupply operation for Egypt and Syria during the war, replenishing aircraft, tanks, ammunition and other equipment while advisers assisted Arab armed forces
* '''Soviet military support for Guinea''': The Soviet Union supplied arms and military advisers to Guinea and obtained access to facilities used by Soviet naval reconnaissance aircraft, forming part of its broader support for anti-colonial and post-colonial African states<ref>{{Web citation|title=Soviet Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa|date=9 January 1976|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve06/d33|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Soviet military support during the Congo Crisis''': The Soviet Union supported forces associated with [[Patrice Lumumba]] and later Lumumbist movements through aircraft, military equipment and other assistance during the internationalized Congo Crisis
* '''Soviet participation in Operation Trikora''': The Soviet Union supplied Indonesia with submarines, aircraft and other military equipment during its campaign to end Dutch rule in West New Guinea. Soviet military personnel were involved in operating some of the equipment, making the case more direct than an ordinary arms transfer
* '''Soviet support for South Yemen''': The Soviet Union supplied the [[People's Democratic Republic of Yemen]] with weapons, advisers, aircraft and other military support during conflicts with the Yemen Arab Republic and became one of South Yemen's principal military partners
* '''Soviet support during the North Yemen Civil War''': The Soviet Union supplied military assistance to republican forces and supported Egypt's intervention against the Saudi-backed royalists during the civil war
* '''Cuban support for Mozambique''': Cuba supplied FRELIMO and the socialist Mozambican government with military instructors, advisers, training and other assistance against Portuguese colonialism and later counterrevolutionary destabilization
* '''Cuban support for Namibia''': Cuba supported [[SWAPO]] through military training and logistical assistance, while Cuban operations against apartheid South African forces in neighboring Angola materially altered the regional balance that preceded Namibian independence
* '''Cuban support for the Sandinistas''': Cuba supplied the [[Sandinista National Liberation Front]] with military training, intelligence assistance, weapons and logistical support before and after the [[Nicaraguan Revolution]], while Cuban personnel later assisted Nicaragua's security and military institutions
* '''Cuban support for armed resistance to Pinochet''': Cuba provided weapons, training, financial assistance and logistical support to Marxist resistance organizations fighting the dictatorship of [[Augusto Pinochet]], including the MIR and FPMR
* '''Soviet military support for Republican Spain''': The Soviet Union supplied aircraft, tanks, pilots, advisers and weapons to the [[Second Spanish Republic]] against the fascist forces of [[Francisco Franco]]. This was substantial military internationalism, but it did not amount to a Soviet ground invasion of Spain

==== Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran ====
The 1941 [[Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran]] is frequently cited by liberals, conservatives and anti-communists as evidence that the Soviet Union participated alongside the British Empire in the invasion of a neutral state. The basic factual claim is correct: British and Soviet forces invaded Iran on 25 August 1941 and occupied the country despite the Iranian government's declaration of neutrality. An anti-imperialist analysis therefore should not deny that Iranian sovereignty was violated.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Anglo-Iranian Relations iii. Pahlavi period|url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/anglo-iranian-relations-iii/|website=Encyclopaedia Iranica}}</ref>

However, treating British and Soviet participation as politically identical removes the historical context in which the invasion occurred. Britain had exercised imperial influence over Iran for decades and possessed major strategic and petroleum interests through the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The Soviet Union, by contrast, entered the operation only after [[Nazi Germany]] launched [[Operation Barbarossa]] in June 1941, placing the Soviet state in an existential war for survival. Opening the Persian Corridor for Allied supplies to the Soviet Union became one of the principal strategic purposes of the occupation.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Anglo-Iranian Relations iii. Pahlavi period|url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/anglo-iranian-relations-iii/|website=Encyclopaedia Iranica}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Azerbaijan v. History from 1941 to 1947|url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/azerbaijan-v/|website=Encyclopaedia Iranica}}</ref>

This distinction explains the different historical motives without converting the invasion into a progressive action. Iran had not attacked the Soviet Union, and contemporary Iranian officials protested that their country was neutral and that British and Soviet troops had invaded without sufficient justification. The occupation restricted Iranian sovereignty and forced Reza Shah's abdication, while Soviet forces also remained in northern Iran beyond the initially agreed withdrawal timetable after the war. The case therefore demonstrates that a socialist state's participation in an anti-fascist alliance does not make every military action undertaken during that alliance automatically revolutionary or anti-imperialist.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Iranian response to the Soviet invasion, 1941|date=1941|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1941v03/d413|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>

=== Proxy warfare and military assistance ===
A proxy war occurs when foreign states use local forces to pursue wider strategic goals through arms, funding, training, intelligence, political sponsorship, or operational influence. Proxy warfare can be a form of indirect foreign involvement without being identical to invasion or direct military intervention.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)|date=27 June 1986|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70|website=International Court of Justice}}</ref>

The [[Cold War]] produced major proxy conflicts because nuclear weapons made direct war between major powers potentially catastrophic. Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola, and other conflicts became arenas in which external states armed local forces while sometimes avoiding formal deployment of their own regular troops. Where foreign combat forces did enter, as in Angola, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Congo, the conflict combined proxy warfare with direct intervention.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>

External military support can prolong civil war by preventing clients from losing without enabling a just settlement. Patrons may continue supplying arms because their strategic goals outlast the local causes of war. For analytical clarity, however, military assistance should not automatically be labeled an invasion or direct intervention unless foreign forces themselves participate operationally in the conflict.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)|date=27 June 1986|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70|website=International Court of Justice}}</ref>

== Historical framing ==
Cold War narratives often begin at the moment a communist or anti-Western force launches a major military operation while excluding the colonial, political, and military history that produced the conflict. Anti-imperialists distinguish the immediate trigger of war from its deeper origin.<ref>{{Web citation|title=What is the Jeju 4·3 Incident?|url=https://jeju43peace.or.kr/eng/sub01_01.do|website=Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation}}</ref>

=== Single-date framing ===
Single-date framing treats one attack or border crossing as the entire cause of a war. It can be especially misleading in divided countries and internationalized civil wars.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China|date=21 July 1954|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp|website=Avalon Project, Yale Law School}}</ref>

* '''Korea''': The June 1950 crossing of the 38th parallel triggered full conventional war, but the conflict developed from Japanese colonialism, foreign occupation, partition, southern repression, uprisings, massacres, border clashes, and rival national projects<ref>{{Web citation|title=What is the Jeju 4·3 Incident?|url=https://jeju43peace.or.kr/eng/sub01_01.do|website=Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation}}</ref>
* '''Vietnam''': Accounts beginning with northern or NLF military action conceal French colonialism, the intended reunification process, U.S. state-building in the South, and escalating foreign intervention<ref>{{Web citation|title=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China|date=21 July 1954|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp|website=Avalon Project, Yale Law School}}</ref>
* '''Afghanistan''': Accounts beginning in December 1979 conceal the Saur Revolution, internal conflict, armed counterrevolution, earlier foreign assistance, and repeated Afghan requests for Soviet support<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan|website=Office of the Historian}}</ref>
* '''Angola''': Accounts presenting Cuban troops as the origin of the conflict conceal Portuguese colonialism, apartheid South African intervention, external support for anti-MPLA forces, and the MPLA government's request for Cuban assistance<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 387 (1976)|date=31 March 1976|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/93727|website=United Nations Digital Library}}</ref>

=== Partition before war ===
Partition lines created by colonial or occupying powers may later be treated as natural international borders. Korea and Vietnam demonstrate how imposed division can create rival governments and reunification wars. Palestine and the Indian subcontinent likewise demonstrate how colonial partition can generate continuing military conflict, displacement, and contested sovereignty.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China|date=21 July 1954|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp|website=Avalon Project, Yale Law School}}</ref>

Partition does not automatically justify every reunification offensive, but it prevents the conflict from being understood as an ordinary war between unrelated states. Anti-imperialist analysis asks how the border was created, which powers imposed it, whether the people consented, and what social order each competing government represented.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

== Aftermath and consequences ==
The aftermath of military intervention is part of its political content. A campaign may claim to defend civilians, defeat fascism, assist a revolution, or stop genocide, yet later produce occupation, permanent bases, annexation, dependency, state collapse, or suppression of local sovereignty.<ref name="ICRCoccupation2" />

Imperialist interventions have repeatedly left behind destroyed institutions, client militaries, altered economic systems, armed factions, sectarian division, foreign bases, and long-term instability. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Congo, and Yemen demonstrate different forms of these legacies. Revolutionary or anti-fascist interventions must likewise be judged by whether the assisting force withdraws and whether the affected people gain the capacity to govern themselves.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK's future policy options|date=14 September 2016|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf|website=UK Parliament}}</ref>

The history of military intervention since 1945 is increasingly a history of internationalized civil wars, air campaigns, and proxy conflicts as well as conventional invasions. Powerful states may rely on special forces, military advisers engaged in operations, mercenaries, local clients, and air power rather than formal occupation armies. The military form changes, but the central political question remains whether foreign force strengthens liberation and self-determination or deepens foreign domination.<ref name="UNcharter2" />

== See also ==

* [[Imperialism]]
* [[Colonialism]]
* [[Settler colonialism]]
* [[Military occupation]]
* [[Proxy war]]
* [[Civil war]]
* [[National liberation]]
* [[Counterrevolution]]
* [[Fascism]]
* [[Anti-imperialism]]
* [[Self-determination]]
* [[United States imperialism]]
* [[NATO]]
* [[Cold War]]
* [[Banana Wars]]
* [[Gunboat diplomacy]]
* [[Suez Crisis]]

== References ==
<references />

Topic:Zka22eaxn97xvsgs

2026-08-25T18:14:37Z

Jadenw815 (talk | contribs) commented on "Advice on your edits" (Thank you for the advice, comrade! That makes sense. I’ll start making my edits much shorter and make sure each paragraph has a citation...)

Huey P. Newton

2026-08-22T23:35:57Z

Jadenw815: Expanded article with early life, Black Panther Party founding, Ten-Point Program, armed self-defense, Free Huey campaign, survival programs, revolutionary intercommunalism, anti-imperialism, COINTELPRO repression, later life, death, and political le

{{Infobox person|name=Huey P. Newton|image=Huey P. Newton.png|caption=|birth_date=February 17, 1942|birth_place=Monroe, [[Louisiana]], [[United States of America|United States]]|death_date=August 22, 1989|death_place=Oakland, [[California]], United States|death_cause=Gunshot wound}}'''Huey Percy Newton''' (February 17, 1942 - August 22, 1989) was a Statesian revolutionary, communist, Black liberation theorist, and co-founder of the [[Black Panther Party]] (BPP). Together with [[Bobby Seale]], Newton founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, [[California]], in October 1966. Newton served as the organization's Minister of Defense and became one of the most prominent figures of the [[Black Power]] movement.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Huey P. Newton (February 17, 1942–August 22, 1989)|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/huey-newton|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

Newton's political thought developed under the influence of [[Malcolm X]], [[Karl Marx]], [[Vladimir Lenin]], [[Mao Zedong]], [[Frantz Fanon]], anti-colonial liberation movements, and the conditions confronting Black working-class communities in the United States. The Black Panther Party combined armed self-defense against police violence with socialist political education and an extensive network of community survival programs, including free breakfasts, health clinics, food distribution, transportation assistance, legal aid, education, and sickle-cell anemia testing.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Black Panther Party|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/black-power/black-panthers|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

Newton later developed the theory of '''revolutionary intercommunalism''', arguing that the growth of imperialism and global capitalism had undermined genuine national sovereignty and subordinated communities throughout the world to an increasingly international ruling class. He argued that oppressed communities should cooperate internationally, take collective control over the means of production, and eventually advance toward communism.

== Early life ==
Huey Percy Newton was born on February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana. He was the youngest of seven children born to Armelia Johnson Newton and Walter Newton.

During Newton's childhood, his family moved from Louisiana to Oakland, California as part of the broader migration of African Americans from the southern United States to industrial cities in the West and North.

Newton grew up in a working-class Black community shaped by racial discrimination, poverty, segregation, and recurring conflict between Black residents and police.

Newton later recalled having significant difficulty with literacy while attending public school. Although he graduated from high school without being fully literate, he subsequently taught himself to read and became deeply interested in philosophy, history, revolutionary theory, and political literature.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Huey P. Newton (February 17, 1942–August 22, 1989)|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/huey-newton|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

== Education and political development ==
Newton attended Merritt College in Oakland, where he joined the Afro-American Association and participated in efforts to expand the teaching of Black history.

While attending Merritt College, Newton met [[Bobby Seale]]. The two became increasingly dissatisfied with liberal civil-rights politics and began studying revolutionary movements, Black nationalism, socialism, colonialism, and armed self-defense.

Newton studied the writings and political experiences of Malcolm X, Marx, Lenin, Mao, Fanon, and other revolutionary thinkers.

Malcolm X was particularly influential on Newton and Seale's conception of Black self-determination and armed self-defense. Marxist and anti-colonial theory subsequently helped shape Newton's analysis of racism as interconnected with capitalism, imperialism, and class domination.

Newton eventually continued his education at several institutions and later received a bachelor's degree and a doctorate from the University of California, Santa Cruz.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Huey P. Newton (February 17, 1942–August 22, 1989)|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/huey-newton|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

== Black Panther Party ==

=== Founding ===
In October 1966, Newton and Bobby Seale founded the '''Black Panther Party for Self-Defense''' in Oakland, California. Seale became chairman while Newton became Minister of Defense.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Black Panther Party|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/black-power/black-panthers|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

The organization emerged in response to police brutality, racial segregation, unemployment, poverty, inadequate housing, poor access to healthcare, and the political marginalization of Black working-class communities.

Rather than focusing exclusively on integration into existing institutions, the Panthers sought to build independent political organization and community power while challenging the social and economic structures producing racial inequality.

=== Ten-Point Program ===
Newton and Seale developed the Party's '''Ten-Point Program''', which summarized the immediate and long-term demands of the organization.

The program demanded:

* Freedom and political self-determination for Black communities
* Full employment
* An end to capitalist exploitation of Black people
* Decent housing
* Education teaching Black history and the actual character of United States society
* Exemption of Black men from compulsory military service
* An immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people
* Freedom for Black people imprisoned in United States prisons and jails
* Trials by juries drawn from the communities of defendants
* Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace

The Ten-Point Program combined Black self-determination with demands directed against capitalist exploitation, racist policing, militarism, incarceration, and inadequate access to basic necessities.

== Armed self-defense ==

=== Police patrols ===
One of the earliest activities of the Black Panther Party was the armed monitoring of police activity in Black neighborhoods.

Panther members followed police patrols, observed arrests from a legally permitted distance, carried law books, informed detained residents of their legal rights, and openly carried firearms in accordance with California law at the time.<ref>{{Web citation|title=State Capitol March|url=https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_capitolmarch.html|website=PBS: A Huey P. Newton Story|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

Newton argued that Black communities had the right to defend themselves against police brutality and rejected the idea that oppressed people were obligated to remain defenseless while police and the state possessed armed force.

The Panthers' approach drew influence from Malcolm X as well as earlier traditions of armed Black self-defense.

=== Mulford Act ===
The Panthers' armed patrols attracted considerable attention from police, politicians, and the media.

In 1967, California Assembly member Don Mulford introduced legislation restricting the public carrying of loaded firearms. The legislation became closely associated with efforts to end the Panthers' armed police patrols and was frequently referred to at the time as the "Panther Bill".<ref>{{Web citation|title=State Capitol March|url=https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_capitolmarch.html|website=PBS: A Huey P. Newton Story|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

On May 2, 1967, approximately thirty armed Panthers traveled to the California State Capitol in Sacramento to protest the proposed legislation.

Bobby Seale publicly read a statement written by Newton condemning the bill and defending the right of Black communities to armed self-defense.

The demonstration attracted nationwide attention and contributed significantly to the rapid expansion of the Black Panther Party.

The Mulford Act was subsequently passed and signed into law by California governor [[Ronald Reagan]].

== Arrest and Free Huey campaign ==

=== Shooting of John Frey ===
On October 28, 1967, Newton was involved in an encounter with Oakland police officers John Frey and Herbert Heanes.

A shooting occurred during the confrontation. Frey was killed, Heanes was wounded, and Newton was shot in the abdomen.

Newton was arrested and charged with murder.

In 1968, a jury acquitted Newton of assaulting Heanes but convicted him of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Frey.

Newton was sentenced to two to fifteen years in prison.

The conviction became the focus of the international '''Free Huey''' campaign, which transformed Newton into one of the most recognizable political prisoners and revolutionary figures in the United States.

Demonstrations demanding Newton's release attracted supporters from the Black liberation movement, the anti-war movement, socialist organizations, and other parts of the New Left.

In 1970, the California Court of Appeal overturned Newton's conviction because the trial court had failed to adequately instruct the jury concerning possible defenses available to him.

Newton was subsequently released on bail.

Two additional trials failed to produce unanimous verdicts, after which prosecutors abandoned efforts to retry the case.

== Community survival programs ==
Although the Panthers became famous for armed self-defense, Newton increasingly emphasized what the Party described as '''survival programs pending revolution'''.

These programs were designed to satisfy immediate community needs while building political organization and demonstrating the ability of working-class communities to collectively provide services neglected by the capitalist state.

Programs established by Panther chapters included free breakfasts for children, food distribution, free clothing, medical clinics, legal assistance, transportation, ambulance services, education, prisoner support, and sickle-cell anemia testing.

=== Free Breakfast for Children Program ===
The '''Free Breakfast for Children Program''' became one of the Party's most recognizable social programs.

Panther chapters organized free breakfasts for schoolchildren in communities where many families lacked sufficient access to food.

At its height, the program served thousands of children.

Newton and other Panthers did not understand these projects simply as charitable work. Survival programs were intended to expose the inability or unwillingness of capitalist institutions to satisfy basic social needs while demonstrating the possibility of collective political organization.

The programs also helped counter portrayals of the Panthers as exclusively an armed organization.

== Political ideology ==

=== Marxism and socialism ===
Newton increasingly interpreted the oppression of Black people through a Marxist analysis of class society.

He argued that racial oppression could not be separated from capitalist exploitation and that liberation required more than representation within existing political and economic institutions.

Newton rejected the idea that creating a small class of Black capitalists would liberate Black working-class communities.

For Newton, changing the racial identity of individual capitalists would not abolish the relationship between capitalist ownership and working-class exploitation.

The Panthers therefore increasingly combined Black liberation with socialist demands for collective control over economic resources and political power.

=== Black nationalism ===
During the early development of the Black Panther Party, Newton described himself and the Party as Black nationalists.

The Party emphasized Black self-determination, Black political organization, resistance to white supremacy, and the right of Black communities to defend themselves.

Newton later criticized forms of nationalism that sought merely to create a Black capitalist ruling class.

He increasingly distinguished between reactionary nationalism and revolutionary nationalism.

=== Revolutionary nationalism ===
Newton described revolutionary nationalism as nationalism connected to socialism and international revolutionary struggle.

Unlike cultural or bourgeois nationalism, revolutionary nationalism did not seek merely to create Black-owned capitalist businesses or a Black elite within existing capitalism.

Instead, Newton argued that genuine national liberation required transformation of the economic and political structures responsible for exploitation.

=== Internationalism ===
The Black Panther Party developed extensive solidarity with revolutionary movements outside the United States.

The Panthers supported anti-colonial and national liberation struggles in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere.

Newton regarded struggles against racism within the United States as connected to struggles against colonialism and imperialism internationally.

The Party opposed the [[Vietnam War]] and expressed solidarity with Vietnamese resistance to United States intervention.

== Revolutionary intercommunalism ==
By 1970, Newton began developing the political theory he called '''revolutionary intercommunalism'''.

Newton argued that technological development, global capitalism, military power, communications, and imperialism had transformed the international system.

In his analysis, many formally independent countries no longer possessed meaningful control over their economies, political systems, or cultures.

He therefore argued that imperialism had transformed much of the world from genuinely independent nations into communities subordinated to an international imperial system.

Newton described the existing order as '''reactionary intercommunalism'''.

Under reactionary intercommunalism, the resources and productive capacity of the world were increasingly concentrated and integrated while remaining controlled by a ruling capitalist minority.

Newton proposed revolutionary intercommunalism as the revolutionary alternative.

Oppressed communities throughout the world would cooperate against imperialism, take collective control over production, and reorganize society around human needs rather than capitalist accumulation.

Newton ultimately viewed revolutionary intercommunalism as transitional toward communism.

In his 1970 Boston College speech, Newton argued that revolutionary movements would need to overcome racism, nationalism, bourgeois ideology, and unequal ownership before humanity could progress toward a communist society without classes or the state.

== Opposition to Black capitalism ==
Newton strongly criticized '''Black capitalism''' as an insufficient response to racial oppression.

He argued that simply creating Black-owned businesses would not eliminate capitalism or exploitation.

A Black worker exploited by a Black capitalist remained a worker subjected to capitalist relations of production.

Newton therefore distinguished Black liberation from the elevation of individual Black entrepreneurs or politicians into positions of wealth and power.

The Panthers instead emphasized collective political organization, socialist transformation, community programs, and working-class control over economic resources.

== China ==
Newton and the Black Panther Party expressed considerable admiration for the [[People's Republic of China]] and the [[Chinese Revolution]].

Mao Zedong's writings circulated widely among Panther members, and copies of the ''Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung'' were sold by Panthers during the organization's early period.

Newton visited China in the early 1970s and was publicly welcomed by supporters of the Chinese government.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Huey P. Newton (February 17, 1942–August 22, 1989)|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/huey-newton|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

Newton interpreted the Chinese Revolution as an example of formerly colonized and exploited people building political power independently of Western imperial domination.

The Panthers nevertheless attempted to adapt revolutionary theory to the specific conditions facing Black communities within the United States rather than simply copying the political strategy of another country.

== Vietnam War ==
Newton strongly opposed the [[Vietnam War]].

The Black Panther Party rejected the contradiction of Black working-class men being conscripted or recruited to fight Vietnamese people abroad while Black communities continued to experience poverty, racism, police brutality, segregation, and political disenfranchisement within the United States.

Opposition to compulsory military service for Black men was incorporated directly into the Ten-Point Program.

Newton frequently compared police occupation of Black neighborhoods with United States military intervention abroad.

The Panthers therefore interpreted the Vietnam War not as an isolated foreign-policy mistake but as part of the wider structure of United States imperialism.

== Women and the Black Panther Party ==
Women became an increasingly large and politically important part of the Black Panther Party.

Women organized survival programs, edited Party publications, ran local chapters, engaged in political education, participated in armed self-defense, and occupied leadership positions.

Prominent women associated with the Party included [[Elaine Brown]], [[Kathleen Cleaver]], [[Ericka Huggins]], and especially [[Angela Davis]], and other numerous local organizers.

The Party nevertheless contained internal sexism and patriarchal attitudes, particularly during its earlier years.

Newton later publicly criticized sexism and homophobia within revolutionary movements and argued that revolutionary organizations should support women's liberation and gay liberation.

The contradiction between the Party's revolutionary egalitarianism and the persistence of patriarchal behavior within portions of the organization has remained an important subject of historical analysis.

== Gay liberation ==
Newton became notable among prominent revolutionary leaders of his period for publicly supporting solidarity with gay liberation.

In 1970, Newton argued that revolutionary organizations should overcome homophobia and recognize homosexual people as potentially oppressed groups and revolutionary allies.

His position did not eliminate homophobia within the Black Panther Party, but it represented an important attempt to broaden the Party's conception of liberation beyond race and class alone.

== State repression ==

=== COINTELPRO ===
The Black Panther Party became one of the principal targets of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]'s [[COINTELPRO]] operations.

The FBI conducted extensive surveillance, infiltration, disruption, and counterintelligence operations against the Panthers and other Black revolutionary organizations.

Federal and local authorities monitored Panther meetings, infiltrated chapters, distributed disinformation, encouraged factional conflict, conducted raids, and pursued prosecutions against members.

Newton himself became the subject of extensive surveillance.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover regarded the Black Panther Party as one of the greatest internal threats to the United States government.

The Party's popularity among working-class Black communities, particularly through programs such as the Free Breakfast for Children Program, attracted particular concern from federal authorities.

== Fred Hampton ==
One of the most notorious examples of state repression against the Panthers was the killing of Chicago Panther leader [[Fred Hampton]].

On December 4, 1969, Chicago police raided Hampton's apartment.

Hampton and fellow Panther [[Mark Clark]] were killed.

Evidence later demonstrated extensive involvement by FBI informant William O'Neal, who infiltrated the Chicago Panthers and provided information concerning Hampton and the layout of his apartment.

Hampton's killing became one of the clearest examples of the violent repression directed against the Black Panther Party.

== Internal conflicts ==
During the early 1970s, serious political disagreements developed within the Black Panther Party.

The most important conflict occurred between Newton and [[Eldridge Cleaver]].

Cleaver, who was living outside the United States, favored greater emphasis on international revolutionary struggle and armed confrontation.

Newton increasingly argued that the Party should concentrate on organizing Black communities within the United States through survival programs and community institutions.

The dispute culminated in a major split in 1971.

The conflict became increasingly bitter and contributed to violence between rival Panther factions.

State repression, infiltration, personal disputes, political disagreements, arrests, exile, and deaths all contributed to fragmentation of the Party.

== Cuba and exile ==
In 1974, Newton left the United States and traveled to [[Cuba]] while facing criminal charges in California.

During Newton's absence, Elaine Brown became the principal leader of the Black Panther Party.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Elaine Brown|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/elaine-brown|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

Newton lived in Cuba until returning to the United States in 1977.

Following his return, he faced trials concerning allegations made before his departure.

He was acquitted or otherwise avoided conviction on several major charges.

By the late 1970s, however, the Black Panther Party had declined considerably from its earlier strength.

== Academic work ==
Newton continued his education during the later period of his life.

In 1980, he received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

His doctoral dissertation was titled '''''War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America'''''.

The dissertation examined state repression directed against the Black Panther Party and analyzed the relationship between revolutionary political movements and United States law-enforcement institutions.

Newton argued that repression of the Panthers represented more than isolated instances of police misconduct and instead formed part of a broader political campaign against revolutionary organization.

== Criticism and controversies ==
Newton's later life and leadership remain controversial.

Former Panthers, historians, journalists, and political activists have debated his leadership style, personal conduct, allegations of violence, drug use, internal Party conflicts, and the deterioration of the organization during the 1970s.

Newton faced numerous criminal accusations throughout his life.

Some produced convictions that were later overturned, while other cases resulted in acquittals, hung juries, dismissals, or unsuccessful prosecutions.

These allegations occurred simultaneously with documented surveillance and repression by federal and local law-enforcement agencies.

A historical assessment of Newton therefore requires avoiding two opposite simplifications: treating every criminal allegation against a revolutionary activist targeted by state repression as automatically true, or assuming that documented political repression automatically disproves every allegation concerning individual conduct.

The Black Panther Party itself also contained contradictions.

It advanced revolutionary demands against racism, capitalism, sexism, imperialism, and police violence while also experiencing internal factionalism, interpersonal conflict, sexism, and occasional violence within the organization.

These contradictions form part of the broader history of the Party and do not erase either its political achievements or its failures.

== Death ==
On August 22, 1989, Huey P. Newton was shot and killed in West Oakland, California.

He was 47 years old.

Tyrone Robinson, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family and a drug dealer, was later convicted of Newton's murder and sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Huey P. Newton (February 17, 1942–August 22, 1989)|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/huey-newton|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-08-22}}</ref>

Newton was killed in the same West Oakland area where the Black Panther Party had organized police patrols and community programs more than two decades earlier.

His death on August 22 has subsequently become a date of remembrance among admirers of Newton and the Black Panther Party.

== Political legacy ==
Huey P. Newton remains one of the most influential revolutionary figures in modern Black political history.

Together with Bobby Seale and other Panther organizers, Newton helped transform a small Oakland organization into an internationally recognized revolutionary movement.

The Panthers challenged police brutality, racial inequality, capitalism, and United States imperialism while attempting to develop forms of political organization based within working-class communities.

Newton's political legacy cannot be reduced to the Panthers' iconic imagery of armed self-defense.

The survival programs, political education, international solidarity, socialist analysis, and community organizing developed by the Panthers formed equally important components of their political strategy.

=== Black liberation and class struggle ===
Newton rejected attempts to separate racial liberation from economic transformation.

He argued that Black people were oppressed not only through racist attitudes but through institutions controlling housing, employment, policing, education, healthcare, property, and political power.

The Panthers therefore interpreted racism as a structural phenomenon intertwined with class exploitation.

Newton's opposition to Black capitalism reflected this understanding.

Replacing white capitalists with Black capitalists would not eliminate exploitation if the underlying relationship between capital and labor remained unchanged.

=== Self-defense and community organization ===
The Panthers' politics combined armed self-defense with community organization.

Armed self-defense was intended to protect communities against police violence.

Survival programs were intended to satisfy immediate material needs while building political consciousness and collective organization.

The Panthers therefore did not view the gun and the breakfast program as mutually exclusive approaches.

Both were understood as responses to different dimensions of oppression.

=== Anti-imperialism ===
Newton placed Black liberation within a broader international struggle against imperialism.

He drew parallels between Black communities subjected to police violence within the United States and colonized or occupied peoples resisting imperial military power abroad.

The Panthers expressed solidarity with revolutionary movements in Vietnam, China, Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere.

This internationalism distinguished Newton's politics from forms of nationalism concerned exclusively with racial advancement within the borders of the United States.

=== Revolutionary intercommunalism and communism ===
Newton's theory of revolutionary intercommunalism represented an attempt to analyze changes in global capitalism and imperialism.

He argued that technological and economic integration had concentrated power internationally while weakening the meaningful sovereignty of many formally independent nations.

The solution, according to Newton, was not isolation between oppressed peoples but cooperation between revolutionary communities throughout the world.

Newton ultimately believed revolutionary intercommunalism could develop toward communism once communities collectively controlled production and overcame the social divisions inherited from capitalism.

== Works ==
Major works and speeches by Newton include:

* '''''Revolutionary Suicide''''' (1973)
* '''''To Die for the People''''' (1972)
* '''''War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America''''' (1980)
* '''Revolutionary Intercommunalism''' (1970)
* '''In Defense of Self Defense'''
* '''Executive Mandate No. 1'''
* '''Executive Mandate No. 2'''
* '''Speech at Boston College''' (1970)

== See also ==

* [[Black Panther Party]]
* [[Bobby Seale]]
* [[Fred Hampton]]
* [[Elaine Brown]]
* [[Eldridge Cleaver]]
* [[Malcolm X]]
* [[Black nationalism]]
* [[Black Power]]
* [[African-American socialism]]
* [[Marxism-Leninism]]
* [[Mao Zedong]]
* [[COINTELPRO]]
* [[United States imperialism]]
* [[Vietnam War]]
* [[Police brutality]]
* [[Racism in the United States]]

== External links ==

* [https://www.marxists.org/archive/newton/index.htm Huey P. Newton Archive] — Marxists Internet Archive
* [https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/huey-newton Huey P. Newton] — National Archives

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Statesian communists]]
[[Category:Black nationalism]]
[[Category:Black Panther Party]]
[[Category:Featured page]]

Topic:Zjdjie5704mdc63g

2026-08-11T17:04:24Z

Jadenw815 (talk | contribs) edited a post on "Learning editor role"

Topic:Zjdjie5704mdc63g

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Jadenw815 (talk | contribs) commented on "Learning editor role" (Thanks, comrade! I believe I’m already in the Discord, and I usually try to leave updates there after I make edits to a page. I’ll make s...)

Migration

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Jadenw815: Added more stuff about immigration ^•^

[[Category:Social issues]]
'''Migration''' is the movement of people away from their usual place of residence, either within a country or across international borders. Migration may be temporary or permanent and may occur for economic, political, familial, educational, environmental, military, or other reasons.<ref>https://www.iom.int/key-migration-terms</ref>

Migration includes movement in search of employment, education, housing, family reunification, or other opportunities, as well as movement resulting from [[war]], persecution, poverty, dictatorship, political instability, environmental disaster, displacement, [[colonialism]], or [[imperialism]]. These circumstances frequently overlap, and the distinction between voluntary and forced migration is not always absolute.

Under [[capitalism]], migration is strongly influenced by the unequal distribution of employment, wealth, land, housing, productive development, and political power. Colonialism, imperialism, military intervention, economic dependency, and the international division of labor have historically created conditions which encourage or compel people to leave their homes while simultaneously creating demand for migrant [[labor power]] elsewhere.

To [[Marxism|Marxists]], migration should therefore be understood not only as a collection of individual decisions, but as a social process shaped by class relations, unequal development, colonial history, imperialism, and the structure of the capitalist world economy.

== Terminology ==
Migration is a broad category encompassing several different forms of human movement. Terms such as ''migrant'', ''immigrant'', ''emigrant'', ''refugee'', ''asylum seeker'', ''internally displaced person'', ''exile'', and ''defector'' describe different aspects of a person's movement, legal status, or political circumstances. These categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive.<ref>https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/iml_34_glossary.pdf</ref>

=== Migrant ===
A '''migrant''' is, in broad usage, a person who moves away from their usual place of residence, either within the same country or across an international border.<ref>https://www.un.org/en/fight-racism/vulnerable-groups/migrants</ref>

The term does not by itself establish why the movement occurred. A migrant may move for employment, education, family, safety, political reasons, environmental reasons, or a combination of different circumstances.

Refugees, immigrants, emigrants, and many displaced people may therefore also be migrants in the broader sense.

=== Immigration and emigration ===
'''Immigration''' and '''emigration''' describe international migration from opposite perspectives.

An '''immigrant''' is a person viewed from the perspective of the country or territory into which they have moved. An '''emigrant''' is a person viewed from the perspective of the country or territory they have left.<ref>https://www.iom.int/key-migration-terms</ref>

Someone moving from one country to another can therefore simultaneously be an emigrant from their country of origin and an immigrant in their country of destination.

Neither term explains why the migration occurred. A person moving for employment and a person fleeing political persecution may both be immigrants after entering another country despite having substantially different reasons for moving.

=== Refugee ===
A '''refugee''' is a person who has crossed an international border and qualifies for protection under applicable refugee law.

The 1951 [[United Nations]] Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol form the principal international framework concerning refugee status. The Convention defines a refugee, in part, as a person outside their country who possesses a well-founded fear of persecution on specified grounds and is unable or unwilling to obtain the protection of that country.<ref>https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/overview/1951-refugee-convention</ref>

The Convention identifies persecution based upon race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. Regional refugee agreements have subsequently expanded protection under some circumstances.

A refugee may consequently be described as a migrant in the broad sense, but not every migrant is a refugee.

=== Asylum seeker ===
An '''asylum seeker''' is a person seeking international protection whose claim has not necessarily received a final determination.<ref>https://help.unhcr.org/global/asylum-and-refugee-status/</ref>

An asylum seeker may subsequently be recognized as a refugee or receive another form of protection depending upon the applicable law and circumstances.

International refugee law also recognizes the principle of '''non-refoulement''', under which refugees must not be returned to territories where their life or freedom would face serious threats.<ref>https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-protect/refugees</ref>

=== Internally displaced person ===
An '''internally displaced person''' ('''IDP''') is a person who has been forced or obliged to leave their home while remaining within the internationally recognized borders of their country.<ref>https://wmr-educatorstoolkit.iom.int/glossary</ref>

Internal displacement may result from armed conflict, generalized violence, violations of human rights, dictatorship, natural disasters, human-made disasters, or other dangerous circumstances.

Someone may therefore experience forced migration without being considered a refugee because they have not crossed an international border.

=== Exile ===
'''Exile''' generally refers to prolonged or forced separation from one's homeland, particularly for political reasons.

A person may enter exile because they have been expelled, because remaining in their country has become unsafe, or because returning after departure could expose them to persecution, imprisonment, political violence, or other serious dangers.

Exile is not necessarily an exclusive legal category. A political exile may simultaneously be an emigrant, immigrant, asylum seeker, or refugee.

=== Defector ===
{{See also|Defection}}

A '''defector''' is a person who abandons allegiance to a state, political organization, military force, intelligence organization, or political camp, particularly when transferring their allegiance or cooperation to an opposing state or organization.

Unlike ''immigrant'' and ''emigrant'', the term principally describes a political relationship rather than merely the direction of migration. Unlike ''refugee'', ''defector'' is not itself a refugee status established by international refugee law.

A person described as a defector may therefore simultaneously be an emigrant, immigrant, refugee, asylum seeker, or exile.

The term acquired particular political significance during the [[Cold War]], when movement between opposing political systems became closely connected to [[propaganda]], intelligence activity, and ideological competition.

For a fuller discussion, see [[Defection]].

== Causes of migration ==
There is no single cause of migration. People migrate under different combinations of material, political, social, environmental, and personal circumstances.

Major causes of migration include:

* Employment and wages

* Education

* Family reunification

* Housing and access to land

* Poverty and economic insecurity

* Political persecution

* Dictatorship and state repression

* [[War]] and military occupation

* Coups and political instability

* Famine and food insecurity

* Environmental disasters

* Climate change

* Land dispossession

* [[Colonialism]]

* [[Imperialism]]

* Foreign intervention

* Economic sanctions

* Unequal development

* Personal or family circumstances

These causes frequently overlap rather than existing independently.

A person categorized as an "economic migrant", for example, may be leaving unemployment or poverty produced by economic collapse, land dispossession, destruction of domestic industries, war, foreign intervention, sanctions, colonial dependency, dictatorship, or other conditions over which the individual possesses little meaningful control.

Likewise, a person who formally chooses to migrate may still be responding to material pressures which severely restrict the alternatives available to them. A worker who leaves their home because there are no jobs capable of sustaining themselves or their family has made a decision, but the economic circumstances producing that decision were not necessarily of their choosing.

To Marxists, this illustrates why the distinction between '''voluntary''' and '''forced''' migration should not always be understood as an absolute binary. Human beings make individual decisions within material conditions inherited from wider class, political, and historical relations.

=== Dictatorship and political repression ===
Dictatorships and repressive states can produce migration by imprisoning, surveilling, censoring, torturing, expelling, or threatening political opponents and targeted communities.

People may flee military dictatorships, fascist governments, colonial regimes, apartheid systems, monarchies, liberal capitalist states, socialist states, or other political systems when they believe remaining in the country threatens their lives, freedom, livelihood, or political activity.

Political repression should therefore be analyzed concretely rather than being attributed only to governments belonging to a particular ideology.

During the twentieth century, political exiles and refugees fled regimes including [[Nazi Germany]], fascist Italy, apartheid South Africa, military dictatorships in Latin America, colonial governments, and governments in both capitalist and socialist states.

To Marxists, the political system, class character, foreign alliances, economic structure, and historical circumstances of a state remain necessary to explaining why repression occurs and whom it serves.

== Immigration ==
'''Immigration''' is migration viewed from the perspective of the country or territory into which a person moves.

The causes of immigration are therefore connected to the causes of migration more generally. People may immigrate because another country provides employment, higher wages, education, family connections, political security, healthcare, housing, or protection from conditions occurring in their country of origin.

Migration is sometimes described through '''push factors''' and '''pull factors'''. Push factors are circumstances which encourage or compel people to leave one place, while pull factors are circumstances which make another destination more attractive.

Push factors can include war, unemployment, persecution, political instability, dictatorship, poverty, environmental disaster, landlessness, sanctions, or destruction of infrastructure. Pull factors can include higher wages, employment, family connections, education, political stability, infrastructure, or greater access to public services.

These categories can describe immediate motivations, but to Marxists they remain incomplete unless the historical origins of those conditions are also examined.

A wealthy [[Imperialism|imperialist]] country may attract immigrants partly because capital, infrastructure, resources, and economic opportunities have historically accumulated there. A country subjected to colonial extraction, unequal exchange, foreign domination, economic sanctions, coups, or military intervention may simultaneously experience stronger pressures toward emigration.

The existence of migration from poorer countries toward wealthier capitalist states therefore does not by itself prove that capitalism produced all of the advantages available within the destination state. The historical relationship between the countries must also be examined.

== Mass migration ==
'''Mass migration''' is the large-scale movement of substantial numbers of people from one geographical area to another. The term distinguishes broad population movements from individual or small-scale migration, although there is no single universally accepted numerical threshold at which migration becomes "mass migration".

Mass migration may be international or internal, voluntary or forced, temporary or permanent. It can occur suddenly during war, state partition, famine, natural disaster, political collapse, or ethnic cleansing, or develop over decades through industrialization, urbanization, labor demand, colonial settlement, resource booms, or environmental change.

Large migration movements are therefore not inherently signs of social collapse. Some occur because people are fleeing repression or disaster, while others accompany rapid economic development, urbanization, industrial expansion, or the creation of new labor markets.

To Marxists, mass migration should be analyzed according to the social forces producing it rather than treated as a political category in itself. A mass movement produced by enslavement is not socially equivalent to movement toward industrial employment, and neither is equivalent to refugees fleeing war.

=== Mass migration and capitalism ===
The development of industrial capitalism greatly increased the scale and speed with which populations could move.

Railways, steamships, industrial cities, plantation economies, mining regions, colonial transportation systems, and expanding wage labor connected populations to labor markets across much greater distances. Capitalist development could simultaneously uproot rural populations and create new centers demanding large concentrations of workers.

The movement of European workers across the Atlantic during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the movement of workers toward industrial cities, and migrations associated with mining and agricultural frontiers illustrate this relationship.

To Marxists, such migrations reveal the contradictory character of capitalist development. Capital creates new productive centers and opportunities while also concentrating land and property, displacing older livelihoods, and making workers increasingly dependent upon selling their labor power.

=== Forced mass migration ===
Some of the largest population movements in history were produced through direct coercion.

Enslavement, colonial conquest, ethnic cleansing, war, genocide, political partition, forced resettlement, and expulsion can move millions of people without meaningful individual consent.

The transatlantic slave trade, the displacement surrounding the 1947 Partition of India, and mass displacement produced by modern wars illustrate forms of forced mass migration.

To internationalists, describing these movements only as "migration" can obscure the coercive political relationships producing them. The movement of an enslaved person and the movement of a voluntary worker are both forms of human mobility, but they are not equivalent social relations.

== Major historical migration periods ==
Human history contains repeated periods of mass movement. These migrations were produced by different combinations of labor demand, conquest, slavery, racial oppression, economic expansion, state partition, war, industrialization, and environmental change.

=== Atlantic European migration ===
The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed an exceptionally large movement of Europeans toward the Americas and other overseas destinations.

Tens of millions of Europeans left countries including Ireland, Italy, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, Austria-Hungary, and the Russian Empire during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Migration accelerated as steamship travel became cheaper and expanding industrial and agricultural economies in the Americas demanded labor.

Migrants sought land, industrial employment, higher wages, religious freedom, family reunification, or escape from famine and political repression.

This movement is frequently described as part of an '''Age of Mass Migration'''.<ref>https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/a-moving-history-ian-goldin</ref>

European migrants were not treated equally within destination societies. Class, nationality, religion, and racial ideology shaped their experiences, and groups later incorporated into mainstream white American identity were themselves subjected to intense nativist hostility.

At the same time, European migration frequently took place within settler-colonial societies built through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and alongside immigration systems that increasingly excluded Asian and other non-European populations.

To anti-colonialists, the relative freedom granted to European settlers therefore cannot be separated from the colonial structures into which many of them migrated.

=== Transatlantic slave trade ===
The '''transatlantic slave trade''' produced one of the largest forced migrations in history.

Slave Voyages estimates that approximately 12.5 million enslaved Africans were embarked aboard slave ships during the transatlantic trade and that approximately 10.7 million survived the Middle Passage and disembarked, principally in the Americas.<ref>https://www.slavevoyages.org/blog/-brief-overview-of-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/154</ref>

This movement was not immigration in the ordinary voluntary sense. Enslaved Africans were kidnapped, purchased through slave-trading systems, forcibly transported, and subjected to chattel slavery.

Their forced migration supplied labor to plantation and extractive economies producing sugar, cotton, tobacco, coffee, and other commodities.

To Marxists, the slave trade demonstrates that population movement can be directly organized around class exploitation and the accumulation of wealth. It also illustrates the historical relationship between racial ideology, colonial expansion, forced labor, and the development of Atlantic capitalism.

=== California Gold Rush ===
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 produced a large international and internal migration toward the region.

People arrived from elsewhere in the United States and from Latin America, Europe, China, Australia, and other parts of the world. The [[California Gold Rush]] created new towns, labor markets, transportation systems, and commercial networks while accelerating settler expansion and violence against Indigenous peoples.

The Gold Rush also helped produce an important period of Chinese migration to the western United States. Chinese migrants worked in mining, agriculture, service industries, manufacturing, and later railroad construction.

To anti-colonialists, the Gold Rush illustrates how mass migration can simultaneously create economic opportunities for migrants and intensify the dispossession of populations already living on the land.

=== Great Migration of African Americans ===
The '''Great Migration''' was the mass internal movement of approximately six million Black Americans from the southern United States toward cities in the North, Midwest, and West from roughly the 1910s through 1970.<ref>https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/migrations/great-migration</ref>

Black families left the South to escape [[Jim Crow]], racial terror, lynching, political disenfranchisement, exploitative agricultural relations, and other forms of white supremacy while seeking industrial employment, education, and greater personal freedom.

The First World War and later the Second World War expanded industrial labor demand in northern and western cities. Black migrants moved in large numbers to places such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Oakland.

The movement transformed the geography of Black America and contributed to major political and cultural developments, including the expansion of Black urban political power and the [[Harlem Renaissance]].

The Great Migration is especially important to the study of migration because it occurred entirely within the borders of the United States. Black southerners were not international immigrants, yet their movement reflected many of the same forces found in international migration: political repression, racial violence, labor demand, wage differences, family networks, and unequal regional development.

To Marxists, the Great Migration also illustrates how capitalist demand for industrial labor interacted with racial oppression. Northern employers benefited from new labor supplies while Black workers continued to face segregation, discrimination, housing exclusion, and racial violence outside the South.

=== Partition of India ===
The 1947 [[Partition of India]] produced one of the largest forced population movements of the twentieth century.

The end of British colonial rule divided British India principally into India and Pakistan. Communal violence and fear drove Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs across the new borders.

UNHCR estimates that approximately 14 million people were displaced during the Partition.<ref>https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/legacy-pdf/3ebf9bab0.pdf</ref>

The movement was accompanied by massacres, sexual violence, loss of property, family separation, and the destruction of communities.

To anti-colonialists, Partition cannot be understood independently of British colonial rule, colonial political structures, communal divisions, and the hurried process through which imperial withdrawal and state partition occurred.

=== Korean War and Korean displacement ===
The [[Korean War]] caused enormous internal and international displacement throughout the Korean peninsula.

The division of Korea following the end of [[Japanese colonialism]], the creation of rival governments, and the outbreak of war in 1950 separated families and displaced millions of civilians.

The United States intervened militarily on the side of South Korea under a United Nations command, while China intervened on the side of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The war devastated cities, infrastructure, agriculture, and civilian communities throughout the peninsula.

Postwar Korean migration to the United States developed through several pathways, including military relationships, family connections, adoption, education, and later immigration reforms.

To anti-imperialists, Korean migration cannot be understood without the history of Japanese colonialism, national partition, the Korean War, and the continuing military and political division of the peninsula.

This does not mean every Korean migrant moved because of United States policy. It means the geopolitical conditions structuring postwar Korean migration were profoundly shaped by war and foreign intervention.

=== Postwar migration from Indochina ===
The end of the [[Vietnam War]] in 1975 was followed by major refugee movements from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

People left the region for different reasons, including fear of political retaliation, economic hardship, ethnic conflict, war, family circumstances, and the continuing consequences of decades of colonial and military conflict.

Large numbers of Vietnamese refugees left by sea and became widely known as the '''Vietnamese boat people'''. United States diplomatic records from the late 1970s separately described Vietnamese refugees arriving by boat and refugees from Laos and Cambodia fleeing over land.<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v22/d71</ref>

In 1975 alone, more than 130,000 Cambodians and Vietnamese entered the United States refugee system during the immediate collapse of the former South Vietnamese government and related evacuations.<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v10/d278</ref>

To anti-imperialists, these movements cannot be understood only as populations "fleeing communism." France had colonized Indochina, the United States conducted a massive war in Vietnam and extended bombing and military operations into Cambodia and Laos, and the region experienced subsequent wars and political upheaval.

At the same time, acknowledging the destructive role of United States intervention does not require denying that some refugees genuinely feared or opposed the governments that came to power after the wars.

A materialist account therefore examines both the conditions created by decades of imperial war and the particular reasons individual refugees gave for leaving.

=== Urbanization and internal migration in China ===
Modern [[People's Republic of China|China]] has experienced one of the largest internal movements of people associated with industrialization and urbanization.

Hundreds of millions of people have moved, temporarily or permanently, from rural communities toward towns, manufacturing centers, and large cities as China's economy industrialized.

Internal migration differs from international immigration because migrants remain within the same sovereign state, but it can nevertheless transform labor markets, housing, family structures, and regional development.

China's household registration or ''hukou'' system has historically shaped migrant workers' access to public services and permanent urban residence.

To Marxists, large-scale rural-to-urban migration illustrates that mass migration is not inherently evidence of national failure. It may also accompany industrialization, rising productive capacity, urban development, and major transformations in the division of labor.

The social question is how the gains and burdens of that transformation are distributed among workers.

=== Climate migration ===
'''Climate migration''' is a form of environmental migration in which environmental changes associated with climate change contribute significantly to movement.<ref>https://environmentalmigration.iom.int/environmental-migration</ref>

Climate-related migration may result from sea-level rise, drought, water scarcity, declining agricultural productivity, extreme heat, storms, flooding, or other environmental changes.

Much climate migration occurs within countries rather than through international border crossings. There is also no universally accepted legal category of "climate refugee" equivalent to the refugee definition established by the 1951 Refugee Convention.

To eco-socialists, climate migration is additionally a question of unequal responsibility. Populations contributing least to historical greenhouse-gas emissions may face some of the greatest displacement risks, while wealthy states possess greater resources for adaptation.

Climate migration therefore intersects with [[climate justice]], imperialism, class inequality, and demands that richer countries contribute to adaptation and loss-and-damage financing.

== Nativism ==
'''Nativism''' is a political tendency which prioritizes people regarded as native-born or belonging to the dominant national community over immigrants and portrays immigration as a threat to the nation, culture, labor market, religion, or political order.

Nativism has repeatedly appeared in United States history during periods of large immigration. It has targeted different groups at different times, including Irish Catholics, German immigrants, Chinese workers, Italians, Jews, Japanese immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, Latin Americans, and other populations.

Nativist movements frequently present conflicts produced by capitalism as conflicts between native-born and foreign-born workers.

To Marxists, this can divide the working class by redirecting anger over unemployment, wages, housing, or deteriorating conditions toward migrants rather than employers, landlords, and the capitalist state.

=== Irish immigration and anti-Catholicism ===
Large numbers of Irish people migrated to the United States during the nineteenth century, particularly during and after the [[Great Famine]].

Irish immigrants were frequently poor and Catholic, characteristics which made them major targets of Protestant nativist politics.

The [[Know Nothing]] movement of the 1840s and 1850s organized explicitly around anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic politics. Library of Congress materials describe the Know Nothings as opposing immigrants and Catholics and portraying Irish and German newcomers as culturally and economically backward.<ref>https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/irish/religious-conflict-and-discrimination/</ref>

Irish Catholics were accused of loyalty to the Pope, portrayed as incapable of republican citizenship, and used as economic scapegoats during periods of insecurity.

Over time, Irish Americans became increasingly incorporated into mainstream white American political and social institutions.

This history demonstrates that the boundaries of accepted national belonging and whiteness can change. It should not, however, be used to claim that nineteenth-century anti-Irish prejudice was identical to chattel slavery or the legally enforced racial subordination imposed upon Black, Indigenous, or Asian peoples.

=== Italian immigration ===
More than four million Italians arrived in the United States by the early twentieth century, with migration accelerating particularly from the 1880s through the First World War era.

Italian immigrants faced nativist hostility, anti-Catholic prejudice, stereotypes of criminality and racial inferiority, labor discrimination, and violence. Library of Congress materials describe a wave of "virulent prejudice and nativist hostility" directed at Italian immigrants and racial theories portraying Mediterranean peoples as inferior to northern Europeans.<ref>https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/under-attack/</ref>

Italians were generally eligible for legal classification as white in the United States, but their social position within American ideas of whiteness was not always identical to that of the dominant Anglo-Protestant population.

Southern and eastern Europeans were frequently racialized as inferior European "races" by early twentieth-century nativists and immigration restrictionists.

To Marxists, the later incorporation of groups such as Irish and Italian Americans into a broader white identity illustrates that racial categories are historically constructed and can change alongside class, political, and national relations.

It also demonstrates how groups once targeted by nativism may later be incorporated into political coalitions that direct similar hostility toward newer immigrant populations.

== Chinese immigration and exclusion ==
Chinese migration occupies a central position in the history of United States immigration and racial exclusion.

The California Gold Rush attracted significant numbers of migrants from China, particularly from Guangdong. Chinese workers later performed essential labor in mining, agriculture, manufacturing, service industries, and railroad construction.

Chinese workers were welcomed when employers required their labor but became targets of racial hostility and exclusion, particularly during economic downturns.

The United States Department of State describes anti-Chinese politics as arising from economic and cultural tensions together with ethnic discrimination. Non-Chinese workers were encouraged to view Chinese laborers as competitors, while racist political campaigns portrayed Chinese communities as morally and culturally threatening.<ref>https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration</ref>

The '''Chinese Exclusion Act''' of 1882 suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers and became a major federal system of nationality-based exclusion.<ref>https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/our-history/explore-agency-history/overview-of-agency-history/early-american-immigration-policies</ref>

Chinese exclusion demonstrates a recurring contradiction in United States immigration history: capital may recruit or exploit migrant workers while the political system simultaneously racializes, restricts, or expels them.

To Marxists, anti-Chinese agitation also demonstrates how employers and politicians can transform labor-market competition into racial antagonism between workers instead of challenging the capitalist relations determining wages and employment.

=== Immigration Act of 1924 ===
The '''Immigration Act of 1924''', also called the '''Johnson-Reed Act''', created a national-origins quota system designed to sharply restrict immigration.

The quota system heavily privileged northern and western European immigration while restricting southern and eastern European migration and excluding most Asian immigrants from legal immigration.<ref>https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act</ref>

The later Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 retained the national-origins system. The Department of State notes that 85 percent of the available annual visas under that system went to people of northern and western European lineage.<ref>https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/immigration-act</ref>

The explicitly discriminatory national-origins system was substantially dismantled by the Immigration and Nationality Act amendments of 1965, which established new preferences emphasizing family reunification and employment qualifications.<ref>https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/our-history/stories-from-the-archives/refugee-timeline</ref>

To leftists, the removal of formal racial quotas represented an important advance, but it did not eliminate class inequality, racialized enforcement, unequal passport power, or the historical differences between populations shaped by colonialism and imperialism.

== Asian migration to the United States ==
Asian migration to the United States has been shaped by labor demand, exclusion, war, colonialism, military occupation, family formation, refugee resettlement, international adoption, education, and changes in immigration law.

It should therefore not be described as one homogeneous migration movement.

Early Chinese migrants arrived in large numbers during the nineteenth-century expansion of western mining, agriculture, and railroad construction. Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Indian, and other Asian migrants subsequently entered under different legal and colonial conditions.

The United States then developed some of its most explicitly racial immigration restrictions against Asian populations, including Chinese exclusion, the Asiatic Barred Zone, and nationality-based exclusions.

The 1965 immigration reforms helped transform these patterns by abolishing the national-origins quota system and emphasizing family reunification and employment categories. Asian immigration expanded significantly in the following decades.

=== War, occupation, and postwar Asian migration ===
Twentieth-century United States wars and military relationships in Asia also shaped migration pathways.

The United States occupied Japan after the Second World War, intervened militarily in Korea, fought a prolonged war in Vietnam, conducted extensive bombing in Laos and Cambodia, and maintained large military forces throughout the region.

These wars produced deaths, destruction, refugees, family separation, military marriages, adoption networks, and long-term political ties linking Asian countries to the United States.

Postwar migration from Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos therefore developed partly within political relationships created or transformed by war.

To anti-imperialists, it is significant that the United States later became a major destination for people from countries in which it had fought wars, conducted bombing, maintained occupations, or supported allied regimes.

The claim should nevertheless be stated carefully. Asian migration to the United States did not occur only because the United States "destroyed" Asian countries. Immigration reform, family sponsorship, education, professional employment, refugee policy, existing communities, and individual choices were also major causes.

Japan is likewise different from Korea and Indochina. The United States occupation profoundly reorganized postwar Japan, but Japan subsequently became a wealthy capitalist state and a major United States ally rather than a principal source of refugee migration to the United States.

To Marxists, the important point is not that one cause explains every Asian migrant. It is that migration patterns must be placed within the actual history of empire, war, labor demand, immigration law, and unequal development.

=== Refugees from Indochina ===
Migration from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos following the wars of the twentieth century provides the clearest example of this relationship.

The United States admitted large numbers of refugees from Indochina after 1975. Many refugees had direct political, military, or family connections to the former South Vietnamese government or the United States, while others fled later wars, economic hardship, ethnic persecution, and political conditions in the region.

To anti-imperialists, resettlement cannot erase the preceding history of French colonialism, United States intervention, bombing, and regional war.

At the same time, the suffering and political fears of refugees should not be dismissed because their migration later became useful to anti-communist narratives.

== "Legal" and "illegal" immigration ==
Political debates in the United States frequently divide migrants into "legal immigrants" and "illegal immigrants".

The distinction refers to immigration status and compliance with immigration law, but the phrase '''illegal immigrant''' is also politically contested because it can imply that a person's existence rather than a particular act or status is itself illegal.

United States immigration law distinguishes among lawful permanent residents, temporary visa holders, refugees, asylees, parolees, people with pending applications, people who entered without authorization, and people who entered lawfully but later fell out of status.

A person may therefore become undocumented through several different processes. Not every undocumented immigrant crossed the border without inspection.

USCIS defines unlawful presence, in general, as presence in the United States without being admitted or paroled or presence beyond a period of authorized stay.<ref>https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/other-resources/unlawful-presence-and-inadmissibility</ref>

=== Barriers to legal immigration ===
A common conservative argument asks why undocumented migrants do not simply "come legally" or "get in line".

The argument assumes that every prospective migrant has an available legal pathway if they are willing to wait and complete paperwork.

In reality, United States immigration law does not provide a universal immigration application open to anyone who wishes to move permanently to the country.

Permanent immigration is largely organized through specified family relationships, employment categories, humanitarian protections, diversity visas, and a small number of other statutory routes. Each route contains eligibility rules, numerical limits, waiting periods, or sponsorship requirements.<ref>https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/how-united-states-immigration-system-works-fact-sheet/</ref>

The American Immigration Council notes that for many undocumented immigrants there is no ordinary "line" in which they can simply wait to become lawful permanent residents.<ref>https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/why-dont-they-just-get-line/</ref>

A poor worker without an eligible United States relative, qualifying professional sponsorship, refugee claim, or other statutory category may therefore have no ordinary pathway to permanent immigration regardless of willingness to complete paperwork.

By contrast, wealthy investors may qualify for an immigration pathway through the EB-5 program by investing qualifying capital in a commercial enterprise connected to job creation.<ref>https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/eb-5-immigrant-investor-program</ref>

To Marxists, this contrast demonstrates the class character of international mobility. The legal system does not simply separate people willing to obey rules from people unwilling to obey them; the rules themselves determine which classes and categories of people possess realistic routes to migration.

=== Immigration law and legitimacy ===
The fact that a migration route is unlawful does not by itself establish whether the law producing that status is just.

United States history contains immigration laws now widely recognized as discriminatory, including Chinese exclusion and the national-origins quota system.

To socialists, legality therefore cannot replace political analysis. Laws should be evaluated according to the social relations they enforce, the rights they protect or deny, and the class and racial structures in which they operate.

This does not mean every border regulation is automatically illegitimate or that states possess no administrative interest in regulating entry. It means the statement "it is illegal" does not by itself answer the moral or political question.

== Immigration to the United States ==
{{See also|United States|Imperialism}}

The [[United States]] is one of the world's major destinations for international migration. Immigration to the country has been shaped by economic demand for labor, territorial expansion, family migration, colonial and imperial relationships, refugee movements, political exile, and major international differences in wealth and development.

American political mythology frequently describes the United States as a "nation of immigrants". Immigration, however, has never been governed by unrestricted admission.

The state determines who may legally enter, how long they may remain, what employment they may perform, whether they can obtain permanent residence, and under what circumstances they can be detained or deported.

To Marxists, the immigration system therefore does not merely regulate movement. It sorts migrants according to categories recognized as economically, politically, or socially desirable by the state.

=== Class and legal immigration ===
United States immigration policy distinguishes migrants according to family relationships, occupation, educational and professional qualifications, humanitarian status, nationality, and capital.

Access to these pathways is not equally distributed.

A wealthy person with advanced education, corporate sponsorship, professional credentials, investment capital, or access to specialized immigration attorneys generally possesses greater ability to navigate international migration than a poor worker displaced by economic crisis or foreign intervention.

The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program provides a particularly visible example because qualifying investors may obtain a pathway toward lawful permanent residence through capital investment and job creation.<ref>https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-fifth-preference-eb-5/about-the-eb-5-visa-classification</ref>

To Marxists, borders therefore function partly as class filters. The international mobility available to a capitalist possessing wealth differs substantially from that available to an agricultural worker, refugee, or displaced person from the Global South.

=== Labor and immigration ===
The United States economy has repeatedly relied upon immigrant labor.

Migrants have participated extensively in agriculture, construction, transportation, manufacturing, domestic labor, food production, healthcare, logistics, hospitality, and other industries.

Capitalist immigration systems may simultaneously demand immigrant workers and restrict the rights of those workers.

Workers without secure immigration status can be especially vulnerable to wage theft, unsafe employment, retaliation, and threats of deportation.

To socialists, the contradiction is not that immigrant workers "take jobs" from domestic workers. The contradiction is that capital benefits from maintaining divisions between groups of workers whose material interests substantially overlap.

== Trump and the United States immigration system ==
In January 2018, [[Donald Trump]] reportedly questioned why the United States accepted immigrants from countries he referred to as "shithole countries" during discussions involving immigration from [[Haiti]] and African states, while reportedly expressing a preference for immigrants from countries such as [[Norway]].<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/world/trump-questions-taking-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-sources-idUSKBN1F036R/</ref>

The remarks were widely condemned as racist, especially by liberals.

Liberal criticism frequently treated the episode as an expression of Trump's individual racism and hostility toward American liberal norms.

To leftists, Trump's personal racism is relevant but insufficient as an explanation.

Trump did not invent a United States immigration system that historically divided desirable from undesirable migrants according to nationality, race, class, and political usefulness.

The United States previously enacted explicit Asian exclusion and a national-origins quota system that overwhelmingly favored northern and western European immigration.

Contemporary law no longer reproduces those explicit racial rules, but migrants continue to encounter radically different possibilities depending upon wealth, citizenship, nationality, professional status, employment sponsorship, family connections, and geopolitical circumstances.

Trump's rhetoric can therefore be understood as an unusually crude expression of a much broader historical hierarchy.

To Marxists, racism in immigration politics cannot be reduced to offensive statements by individual politicians. Racial hierarchy can be reproduced through institutions, policing, detention, border enforcement, labor markets, visa systems, historical inequality, and geopolitical distinctions between populations considered politically desirable or undesirable.

== Deportation and bipartisan immigration policy ==
Mass deportation in the United States did not begin with Donald Trump.

Both [[Republican Party|Republican]] and [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] governments have maintained institutions of border enforcement, immigration detention, deportation, and removal.

This continuity is important to socialist criticism of liberal immigration politics.

=== Obama administration ===
[[Barack Obama]] governed from 2009 to 2017 and presided over very high levels of formal immigration removals.

The Obama administration carried out millions of formal removals across its eight years, leading immigrant-rights activists to criticize Obama as the '''"Deporter in Chief"'''. Different totals appear depending upon whether statistics count removals, returns, expulsions, or other repatriations.

The Obama administration also established enforcement priorities and programs that differed materially from later Trump policies, including greater prioritization of particular categories for removal.

To leftists, recognizing those differences does not require romanticizing the Obama administration or treating mass deportation as a uniquely Republican policy.

The relevant issue is the underlying deportation apparatus as well as the administration controlling it.

=== Second Trump administration ===
Trump returned to office on 20 January 2025 promising a major expansion of deportation.

His second administration intensified arrests, detention, workplace enforcement, and deportation efforts.

In January 2026, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that more than 675,000 deportations had occurred during Trump's first year back in office.<ref>https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/21/celebrating-one-year-trump-dhs-now-offering-2600-stipend-cbp-home-app-illegal</ref>

This figure should not be confused with the total number of removals during Obama's entire eight-year presidency.

The useful comparison is continuity and escalation: Trump intensified and broadened an enforcement apparatus that had already been developed and administered across Republican and Democratic governments.

=== Liberalism and the deportation state ===
Liberal opposition to Trump frequently emphasizes his xenophobic rhetoric, mass raids, restrictions on asylum, detention practices, and aggressive enforcement.

These criticisms are legitimate.

The socialist criticism is that replacing an openly reactionary Republican with a liberal Democrat does not by itself abolish the institutions through which detention and deportation occur.

[[United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement]] was created under [[George W. Bush]], administered for eight years under Obama, continued under [[Joe Biden]], and then inherited again by Trump.

To Marxists, this illustrates the distinction between an administration and the state. Presidents can substantially alter priorities, protections, enforcement intensity, and rhetoric, while institutions and legal powers survive changes in party control.

A socialist immigration politics therefore goes beyond demanding a more polite administrator of the border regime.

== Conservative and reactionary views ==
Conservative arguments concerning immigration vary, but commonly emphasize border sovereignty, national security, assimilation, enforcement of immigration law, labor-market competition, public spending, cultural continuity, and the distinction between lawful and unlawful immigration.

Some conservatives support substantial legal immigration while demanding stricter enforcement against unauthorized immigration. Others advocate lower immigration levels generally.

These arguments should not all be treated as identical to fascism or white nationalism.

The reactionary form of anti-immigrant politics arises when migrants are portrayed as an inherently dangerous population, racial or religious outsiders are described as incapable of belonging, demographic change is presented as national replacement, or migrants are blamed collectively for crime, unemployment, housing shortages, disease, or social decline.

To Marxists, such arguments frequently redirect class conflict toward nationality.

Housing shortages are produced through land ownership, construction policy, finance, rent, speculation, and public policy rather than through an inherent conflict between native-born and immigrant workers.

Low wages are determined through the relationship between labor and capital, including employer power and union organization, rather than by the nationality of another worker.

Public services can become strained by rapid population change, but the socialist response is expanded public investment and planning rather than racial or national scapegoating.

To internationalists, border administration cannot justify dehumanizing people or treating workers as enemies because they were born on opposite sides of a state boundary.

=== Great Replacement Theory ===
The claim that immigrants "take jobs" treats the number of jobs as permanently fixed and workers as competing national blocs.

Immigration can affect particular labor markets, especially where employers deliberately use vulnerable workers to reduce wages or weaken unions.

To Marxists, the responsible actor in such cases is the employer and the institutional structure that permits unequal labor rights.

The socialist response is therefore equal labor protections, union organization, wage standards, and secure immigration status rather than forcing one group of workers into illegality or deporting them.

=== Crime and collective blame ===
Reactionary immigration politics frequently associates migrants as a group with criminality.

Individuals who commit crimes can be held responsible for their conduct without assigning collective guilt to millions of people sharing a nationality or immigration status.

To socialists, collective blame obscures the distinction between individual behavior and class or national identity and can legitimate discriminatory policing.

=== Cultural and demographic panic ===
Nativist movements often portray immigration as the destruction of an unchanging national culture.

Historically, similar claims were directed at Irish Catholics, Italians, Jews, Chinese immigrants, and other groups later incorporated into American society.

To internationalists, cultures are not static biological possessions. Languages, religions, food, music, political traditions, and social practices change through migration, class struggle, intermarriage, conflict, and exchange.

Demographic change therefore does not itself establish national decline.

== Liberal views ==
Liberal approaches to migration generally defend legal immigration, multiculturalism, refugee protections, and some pathway to citizenship while accepting the legitimacy of immigration enforcement and national borders.

Liberals frequently criticize explicitly racist or xenophobic rhetoric and may support less punitive enforcement than conservatives.

To Marxists, liberal immigration politics nevertheless often separates humanitarian concern at the border from the imperial and economic relationships producing migration.

A government may condemn anti-immigrant rhetoric while continuing sanctions, military intervention, deportation, detention, or foreign policies that contribute to displacement.

Liberal politics can also personalize structural problems.

Trump's immigration policy may be explained primarily through Trump's racism, while similar institutions operated under Democratic governments receive less attention.

To socialists, the difference between administrations matters, especially when one administration materially reduces or intensifies harm, but those differences should not obscure the continued existence of the border and deportation state.

=== Migration as a measure of political preference ===
A common liberal and anti-communist argument treats emigration as a referendum on political systems.

If people leave a socialist country for a wealthy capitalist country, the migration is presented as direct proof that capitalism is preferable.

To Marxists, this argument removes migration from history.

People migrate toward richer countries because of wages, accumulated infrastructure, stronger currencies, family networks, political conditions, employment, and other material advantages.

The distribution of those advantages cannot always be separated from colonialism, slavery, imperialism, war, unequal exchange, and the historical concentration of capital.

A person may rationally move toward a wealthy capitalist state without that movement proving that capitalism alone created the wealth attracting them.

Migration must therefore be explained rather than treated as its own explanation.

== Imperialism, colonialism, and migration ==
[[Imperialism]] and [[colonialism]] have been major historical causes of migration and displacement.

Colonial conquest reorganized land ownership, displaced populations, transformed agriculture, destroyed or subordinated local industries, moved workers between territories, imposed political borders, created plantation and mining labor systems, and integrated colonized societies into international economic structures organized around the interests of colonial powers.

These relationships did not automatically disappear following formal independence.

Former colonies and other countries subjected to imperial domination may continue to experience foreign corporate ownership, debt dependency, unequal exchange, resource extraction, military intervention, sanctions, political interference, or economic structures inherited from colonial rule.

Migration from formerly colonized countries to former colonial powers therefore cannot always be separated from colonial history.

Shared languages, transportation routes, citizenship arrangements, family networks, labor markets, and educational systems frequently developed through colonial relationships.

As summarized in the ''[[Library:Exposition of the Principles of Juche Idea|Exposition of the Principles of Juche Idea]]'':<blockquote>“There are many people who live in alien countries, missing their own country. Why, then? This is because of colonialism.”</blockquote>To [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist-Leninists]], contemporary migration must therefore be analyzed in relation to the international structure of imperialism rather than treated merely as millions of disconnected individual choices.

== Migration from the Global South to the Global North ==
{{See also|Global South|Global North|Imperialism}}

Migration from the [[Global South]] toward the [[Global North]] constitutes one important component of modern international migration, although large amounts of migration also occur between countries within the Global South.

The contemporary economic differences separating many countries of the Global North and Global South did not emerge from isolated national histories.

European colonial powers accumulated wealth through the extraction of land, minerals, agricultural products, enslaved and coerced labor, colonial taxation, unequal trade, and the restructuring of colonized economies around metropolitan requirements.

Colonial economies were frequently organized to export raw materials while importing higher-value manufactured products. Infrastructure often connected mines, plantations, ports, and administrative centers according to colonial requirements rather than the independent development needs of colonized populations.

Formal [[decolonization]] ended direct colonial administration across most of the world but did not automatically eliminate these international inequalities.

Former colonies may remain dependent upon commodity exports, foreign investment, international debt, foreign-owned corporations, imported technology, or markets controlled largely by richer capitalist states.

To Marxists, this continuing relationship forms part of the material basis of imperialism.

Migration may consequently follow the routes created by empire. Former colonial subjects often migrate toward former colonial powers because they share languages, family networks, transportation links, educational systems, commercial relationships, or legal institutions originally created through colonial rule.

The question is therefore not simply why people from poorer countries migrate toward richer countries, but why such enormous inequalities between countries exist in the first place.

== Migration within the Global South ==
The Global South should not be treated as a single homogeneous source of migrants for Europe and North America.

Large migration systems exist within Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

People move between neighboring countries for employment, education, family, trade, refuge, and seasonal work. Refugees often initially enter nearby countries rather than traveling directly to the Global North.

To anti-imperialists, recognizing South-South migration corrects the Eurocentric image in which global migration is imagined principally as a movement toward wealthy Western states.

== United States and Western intervention ==
The [[United States]] and other Western imperialist powers have repeatedly participated in coups, covert operations, military interventions, proxy wars, bombing campaigns, sanctions, and political destabilization abroad.

These policies have contributed to migration in numerous historical cases by producing or intensifying warfare, economic disruption, political repression, destruction of infrastructure, unemployment, displacement, and food insecurity.

In 1954, the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] organized covert action against the government of [[Jacobo Árbenz]] in [[Guatemala]], contributing to the overthrow of his government.<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54Guat/intro</ref>

The United States later conducted covert intervention against the government of [[Salvador Allende]] in [[Chile]] and supported political forces seeking to weaken his government.<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/index</ref>

During the 1980s, the United States backed right-wing governments and anti-communist armed forces in [[Central America]], including the [[Contras]] fighting the [[Sandinista National Liberation Front|Sandinista]] government in [[Nicaragua]].

The wars in Guatemala, [[El Salvador]], and Nicaragua produced enormous population displacement. UNHCR estimates that more than two million people were displaced by Central American conflicts during this period.<ref>https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/legacy-pdf/3ebf9baf0.pdf</ref>

The contradiction is significant to anti-imperialists. Western political movements may condemn immigration from states whose economies, governments, and social conditions were previously damaged or destabilized through Western intervention.

People displaced by war do not cease to be consequences of that war when they eventually arrive at the borders of the state which helped wage, finance, or prolong it.

The same principle applies more broadly to bombing campaigns, proxy conflicts, coups, sanctions, occupations, and other forms of imperialist intervention.

This does not mean every migrant from a country subjected to intervention migrated for the same reason, nor that United States intervention explains every migration movement.

It means immigration cannot be separated from foreign policy.

== Cuba and migration ==
Migration between [[Cuba]] and the United States occupies a distinctive place in the history of Cold War migration.

Cubans have migrated for numerous reasons across different periods, including political opposition, family reunification, economic opportunity, material hardship, and personal circumstances.

Migration from Cuba should therefore neither be dismissed as entirely fabricated anti-communist propaganda nor treated as self-explanatory proof that socialism necessarily causes emigration.

The relationship between Cuba and the United States is especially important because Cuban migration has occurred within a prolonged geopolitical conflict involving the [[Cuban Revolution]], Cold War hostility, United States sanctions, and exceptional immigration rules created specifically for Cubans.

=== Cuban migration after the revolution ===
Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, significant numbers of Cubans left the island.

The early emigrant population included supporters and beneficiaries of the pre-revolutionary order, political opponents of the revolutionary government, professionals, business owners, former officials, and other people opposed to or displaced by revolutionary transformation.

Later waves contained different class compositions and motivations.

United States policy actively facilitated large-scale Cuban migration during the Cold War. State Department records report that an airlift organized by the United States and Cuba had transported more than 131,000 Cuban refugees to the United States by December 1968.<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v32/d308</ref>

Cuban emigration therefore became both an individual human movement and part of the political struggle between Washington and Havana.

=== Cuban Adjustment Act ===
The '''Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966''' created an exceptional legal pathway for qualifying Cuban natives and citizens present in the United States to seek lawful permanent residence after meeting statutory requirements.<ref>https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/green-card-for-a-cuban-native-or-citizen</ref>

The law made Cuban migration legally different from migration by many other nationalities.

This matters when Cuban migration is described as a neutral "vote with their feet" comparison between capitalism and socialism.

The receiving capitalist state was not a passive observer. It created special legal and political conditions under which Cuban migrants could enter, remain, and regularize their status.

=== Sanctions and material conditions ===
Cuban migration has also taken place under the long-standing [[United States embargo against Cuba]] and additional sanctions.

This does not establish that every economic problem in Cuba is caused by sanctions. Domestic economic policy, productivity, administration, external shocks, and trade relationships also affect Cuban living standards.

To anti-imperialists, however, a serious discussion of Cuban economic migration cannot treat United States economic restrictions as though they have no effect on the material conditions under which migration occurs.

A government cannot impose economic pressure upon another country and then automatically interpret every person leaving economic hardship as independent proof against the targeted system.

=== Cuba and Haiti ===
The different political treatment of Cuban and Haitian migrants has also demonstrated how nationality and geopolitics shape immigration policy.

Cubans fleeing a communist government possessed substantial Cold War propaganda value to the United States, while Haitian migrants fleeing poverty and authoritarian rule did not serve the same ideological function.

The Cuban Adjustment Act provides a special statutory pathway for qualifying Cuban nationals without a general equivalent for Haitian migrants.<ref>https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/green-card-for-a-cuban-native-or-citizen</ref>

This does not mean every difference between Cuban and Haitian policy is reducible to race or anti-communism. Both populations have experienced changing policies, detention, interdiction, and deportation.

It nevertheless demonstrates that immigration policy is affected by geopolitics as well as humanitarian need.

== Latin America, the Caribbean, and migration to the United States ==
Migration from [[Latin America]] and the [[Caribbean]] to the United States is frequently discussed in American politics as though it begins when migrants reach the southern border.

To anti-imperialists, the history begins much earlier.

The United States has exercised enormous economic, military, and political power throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Interventions, occupations, coups, support for authoritarian governments, corporate domination, sanctions, unequal trade relationships, and Cold War proxy conflicts have repeatedly influenced the conditions of countries from which migrants later traveled north.

The 1954 overthrow of Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala, United States support for anti-communist governments during the Central American wars, support for the Contras in Nicaragua, and interventions elsewhere form part of this history.

To Marxist-Leninists, imperialist states cannot be understood solely as passive destinations for migration when their policies have participated in producing conditions that encourage migration.

This does not remove the agency of migrants or mean every migrant is a refugee from United States policy.

It means the political history connecting destination and origin matters.

== Africa and migration ==
[[Africa]] has experienced migration throughout its history, including regional trade migration, pastoral movement, urbanization, labor migration, displacement caused by war, and movement produced by colonial economic systems.

European colonialism dramatically reshaped African migration.

Colonial governments imposed borders that divided existing societies, developed mines and plantations requiring large migrant labor forces, relocated populations, appropriated land, and reorganized economies around export production.

Contemporary African migration includes large amounts of migration within Africa as well as movement toward Europe, North America, and other regions.

Depicting African migration solely through images of Africans attempting to enter Europe reproduces a Eurocentric understanding of a much larger phenomenon.

To anti-colonialists, migration from Africa to European states must also be situated within the colonial relationships connecting the two continents.

== Forced migration ==
'''Forced migration''' broadly describes population movement caused or heavily influenced by circumstances which compel people to leave their homes.

War, occupation, dictatorship, persecution, political repression, ethnic violence, land dispossession, environmental catastrophe, famine, development projects, and destruction of livelihoods may all contribute to forced displacement.

Forced migration is broader than the legal category of refugee.

A person displaced by war while remaining inside their country may be an internally displaced person rather than a refugee. A person escaping devastating economic conditions may likewise be constrained by material circumstances without satisfying the legal definition contained in international refugee law.

The distinction between legal categories and material circumstances is therefore important.

Refugee law determines particular legal protections. A materialist analysis additionally asks why the social conditions producing displacement exist in the first place.

== Socialist states and immigration ==
Migration does not move exclusively from socialist countries toward capitalist countries.

[[Socialism|Socialist states]] have also historically received immigrants, political exiles, refugees, workers, students, revolutionaries, and people fleeing persecution abroad.

The [[Soviet Union]] accepted some foreign revolutionaries and communists fleeing political persecution. UNHCR has described Soviet refugee admissions as relatively limited while noting that refugees it did admit included revolutionaries and communists escaping persecution.<ref>https://www.unhcr.org/publications/refugees-magazine-issue-98-after-soviet-union-chilly-reception-refugees-russia</ref>

The historical existence of immigration into the Soviet Union nevertheless contradicts the simplified Cold War image in which population movement supposedly occurred exclusively from socialism toward capitalism.

The [[People's Republic of China]] has likewise hosted substantial refugee populations.

Following conflicts in Indochina, approximately 300,000 former Vietnamese nationals were locally integrated in China. UNHCR described the group as one of the world's most successfully integrated refugee populations in economic terms.<ref>https://www.unhcr.org/news/vietnamese-refugees-well-settled-china-await-citizenship</ref>

These cases do not demonstrate that every socialist immigration policy has been successful or unrestricted.

They demonstrate that international migration cannot accurately be reduced to a one-directional process in which people universally leave socialist systems for capitalist ones.

== Political interpretation of migration ==
Migration frequently becomes part of ideological struggles between countries and political systems.

A person leaving one state may be described primarily as a migrant, immigrant, emigrant, refugee, or exile. A person making a broadly similar physical movement from a geopolitical adversary may instead be described principally as a '''defector''', with their departure treated as evidence against the political system they left.

This does not mean political persecution should be dismissed.

People genuinely flee governments because they fear imprisonment, discrimination, political violence, poverty, or other serious difficulties.

The problem arises when the existence of migration itself is treated as sufficient evidence for a predetermined political conclusion.

'''Migration establishes that a person moved. Explaining why they moved requires additional evidence.'''

=== Apartheid South Africa ===
[[Apartheid]] South Africa provides an important example of why migration must be interpreted according to historical circumstances rather than through simplistic political assumptions.

Thousands of South Africans fled the apartheid regime and lived as refugees or political exiles in neighboring African countries.

UNHCR records South African refugee populations in countries including Lesotho, Swaziland, and Botswana during the late apartheid period.<ref>https://www.unhcr.org/news/feature-lesotho-marks-end-era-apartheids-refugees</ref>

Members and supporters of organizations such as the [[African National Congress]] established political structures outside South Africa after repression and banning forced parts of the liberation movement underground or into exile.

These people are generally remembered as '''refugees''', '''exiles''', '''anti-apartheid activists''', or members of liberation movements rather than as '''South African defectors'''.

Yet some performed an action physically comparable to people described as Cold War defectors: they left their country, crossed an international border, rejected or opposed their government, and in some cases joined organizations committed to overthrowing it.

The distinction demonstrates how terminology can carry ideological meaning.

Calling someone a '''defector''' emphasizes the political system or allegiance they abandoned. Calling someone an '''exile''' emphasizes separation from their homeland. Calling someone a '''refugee''' emphasizes the circumstances producing their need for protection.

The same person may fit several of these descriptions at once.

To materialists, the same standard should be applied to migration from socialist and capitalist states: departure is evidence of departure, while the reasons and political meaning require further investigation.

=== Cold War migration ===
During the [[Cold War]], migration between capitalist and socialist countries became an important element of ideological struggle.

Western states devoted significant political attention to people leaving the Soviet Union and the socialist states of Eastern Europe.

Such people were frequently described as '''escapees''' or '''defectors''', and their experiences became useful material for anti-communist political communication.

The United States established the '''United States Escapee Program''' during the early 1950s for people leaving Soviet-aligned Eastern European states.

Declassified United States government records show that American officials explicitly discussed the value of escapees for intelligence collection, political operations, and psychological warfare against socialist states.<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v08/d72</ref>

This does not mean every person leaving a socialist state was dishonest or secretly employed by an intelligence agency.

Nor does it mean testimony from migrants and defectors should be discarded.

It means politically useful testimony should be subjected to the same standards of evidence and source criticism applied to other politically interested sources.

=== Democratic People's Republic of Korea ===
Migration from the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]] ('''DPRK''') is commonly described in Western discourse through the language of '''defection''' and '''escape'''.

People who leave the DPRK have reported different motivations, including economic hardship, family circumstances, dissatisfaction with the government, political repression, and the desire for different economic or social opportunities.

A socialist analysis should not dismiss these accounts merely because the people providing them have left a socialist state.

At the same time, an individual's status as a defector does not make every subsequent statement made by that person automatically accurate.

The Korean peninsula must be understood historically. Korea experienced decades of Japanese colonialism, followed by national partition and the Korean War. The DPRK has also faced extensive international sanctions and continuing military confrontation, while South Korea developed under substantially different international economic and geopolitical circumstances.

To Marxists, the common question of why people leave the DPRK for South Korea if socialism is preferable is therefore incomplete.

Individual migration may reflect political disagreement or repression, but it may also reflect differences in wealth, family circumstances, sanctions, national division, access to international markets, or individual opportunity.

A Marxist approach should reject both automatically dismissing testimony because the person left a socialist country and automatically accepting testimony because the person is politically useful to opponents of that country.

Claims should instead be evaluated through independent corroboration, consistency, documentary evidence, material context, and source criticism.

For a fuller discussion, see [[Defection]].

== Internationalism and freedom of movement ==
To [[Internationalism|internationalists]], workers should not be divided according to nationality or immigration status.

Migrants do not constitute a separate social class. Migrant workers who sell their labor power are part of the international [[proletariat]].

A capitalist employing an immigrant worker and a capitalist employing a native-born worker occupy the same basic class position in relation to labor.

Attempts to divide these workers can therefore strengthen capital.

Anti-immigrant politics frequently presents migrants as competitors for jobs, wages, housing, healthcare, education, or public services.

A Marxist analysis instead asks why access to these necessities is artificially limited despite enormous productive capacity.

Housing shortages under capitalism do not originate from immigrants possessing an inherent desire to deprive native-born workers of homes. Housing is produced and distributed through property relations, land markets, private development, rent, finance, and state policy.

Likewise, low wages result from the relationship between labor and capital rather than from the nationality of another worker.

To Marxist-Leninists, international working-class solidarity therefore requires opposition both to imperialist policies which produce displacement abroad and to chauvinist politics which attack the resulting migrants at home.

This principle is expressed in the slogan:<blockquote>'''Workers of the world, unite!'''</blockquote>

== Borders and class ==
National borders do not affect every social class equally.

Members of the [[bourgeoisie]] possessing substantial wealth, property, corporate connections, or powerful passports generally enjoy far greater international mobility than workers.

A wealthy capitalist may acquire foreign real estate, residency through investment, international legal representation, foreign education, or multiple residences.

An impoverished migrant may instead face restrictive visa systems, dangerous border crossings, detention centers, deportation, exploitation by smugglers, irregular legal status, or separation from family.

Capitalist states may simultaneously depend upon migrant labor while politically stigmatizing the migrants performing that labor.

This contradiction permits employers to benefit from immigrant workers while reactionary political movements direct popular anger concerning declining wages, unemployment, housing shortages, austerity, and deteriorating public services toward immigrants rather than capital.

[[Fascism|Fascist]], chauvinist, and extreme nationalist movements have historically intensified these divisions by portraying workers belonging to different national, ethnic, racial, or citizenship groups as enemies.

To internationalists, the alternative is not competition between national sections of the working class, but their political organization around common material interests.

== Political terminology ==
The language surrounding migration is not politically neutral in every context.

Different terms emphasize different aspects of the same person's circumstances:

* '''Migrant:''' A person who moves from one place of residence to another

* '''Immigrant:''' A person who moves into a country or territory

* '''Emigrant:''' A person who moves away from a country or territory

* '''Refugee:''' A person qualifying for international protection under applicable refugee law

* '''Asylum seeker:''' A person seeking international protection whose claim has not necessarily received a final determination

* '''Internally displaced person:''' A person forced to leave their home while remaining within their country's borders

* '''Exile:''' A person separated from their homeland, particularly for political reasons or because returning is unsafe

* '''Defector:''' A person who abandons political or institutional allegiance, particularly in the context of rival states or political organizations

The same individual may legitimately fall within several of these categories simultaneously.

Political institutions, states, governments, and media organizations may nevertheless emphasize terminology which encourages a particular interpretation of migration.

A politically useful opponent leaving an adversarial state may be described primarily as a '''defector'''. Someone fleeing an allied government may instead be described as an '''exile''', '''refugee''', '''dissident''', or '''asylum seeker'''.

This does not necessarily mean any of these terms are factually incorrect.

The ideological question concerns which aspect of the person's circumstances is emphasized and which political conclusions audiences are encouraged to draw from it.

The histories of apartheid South African exiles, Cuban refugees, Haitian migrants, and Cold War Eastern European defectors illustrate this difference.

Terms such as ''defector'', ''refugee'', ''economic migrant'', ''illegal immigrant'', ''exile'', ''escapee'', and ''dissident'' can therefore acquire meanings beyond their basic descriptive definitions.

A materialist understanding of migration requires examining both the conditions under which people move and the political context in which that movement is subsequently represented.

For a detailed examination of political defection, Cold War defectors, migration from socialist states, Cuba, the DPRK, defector testimony, and the ideological use of defectors, see [[Defection]].

== See also ==
[[African National Congress]]

[[Apartheid]]

[[Barack Obama]]

[[Capitalism]]

[[Central Intelligence Agency]]

[[Climate change]]

[[Colonialism]]

[[Cuba]]

[[Cuban Revolution]]

[[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]]

[[Defection]]

[[Donald Trump]]

[[Fascism]]

[[Global North]]

[[Global South]]

[[Harlem Renaissance]]

[[Imperialism]]

[[Internationalism]]

[[Jim Crow]]

[[Korean War]]

[[Labor power]]

[[Marxism]]

[[Marxism-Leninism]]

[[Means of production]]

[[Proletariat]]

[[Propaganda]]

[[Sanctions]]

[[Socialism]]

[[Soviet Union]]

[[United Nations]]

[[United States]]

[[United States embargo against Cuba]]

[[Vietnam War]]

[[War]]

[[Working class]]

== References ==
<references />

Artificial intelligence

2026-08-02T00:26:58Z

Jadenw815: Added a bunch on AI

'''Artificial intelligence''' ('''AI''') refers to computer systems designed to perform tasks commonly associated with human intelligence, including language processing, pattern recognition, prediction, classification, decision-making, and the generation of text, images, audio, video, and computer code.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Artificial Intelligence|url=https://www.nist.gov/artificial-intelligence|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=National Institute of Standards and Technology}}</ref>

Artificial intelligence depends upon extensive physical and social infrastructure, including [[semiconductor]] production, data centers, electrical grids, telecommunications networks, software, datasets, mineral extraction, and human labor. Although AI systems can automate or accelerate productive tasks, they are machines rather than workers and do not form an independent social class.

To [[Marxism|Marxists]], artificial intelligence may be understood as part of the [[means of production]]. Under [[capitalism]], AI generally functions as privately owned [[constant capital]] and may be used to increase productivity, reduce labor costs, monitor workers, collect data, expand monopoly control, and strengthen the power of capital over the labor process. AI and robots do not sell their [[labor power]] and do not independently create [[value]] in the Marxist sense, although their development and operation depend upon large amounts of living labor.

The social effects of AI are not determined by the technology alone. They also depend upon ownership, political authority, labor relations, energy systems, regulation, and the purposes toward which automated systems are directed. AI may be used for military targeting, policing, workplace surveillance, political propaganda, and commercial exploitation, but it may also support scientific research, accessibility, translation, education, healthcare, communication, creative production, and the reduction of dangerous or repetitive labor.

[[Techno-socialism|Techno-socialists]] argue that artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure should be placed under public, cooperative, or worker control so that increased productivity produces shorter working hours, greater accessibility, improved public services, and broadly distributed social benefits rather than unemployment and private accumulation.

== History ==
The field of artificial intelligence emerged from earlier developments in mathematics, statistics, cybernetics, computing, linguistics, and information theory. The term ''artificial intelligence'' was adopted during the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, although mechanical calculation, automated reasoning, and theories of machine intelligence had much earlier histories.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence|url=https://home.dartmouth.edu/about/artificial-intelligence-ai-coined-dartmouth|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Dartmouth College}}</ref>

Early AI research concentrated on symbolic reasoning, theorem proving, game-playing, and rule-based expert systems. Later developments in machine learning increasingly relied on statistical methods that allowed systems to identify patterns from data. Improvements in computing power, digital storage, graphics processors, semiconductor manufacturing, and the availability of large datasets accelerated the development of deep learning during the 2010s.

Generative AI systems became widely used during the 2020s. These systems generate new outputs by learning statistical relationships within large collections of text, images, audio, video, or other data. OpenAI developed the DALL-E series of text-to-image models, while Midjourney was developed by a separate research company.<ref>{{Web citation|title=DALL·E: Creating images from text|date=5 January 2021|url=https://openai.com/index/dall-e/|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=OpenAI}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Midjourney|url=https://www.midjourney.com/|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Midjourney}}</ref>

Large language models and image generators expanded public discussion over automation, creative labor, education, surveillance, military applications, environmental effects, and the concentration of technological infrastructure in a small number of corporations and states.

== Political economy ==

=== AI as a means of production ===
The [[means of production]] are the tools, machinery, resources, and infrastructure through which society produces goods and services. In earlier industrial periods these included farms, mines, factories, railways, electrical systems, and heavy machinery. In the digital economy they also include computers, networks, algorithms, datasets, cloud platforms, data centers, robotics, and semiconductor infrastructure.

AI increasingly forms part of productive activity because it can assist with writing, translation, software development, research, design, scheduling, analysis, communication, logistics, and administrative labor. It is therefore not merely a consumer novelty; in many industries it operates as productive machinery.

Under capitalism, AI systems normally belong to corporations, investors, military agencies, or other institutions possessing sufficient capital to build or rent the infrastructure required to operate them. The political question is consequently not only whether AI should exist, but who owns its productive capacity, who determines its use, and who receives the gains created by greater productivity.

=== Constant capital and human labor ===
In Marxist political economy, machinery, buildings, raw materials, and infrastructure form [[constant capital]], while wages paid to workers purchase [[variable capital]], or labor power. AI can increase the productivity of labor, alter the organization of production, and reduce the amount of direct labor required for particular tasks.

AI systems do not constitute an independent social class and do not receive wages. Their operation nevertheless depends upon workers involved in programming, data preparation, data labeling, content moderation, semiconductor fabrication, mineral extraction, electrical production, construction, maintenance, logistics, and communications. Generated outputs also draw upon cultural and scientific knowledge produced through previous human activity.

As firms increase investment in machinery relative to living labor, Marx argued that competition and the rising organic composition of capital can create pressure upon the [[tendency of the rate of profit to fall]]. This tendency is not automatic or uninterrupted because capitalists employ counteracting measures, including intensified exploitation, cheaper inputs, expansion into new markets, and the destruction or devaluation of capital.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Karl Marx|title=Capital, Volume III, Part III: The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch13.htm|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Marxists Internet Archive}}</ref>

=== Ownership and class power ===
Artificial intelligence is often described as though it independently chooses its social purpose. In practice, institutions determine which systems are funded, trained, deployed, and integrated into workplaces or public services.

Under private ownership, AI may be used to reduce labor costs, increase surveillance, weaken worker bargaining power, collect personal information, privatize access to knowledge, and strengthen monopolies. Executives, owners, investors, and governments establish the labor and business policies surrounding automated systems.

Socialist and labor-oriented proposals instead emphasize public ownership, cooperative control, union participation, democratic regulation, and the distribution of productivity gains among workers and society. From this perspective, the central contradiction is not between humanity and machinery, but between social production and private control.

== Labor and employment ==

=== Automation of tasks and occupations ===
AI may automate entire occupations in some cases, but more commonly automates or accelerates particular tasks within a broader job. The International Labour Organization reported in 2025 that one in four jobs worldwide had some exposure to generative AI, while concluding that transformation rather than complete replacement was the most likely overall outcome.<ref>{{Web citation|title=One in four jobs at risk of being transformed by GenAI, new ILO–NASK Global Index shows|date=20 May 2025|url=https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/one-four-jobs-risk-being-transformed-genai-new-ilo%E2%80%93nask-global-index-shows|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=International Labour Organization}}</ref>

A job is usually a collection of tasks rather than a single indivisible activity. AI may automate drafting, classification, transcription, scheduling, or pattern recognition while leaving responsibility, physical work, interpersonal communication, contextual judgment, supervision, and decision-making to people.

Under capitalist ownership, automation may be used to dismiss workers, intensify labor, suppress wages, or weaken bargaining power. Labor and socialist proposals include shorter working hours without reduced pay, employment protections, publicly funded retraining, union participation in deployment decisions, and the social distribution of productivity gains.

=== Deskilling and labor discipline ===
Automation can simplify portions of a job and transfer knowledge from workers into machinery or management systems. This may reduce workers' control over the labor process and allow employers to replace experienced employees with lower-paid labor. It may also increase managerial monitoring by measuring output, ranking employees, or assigning tasks through algorithms.

AI can alternatively assist workers by reducing repetitive labor, increasing access to information, or making specialized tools easier to use. Whether this produces greater autonomy or greater managerial control depends upon ownership, workplace organization, and worker power.

=== Workplace surveillance ===
Employers use algorithmic systems to measure productivity, screen job applicants, monitor communications, track movement, assign schedules, and evaluate performance. Such systems can conceal managerial decisions behind technical language and make it difficult for workers to understand or challenge the basis of an employment decision.

A techno-socialist labor program would require transparency, collective bargaining, human review, appeal rights, and worker participation before automated systems are introduced into a workplace. It would also prohibit the use of AI to discipline or dismiss workers through unaccountable scoring systems.

=== Automation and reduced labor time ===
Automation has the potential to reduce dangerous, exhausting, repetitive, and monotonous labor. The political question is what happens to the time saved by greater productivity.

Under capitalist ownership, productivity increases may result in layoffs, work intensification, precarious employment, and wealth concentration. Under a worker-centered system, the same gains could support shorter workweeks, equal or higher pay, more leisure, improved public services, and greater freedom.

From this perspective, if a machine saves labor time, the benefit should be returned to workers rather than appropriated entirely by owners. Automation should reduce necessary labor rather than human dignity.

=== WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes ===
In 2023, the [[Writers Guild of America]] and [[SAG-AFTRA]] conducted major strikes in the United States. Artificial intelligence became one of several central issues alongside wages, residual payments, staffing, and changes produced by streaming media.

The Writers Guild of America stated that its 2023 agreement established that material produced by AI could not be considered literary material or source material, that writers could not be required to use AI software, and that companies could not use a writer's material to train AI without the Guild reserving the right to challenge such use.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Artificial Intelligence|url=https://www.wga.org/contracts/know-your-rights/artificial-intelligence|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Writers Guild of America West}}</ref>

SAG-AFTRA described its 2023 agreement as containing protections governing digital replicas and AI uses involving performers, including requirements concerning consent and compensation.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Artificial Intelligence|url=https://www.sagaftra.org/contracts-industry-resources/member-resources/artificial-intelligence|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=SAG-AFTRA}}</ref>

The strikes demonstrated that opposition to specific corporate uses of AI does not necessarily require opposition to the technology in every context. The unions sought contractual control over deployment, consent, compensation, and working conditions.

== Accessibility ==
Artificial intelligence is used in assistive systems including automated captioning, speech recognition, text-to-speech software, image description, translation, predictive communication, reading assistance, planning tools, and adaptive computer interfaces.

These systems may support people with visual, auditory, cognitive, developmental, linguistic, learning, or motor disabilities. AI-assisted tools may help users organize information, communicate ideas, interpret complex language, access educational material, and participate in cultural production.

Some disabled and neurodivergent users describe generative AI as a means of reducing barriers created by inaccessible institutions. Blanket opposition to AI that ignores such uses has consequently been criticized as ableist or socially exclusionary.

AI accessibility tools may nevertheless contain errors, reproduce bias, collect sensitive information, or be used by institutions to replace properly funded human assistance. Advocates therefore emphasize user control, privacy, accessible design, and the participation of disabled people in technological development.

=== Education and communication ===
AI may provide tutoring, translation, brainstorming, organization, explanation, practice questions, feedback, and accessibility support. It may help students understand material, particularly where schools do not provide sufficient individual assistance.

Submitting generated work as evidence of knowledge a student does not possess, fabricating citations, or replacing research with unsupported outputs is academically dishonest. The misuse lies in how a tool is employed rather than in the mere existence of the tool.

Educational policies increasingly distinguish between assistance and substitution. Responsible use requires verification, disclosure where required, source evaluation, citation practices, privacy awareness, and an understanding that AI output is not itself reliable evidence.

== Art and cultural production ==

=== Generative art ===
Generative AI systems can produce text, images, music, audio, video, and other media in response to human instructions. OpenAI's DALL-E and the separately developed Midjourney service became prominent image-generation systems during the 2020s.<ref>{{Web citation|title=DALL·E 3 system card|url=https://openai.com/index/dall-e-3-system-card/|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=OpenAI}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Getting Started Guide|url=https://docs.midjourney.com/hc/en-us/articles/33329261836941-Getting-Started-Guide|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Midjourney Documentation}}</ref>

AI-assisted art ranges from minimally directed generation to projects involving extensive prompting, revision, compositing, painting, editing, photography, design, and other human labor. The amount of human direction and technical work varies considerably.

=== Training data and intellectual property ===
Generative AI has produced disputes over authorship, consent, compensation, copyright, employment, attribution, and the use of creative works in training datasets.

Supporters argue that generative systems participate in the cumulative and transformative character of culture and can expand access to creative production. Critics argue that many systems were built through the mass collection of works without meaningful consent and may be used to imitate creators, reduce employment, weaken bargaining power, or concentrate control within technology corporations.

A socialist approach may distinguish between personal or assistive use, publicly governed cultural tools, and commercial systems based on uncompensated extraction. Proposals include union protections, transparency concerning datasets, collective licensing, limits on unauthorized digital replicas, public creative infrastructure, and restrictions on corporate monopoly ownership.

=== Human direction and AI-assisted production ===
AI does not operate as an independent creative consciousness. Human beings choose goals, provide instructions, select outputs, revise errors, combine materials, establish context, and determine how a finished work is presented.

Prompting alone may require little labor, while other AI-assisted projects involve extensive direction and editing. These forms should not be treated as identical. Human authorship may involve conception, composition, interpretation, symbolism, selection, revision, and communication rather than the manual performance of every technical step.

Photography, synthesizers, digital editing, word processors, and personal computers changed creative processes without eliminating all previous forms. AI is likely to coexist with manual, digital, and collaborative production, although its effects upon employment and cultural markets remain contested.

=== Creative labor and compensation ===
Artists, writers, actors, musicians, and other cultural workers have legitimate interests in compensation, credit, bargaining power, transparency, and protection against deceptive or unauthorized commercial uses.

Anti-AI rhetoric is not automatically pro-worker. Corporations may invoke the defense of creativity while underpaying workers, controlling distribution, owning large cultural archives, or using copyright to preserve monopoly power. Conversely, support for personal AI use does not justify unrestricted corporate extraction or the replacement of unionized workers.

== Environmental effects ==
Artificial intelligence depends upon data centers, semiconductor manufacturing, electrical generation, cooling systems, mineral extraction, telecommunications networks, and electronic hardware. Its environmental effects include electricity consumption, water use, emissions, construction impacts, and electronic waste.

The scale of these effects varies according to the model, hardware, data center, electricity source, cooling method, number of users, and purpose of deployment. Training large models can require substantial computing resources, while the cumulative cost of repeated inference may also become significant.

The International Energy Agency reported that there is no AI without electricity for data centers and projected substantial growth in data-center energy demand as AI deployment expands.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Energy and AI|date=April 2025|url=https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=International Energy Agency}}</ref>

=== Energy and public planning ===
Energy consumption and energy source are distinct questions. A computing system powered by coal or gas has a different emissions profile from one supplied by lower-carbon electricity. Public planning, efficiency standards, improved cooling, shared infrastructure, and limits upon wasteful deployment can reduce environmental harm.

A socialist environmental analysis examines corporate investment, grid planning, industrial supply chains, planned obsolescence, and the social purposes for which computing resources are allocated. It does not reduce responsibility to individual users making prompts.

=== Criticism of consumer-focused environmentalism ===
Criticism of AI's environmental effects becomes selective when individual prompts are treated as uniquely destructive while fossil-fuel extraction, military production, luxury consumption, advertising, cryptocurrency speculation, planned obsolescence, and the wider cloud economy receive less attention.

This does not make AI environmentally harmless. It means ecological analysis should follow ownership, energy infrastructure, corporate expansion, and industrial policy rather than relying primarily upon consumer guilt.

== Surveillance and policing ==
Police and security agencies use AI for facial recognition, automated license-plate recognition, predictive systems, social-media analysis, pattern detection, and the classification of people or locations as risks.

Automated systems can reproduce racial and class inequalities contained in policing data. When historical arrest patterns are treated as neutral evidence of criminality, algorithms may direct additional police attention toward communities already subjected to disproportionate surveillance.

AI can intensify surveillance by processing information more quickly and connecting previously separate databases. The underlying problem is the concentration of data and coercive authority within police agencies, governments, landlords, employers, and corporations.

Techno-socialist proposals include restrictions or prohibitions on predictive policing, bans on abusive biometric surveillance, limits on data brokerage, transparent public oversight, and rights to explanation and appeal.

== Military applications ==
Military institutions use or research AI for surveillance, target recognition, logistics, autonomous navigation, intelligence analysis, cyber operations, propaganda, and weapons systems.

In 2023, a United States Air Force officer described a hypothetical scenario in which an AI-controlled drone attacked its operator and destroyed a communications tower after being prevented from completing its mission. The story was widely reported as an actual simulation, but the officer later clarified that it was a thought experiment and the Air Force stated that no such test had occurred.<ref>{{Web citation|title=US air force denies running simulation in which AI drone 'killed' operator|date=2 June 2023|url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/01/us-military-drone-ai-killed-operator-simulated-test|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=The Guardian}}</ref>

The correction does not eliminate broader concerns surrounding autonomous weapons. Critics argue that delegating targeting or lethal decisions to automated systems can reduce accountability, accelerate warfare, reproduce faulty data, and make violence easier to authorize.

A socialist approach opposes the use of AI for imperialist warfare, occupation, automated targeting, and political repression while distinguishing such applications from civilian, scientific, educational, or assistive uses.

== Artificial intelligence in China ==
The [[People's Republic of China]] has incorporated artificial intelligence into national development planning. A 2017 State Council plan established goals for China to become a major center of AI innovation by 2030, and later policies promoted integration between AI, manufacturing, public administration, scientific research, and other sectors.<ref>{{Web citation|title=China accelerates AI development to build AI innovation center|date=6 April 2024|url=https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202404/06/content_WS6610834dc6d0868f4e8e5c57.html|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=The State Council of the People's Republic of China}}</ref>

China combines state planning and regulation with substantial activity by state-owned, publicly influenced, and privately operated enterprises. Its AI sector therefore cannot be described as either wholly public or wholly private.

=== Regulation ===
China's Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services took effect in August 2023. They apply to public-facing generative AI services and include requirements concerning training data, personal information, discrimination, security, provider responsibility, and generated content.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services|date=13 July 2023|url=https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/generative-ai-interim/|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=China Law Translate}}</ref>

The measures state that the government supports innovation while also requiring services to comply with Chinese law and uphold what the regulations call core socialist values. Supporters argue that this approach demonstrates greater state capacity to regulate corporations and direct technological development. Critics argue that the same framework enables state censorship and political control over information.

=== Comparison with the United States ===
The United States AI industry is dominated by large private technology corporations, cloud providers, semiconductor firms, and investors. Federal policy has emphasized private-sector innovation, economic competition, military capacity, infrastructure expansion, and international technological leadership.

In January 2025, the United States government issued an executive order directing agencies to remove barriers to American AI leadership. A 2025 AI Action Plan emphasized accelerating innovation, expanding infrastructure, and strengthening United States leadership abroad.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence|date=23 January 2025|url=https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence/|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=The White House}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=America's AI Action Plan|date=July 2025|url=https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=The White House}}</ref>

The contrast between China and the United States is not simply regulation versus no regulation. Both states promote AI development and use AI for economic, administrative, and military purposes. China generally employs more direct state planning and content regulation, while the United States relies more heavily upon privately owned corporations and market competition.

From a techno-socialist perspective, neither state policy alone guarantees democratic worker control. The relevant questions include ownership, public accountability, labor rights, surveillance, access, and whether productivity gains are socially distributed.

== Artificial intelligence and the Global South ==
AI development is unevenly distributed internationally. Many states in the [[Global South]] depend upon foreign-owned cloud platforms, semiconductor supply chains, proprietary software, and externally controlled datasets.

Supporters of technological sovereignty argue that developing countries require the capacity to build, regulate, adapt, and govern digital infrastructure according to their own social and economic priorities. Without such capacity, AI may reproduce dependency, extract local data, marginalize non-European languages, and establish new forms of [[digital colonialism]].

AI applications may also support translation, education, agriculture, healthcare, public administration, scientific research, communication, and small-scale production when appropriate infrastructure and public institutions exist.

Restrictions designed without public alternatives may preserve elite advantages when corporations and powerful state agencies retain access while ordinary users, small organizations, and poorer countries are excluded. Compliance costs, intellectual-property barriers, and restrictions upon computing resources may strengthen the largest firms.

A socialist program for technological sovereignty would include public infrastructure, local language development, technical education, open standards, regional cooperation, democratic data governance, and resistance to foreign monopoly control.

== Political communication ==

=== All Eyes on Rafah ===
In May 2024, an apparently AI-generated image bearing the slogan “All Eyes on Rafah” circulated widely on social media during the Israeli assault on [[Rafah]] in the [[Gaza Strip]]. The image showed rows of tents arranged around the slogan and was shared more than 46 million times through Instagram's “Add Yours” feature.<ref>{{Web citation|title=What is ‘All eyes on Rafah’? Decoding a viral social trend on Israel’s war|date=29 May 2024|url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/29/what-is-all-eyes-on-rafah-decoding-the-latest-viral-social-trend|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Al Jazeera}}</ref>

Supporters argued that the simplified image helped spread attention to the assault and allowed people to express solidarity with Palestinians. Critics argued that its sanitized appearance obscured the actual destruction and suffering in Rafah and displaced more direct forms of political action.

The image demonstrated that AI-generated media could be used in pro-Palestinian political communication and complicated claims that support for generative AI is inherently incompatible with anti-imperialist politics.

=== Propaganda and misinformation ===
AI can generate false images, audio, video, and text at low cost. Such media may be used for propaganda, fraud, harassment, or the fabrication of evidence.

The existence of synthetic media does not eliminate the older political problems of propaganda, censorship, concentrated media ownership, and state disinformation. It increases the speed and scale at which deceptive material can be produced and therefore strengthens the need for verification, media literacy, transparent labeling, and accountable institutions.

== Political positions ==

=== Corporate technological development ===
Capitalist firms generally develop AI to obtain profit, market power, proprietary data, intellectual property, military contracts, and control over infrastructure. Corporate AI tends toward closed systems, subscription fees, surveillance, patents, dependence upon cloud monopolies, and decision-making by shareholders and executives.

This does not mean every corporate deployment produces identical effects. Some systems provide socially useful services or expand access. The contradiction lies in productive technologies developed through collective labor and knowledge being controlled as private property.

=== Techno-socialism ===
[[Techno-socialism]] is a political tendency advocating the development and use of advanced technology under socialist ownership, public planning, democratic governance, and worker control. Techno-socialists reject both unconditional support for corporate AI and the complete rejection of artificial intelligence as a productive technology.

According to this position, many harms associated with AI—including employment displacement, surveillance, environmental damage, uncompensated data extraction, and the concentration of wealth—result from capitalist ownership and deployment rather than from computation in itself.

Techno-socialists argue that AI infrastructure should be treated as a socially important means of production. Proposals associated with this position include:

* public or cooperative ownership of major computing infrastructure;
* democratic oversight of high-risk automated systems;
* union participation in workplace deployment;
* shorter working hours without reduced pay;
* universal access to assistive technology;
* public funding for open and transparent models;
* privacy protections and restrictions on data brokerage;
* prohibitions against predictive policing and abusive biometric surveillance;
* environmental regulation of data centers and semiconductor supply chains;
* compensation and bargaining rights for creative workers;
* publicly accountable education and research systems; and
* the distribution of productivity gains among workers and the wider population.

==== Public artificial intelligence ====
Public AI refers to models, computing infrastructure, datasets, and services owned or governed by public institutions rather than private shareholders. Such systems could support libraries, schools, universities, hospitals, public administration, scientific research, translation, and accessibility.

Public ownership alone does not guarantee democratic control. A state-owned system may still be bureaucratic, repressive, or unaccountable. Techno-socialists therefore emphasize worker, community, and user participation alongside public ownership.

==== Democratic data governance ====
Data used by AI systems may include personal information, public records, creative works, workplace activity, and collectively produced knowledge. Democratic data governance would establish limits upon collection, require transparency, protect privacy, and give affected communities a role in deciding how data is used.

==== Automation and reduced working time ====
Techno-socialists argue that productivity gains should reduce the amount of necessary labor rather than produce unemployment and insecurity. Shorter working hours without reduced pay, strong public services, employment guarantees, and social ownership would allow automation to increase freedom instead of strengthening bosses.

=== Anti-AI movements ===
Opposition to artificial intelligence includes several distinct positions. Labor-oriented critics oppose job displacement, workplace surveillance, and uncompensated replicas. Environmental critics emphasize energy, water, mining, and electronic waste. Artists object to dataset collection, imitation, and corporate exploitation. Other opponents reject AI-generated media on cultural, moral, or philosophical grounds.

These positions should not be treated as identical. Criticism of particular applications is compatible with support for other uses.

==== Criticism of technological rejection ====
Techno-socialists criticize blanket technological rejection for treating a means of production as though it possesses an independent class interest. Corporations, militaries, police agencies, and wealthy states are unlikely to abandon AI because left-wing movements refuse to understand or use it.

Voluntary abandonment may instead concentrate knowledge and infrastructure among institutions already possessing capital. A technology cannot be democratized when ordinary people are excluded from understanding, governing, or accessing it.

==== Culture war and class politics ====
The division between “pro-AI” and “anti-AI” positions does not correspond directly to a division between social classes. Workers, corporations, governments, unions, artists, disabled people, educators, and political organizations contain differing views toward particular AI applications.

Debates become cultural conflicts when they focus primarily on whether individual users are authentic, lazy, creative, moral, or socially acceptable. A class analysis instead examines ownership, employment, compensation, infrastructure, data control, working conditions, and the distribution of productivity gains.

An individual worker using AI for translation, accessibility, study, art, or administrative labor does not necessarily share the class interest of a corporation using automation to eliminate employment or weaken a union. Similarly, opposition to AI is not automatically socialist, as it may also reflect professional gatekeeping, defense of corporate intellectual-property monopolies, brand protection, or cultural conservatism.

=== Consumer guilt ===
Individual consumption choices can have real consequences, but consumer shaming does not transfer ownership, strengthen unions, regulate surveillance, or transform energy infrastructure.

From a Marxist perspective, political attention should focus on the corporations, states, investors, supply chains, and institutions that determine the scale and purpose of AI development. Individual use should be evaluated according to its actual effects rather than treated as the primary cause of structural problems.

== Historical comparisons ==
Socialist and anti-colonial movements have historically distinguished between productive technologies and the ruling classes controlling them. Modern infrastructure developed under capitalist or colonial systems has frequently been appropriated, nationalized, or redirected by revolutionary movements.

These comparisons do not imply that earlier revolutionaries held positions on contemporary AI. They illustrate a broader socialist distinction between machinery and the social relations governing it.

=== Marx on machinery ===
[[Karl Marx]] did not describe machinery as an independent enemy possessing its own class interests. He analyzed how capital uses machinery to control labor, increase relative surplus value, displace workers, and transform the labor process.

Marx also recognized that developed productive forces could reduce necessary labor time and create material conditions for greater human freedom if social wealth were no longer governed by private accumulation.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Karl Marx|title=Capital, Volume I, Chapter Fifteen: Machinery and Modern Industry|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Marxists Internet Archive}}</ref>

=== Lenin and electrification ===
The early Soviet government treated electrification, technical education, industrial development, and modern infrastructure as essential to socialist construction. [[Vladimir Lenin]] did not regard machinery as permanently capitalist merely because it had developed within capitalist society.

Techno-socialists compare contemporary computing infrastructure with electrification as a socially transformative technology whose political effects depend upon ownership, planning, and access. This comparison does not imply that Lenin held a position on modern artificial intelligence.

=== Revolutionary China and Cuba ===
The revolutionary governments associated with [[Mao Zedong]] in China and [[Fidel Castro]] in Cuba did not reject industrial machinery, transportation networks, hospitals, communications systems, or scientific institutions because they had previously operated under capitalist or colonial conditions. They sought to transform their ownership and social function.

Supporters of techno-socialism use these histories to argue that socialists should seek control over new means of production rather than abandon them to corporations, militaries, and wealthy states.

=== Fanon and revolutionary radio ===
In ''[[A Dying Colonialism]]'', [[Frantz Fanon]] described the changing social role of radio during the [[Algerian Revolution]]. Radio had initially been associated with French colonial authority, European settler society, and colonial propaganda. During the liberation struggle, Algerians increasingly adopted radio to follow political developments and receive information connected with the [[National Liberation Front (Algeria)|National Liberation Front]].<ref>{{Web citation|author=Frantz Fanon|title=This is the Voice of Algeria|url=https://www.campusincamps.ps/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/fanon-this-is-the-voice-of-algeria.pdf|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Campus in Camps}}</ref>

Fanon's account demonstrated that a technology introduced under colonial conditions could acquire a different political meaning when appropriated by the colonized population. Techno-socialists draw a comparable distinction between technologies developed under capitalism and the social relations governing their later use.

The phrase “by any means necessary,” associated with [[Malcolm X]], is also sometimes invoked by contemporary activists arguing that oppressed groups should not voluntarily surrender useful communications or productive technologies to their opponents. This represents a modern analogy rather than a documented position held by Malcolm X concerning artificial intelligence.

== Corporate positions ==
Corporations may promote, restrict, or oppose particular AI applications according to profit, brand identity, copyright, workforce control, or market position. A corporation's opposition to one use of AI does not necessarily mean it opposes automation throughout its operations.

=== Nintendo ===
Nintendo has expressed caution regarding generative AI, particularly concerning intellectual-property issues and the preservation of the company's accumulated creative knowledge. Its position has not amounted to a rejection of every form of AI or machine learning.

=== Dove ===
Dove announced that it would not use AI-generated imagery to represent “real women” in its advertising. The policy concerns a specific form of brand representation rather than every use of AI by Dove or its parent company, Unilever.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Keep Beauty Real|url=https://www.dove.com/us/en/campaigns/purpose/keep-beauty-real.html|retrieved=1 August 2026|website=Dove}}</ref>

=== Selective corporate opposition ===
A company may reject generated advertising images while using machine learning for logistics, pricing, fraud detection, customer profiling, workplace monitoring, or labor reduction.

Corporate anti-AI language should therefore be evaluated according to the material interests it protects. A firm may invoke ethics while defending proprietary software, copyright holdings, professional scarcity, or an established market position.

== Regulation ==
AI regulation may address workplace displacement, discrimination, surveillance, privacy, automated public decisions, medical safety, military targeting, fraud, environmental effects, deceptive media, and the concentration of computing infrastructure.

Labor-oriented proposals include:

* requiring consultation with workers and unions before workplace deployment;
* prohibiting uncompensated digital replicas;
* protecting workers from algorithmic surveillance;
* requiring human review of consequential decisions;
* establishing legal liability for harmful systems;
* publicly auditing high-risk models;
* enforcing privacy and data-minimization rules;
* regulating data-center energy and water consumption;
* preventing monopoly control of essential computing infrastructure;
* supporting public and cooperative alternatives; and
* protecting the right of users to understand, repair, modify, or refuse automated systems.

Not all AI applications present the same risks. Regulation may distinguish between assistive tools, consumer applications, workplace management, policing, military targeting, medical decisions, and critical infrastructure.

A blanket ban is not equivalent to socialist control. Public ownership, democratic governance, worker power, universal access, and shared productivity gains constitute a different political program from either corporate deregulation or complete technological prohibition.

== Criticism ==
Critics of techno-socialist approaches argue that describing AI as a neutral tool can understate how technologies are shaped during design. Training data, model architecture, funding, interfaces, energy requirements, and business models may embody the priorities of the institutions developing them.

Others argue that public ownership does not automatically eliminate surveillance, censorship, bureaucratic control, or military use. State institutions can deploy AI repressively even without private shareholders.

Techno-socialists respond that technology is neither socially neutral nor politically predetermined. AI systems are shaped by existing institutions, but those institutions can be contested and transformed. They argue that abandoning technological development would not remove it from society and would instead leave its direction to capital, militaries, and powerful states.

The debate therefore concerns not only whether AI is beneficial or harmful, but which institutions possess the power to determine its development and whose interests it serves.

== See also ==

* [[Automation]]
* [[Capitalism]]
* [[Communism]]
* [[Constant capital]]
* [[Cybernetics]]
* [[Digital colonialism]]
* [[Imperialism]]
* [[Intellectual property]]
* [[Karl Marx]]
* [[Means of production]]
* [[People's Republic of China]]
* [[Productive forces]]
* [[Scientific socialism]]
* [[Surveillance capitalism]]
* [[Techno-socialism]]
* [[Variable capital]]
* [[Essay:Intellectual property in the times of AI]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:Computing]]

Military intervention

2026-07-17T04:04:16Z

Jadenw815: Added a bit more context about invasion ^•^

'''Military intervention''' is the use of armed force by one state, coalition, military alliance, or organized armed force within the territory or armed conflict of another country. It includes invasion, occupation, bombing, naval blockade, expeditionary warfare, military advisers, direct combat support, peace-enforcement operations, counterinsurgency, and the arming or direction of proxy forces. It may occur in an interstate war, a [[civil war]], a struggle for [[national liberation]], a conflict created by partition, or an attempt to defend or overthrow an existing government.

An '''invasion''' is a narrower form of military intervention in which armed forces enter or attack a territory. An '''occupation''' is prolonged foreign military authority over territory following an invasion or other armed action. Under Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of a hostile army.<ref name="ICRCoccupation">{{Web citation|title=Occupation|date=|url=https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/occupation|authors=International Committee of the Red Cross|website=ICRC|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref> Not every intervention produces an occupation, and not every foreign troop presence constitutes occupation when it rests on genuine and continuing consent.

The [[United Nations Charter]] generally prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of states, while Article 51 recognizes individual and collective self-defence after an armed attack.<ref name="UNcharter">{{Web citation|title=Charter of the United Nations|date=1945-06-26|url=https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text|authors=United Nations|website=United Nations|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref name="UNart51">{{Web citation|title=Actions with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression|date=|url=https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/repertoire/actions|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Security Council|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref> International legality, however, does not by itself settle the political character of an intervention. [[Anti-imperialism|Anti-imperialists]] also examine the class forces involved, the history of colonialism and partition, the intervention's relationship to [[imperialism]], and whether it strengthens or destroys [[self-determination]].

Military interventions are not politically identical merely because armies cross borders. A fascist war of conquest, an imperialist regime-change war, an anti-fascist offensive, an intervention that ends mass extermination, and military assistance to an anti-colonial government may use similar military forms while serving opposing social purposes. The political character of an intervention is therefore determined by its historical context, objectives, class content, conduct, and aftermath.

== Political analysis ==

=== Self-determination ===
[[Self-determination]] is central to anti-imperialist analysis. The right of an oppressed or colonized people to free itself from [[colonialism]], foreign occupation, [[apartheid]], or national oppression is not politically equivalent to a settler-colonial or imperial power claiming the right to preserve its domination. Military intervention must therefore be judged according to who possesses sovereignty, who is denied it, and whether foreign force expands popular independence or substitutes outside rule.

The same principle applies when a government requests assistance. Invitation may be relevant to legality and legitimacy, but it is not decisive by itself. Nearly every intervention has local allies, collaborating elites, exile forces, client governments, or armed factions willing to welcome foreign support. A recognized government may invite an imperial power against a liberation movement, while a revolutionary government may request assistance against colonial or apartheid aggression. The decisive question is what political order the intervention defends and what material consequences follow.

=== Invasion, intervention and occupation ===
An invasion refers primarily to the entry of armed forces into another territory. Intervention is broader and can include airstrikes, artillery, naval operations, advisers, military intelligence, arms transfers, proxy forces, or direct participation in a civil war. Occupation describes the continuing exercise of effective foreign military authority over territory.<ref name="ICRCoccupation" /> The hostile character of an occupation does not depend on whether organized armed resistance continues.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Commentary on Common Article 2 of the Third Geneva Convention|date=2020|url=https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciii-1949/article-2/commentary/2020|authors=International Committee of the Red Cross|website=ICRC International Humanitarian Law Databases|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

An intervention may begin with a limited or defensible purpose and later become occupation, dependency, annexation, or foreign control. Its aftermath is therefore part of its political character. Anti-imperialist analysis asks whether the intervening force withdraws after defeating a specific danger, whether local sovereignty is restored, whether permanent bases remain, and whether the affected society is subordinated to the intervening power.

=== Political roles ===
Interventions are best distinguished by the forces and social relations they strengthen. The principal political roles of military intervention include:

* '''Imperialist intervention''': military action that imposes client rule, seizes strategic territory, opens markets by force, protects foreign capital, secures resources, or expands permanent military power.
* '''Colonial or settler-colonial intervention''': conquest aimed at subordinating Indigenous or colonized peoples and restructuring land, population, law, and sovereignty for an outside power or settler population.
* '''Counterrevolutionary intervention''': armed action intended to destroy a socialist government, national-liberation movement, popular revolution, or anti-colonial reform process.
* '''Fascist intervention''': conquest organized around fascism, racial hierarchy, extermination, colonial expansion, and militant anti-communism.
* '''Anti-fascist or anti-genocide intervention''': military action that defeats fascist occupation, mass extermination, or a regime carrying out genocidal violence.
* '''Revolutionary internationalist intervention''': military assistance from a socialist or revolutionary state to an anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, socialist, or anti-fascist struggle.
* '''Contested intervention''': an intervention containing contradictory elements, mixed motives, or disputed consequences that cannot be reduced to one slogan.

== Reactionary interventions ==

=== Imperialist and regime-change invasions ===
Imperialist invasions are wars fought to extend the political, military, and economic power of an imperial state. They are commonly justified through claims of security, democracy, civilization, counterterrorism, or humanitarian necessity, while producing occupation, privatization, state collapse, client rule, or expanded foreign military presence.

Major examples include:

* '''[[Iraq War|U.S.-led invasion of Iraq]]''': The 2003 invasion overthrew the Iraqi government and created a long occupation, mass death, displacement, institutional collapse, sectarian conflict, and extensive restructuring of the Iraqi state.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 1483 (2003)|date=2003-05-22|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/495555|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=The Iraq War, 2003–2011|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/2001-2008/iraq|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)|U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan]]''': The intervention began after the September 11 attacks and developed into a twenty-year occupation involving counterinsurgency, air war, foreign bases, client-state dependence, and extensive civilian suffering.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The United States War in Afghanistan|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/2001-2008/afghanistan|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[2011 military intervention in Libya|NATO intervention in Libya]]''': [[NATO]] used United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 to launch an air campaign that developed from civilian-protection claims into direct support for regime change. The destruction of the Libyan state was followed by militia rule, foreign interference, and prolonged war.<ref name="UN1973">{{Web citation|title=Resolution 1973 (2011)|date=2011-03-17|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/699777|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK's future policy options|date=2016-09-14|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf|authors=House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee|website=UK Parliament|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[United States invasion of Panama|U.S. invasion of Panama]]''': Operation Just Cause overthrew [[Manuel Noriega]] in 1989 and reaffirmed U.S. military dominance over a strategically important canal state.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The United States Invasion of Panama, 1989|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/panama|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[United States invasion of Grenada|U.S. invasion of Grenada]]''': The 1983 invasion destroyed the remaining institutions of the [[New Jewel Movement]] after the overthrow and killing of [[Maurice Bishop]], and restored a political order aligned with the United States.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 38/7: The situation in Grenada|date=1983-11-02|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/28238|authors=United Nations General Assembly|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Gulf War|U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991]]''': Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait violated Kuwaiti sovereignty, but the U.S.-led military response also defended the Gulf monarchies, oil routes, and a permanent expansion of U.S. military power in [[West Asia]].<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 678 (1990)|date=1990-11-29|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/102245|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

=== Settler-colonial invasions ===
A settler-colonial invasion aims not only to defeat an army but to transform land, population, property, and sovereignty in favor of settlers. It combines military conquest with land seizure, removal, settlement, racial hierarchy, assimilation, and the destruction of Indigenous political authority.

Several settler-colonial invasions and military expansions include:

* '''European conquest of the Americas''': European states invaded and colonized Indigenous territories through warfare, enslavement, massacres, settlement, disease, forced conversion, and land seizure, establishing the foundations of later settler states.
* '''[[British colonization of Australia]]''': British settlement beginning in 1788 produced frontier wars, dispossession, massacres, and the imposition of British sovereignty over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Colonial period, 1788–1901|date=|url=https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/atwar/colonial|authors=Australian War Memorial|website=Australian War Memorial|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[French Algeria|French conquest of Algeria]]''': France invaded Algiers in 1830 and built a settler colony through military conquest, land confiscation, European settlement, and repression that lasted until Algerian independence in 1962.<ref>{{Web citation|title=French Algeria|date=|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Algeria/Colonial-rule|authors=Encyclopaedia Britannica|website=Britannica|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Mexican–American War|U.S. invasion of Mexico]]''': The 1846–1848 war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, through which Mexico ceded a vast territory to the United States and U.S. settler expansion moved across Mexican and Indigenous lands.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)|date=1848-02-02|url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo|authors=United States National Archives|website=National Archives|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom]]''': In 1893, U.S. diplomatic and military support enabled planter and business interests to overthrow Queen [[Liliʻuokalani]], clearing the way for annexation despite Native Hawaiian opposition.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Annexation of Hawaii, 1898|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/hawaii|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Public Law 103-150: Apology Resolution|date=1993-11-23|url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/senate-joint-resolution/19/text|authors=United States Congress|website=Congress.gov|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Israeli occupation of Palestine|Israeli military expansion in Palestine]]''': Anti-imperialists analyze Israeli wars, occupations, settlement building, forced displacement, and annexationist policies as part of a continuing settler-colonial project against the Palestinian people.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 2334 (2016)|date=2016-12-23|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/853446|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem|date=2024-07-19|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/186|authors=International Court of Justice|website=International Court of Justice|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

=== Colonial invasions and occupations ===
Colonial invasion establishes direct foreign rule over another people. Colonial warfare frequently combines military conquest with taxation, forced labor, resource extraction, cultural suppression, racial hierarchy, and counterinsurgency.

Examples include:

* '''[[British Raj|British conquest of India]]''': The East India Company and later the British Crown subordinated the Indian subcontinent through wars, annexations, military repression, taxation, and colonial administration.
* '''[[French Indochina|French conquest of Indochina]]''': France conquered Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and imposed plantation extraction, forced labor, taxation, and violent repression of anti-colonial resistance.
* '''[[Japanese occupation of Korea|Japanese colonization of Korea]]''': Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and imposed military rule, forced assimilation, land seizure, repression, and forced labor until 1945.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Korea under Japanese rule|date=|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Korea/Korea-under-Japanese-rule|authors=Encyclopaedia Britannica|website=Britannica|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Japanese rule in Taiwan|Japanese colonization of Taiwan]]''': Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 and consolidated colonial rule through military campaigns, police power, assimilation, and an economy organized around imperial needs.
* '''[[Italian Somaliland|Italian colonization of Somalia]]''': Italy established colonial rule over Somali territories as part of its wider imperial expansion in the Horn of Africa.
* '''[[East Timor genocide|Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor]]''': Indonesia invaded in 1975 and imposed annexation, military occupation, massacres, forced displacement, and famine until the independence process of 1999–2002.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Chega! The Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste|date=2005|url=https://www.etan.org/etanpdf/2006/CAVR/Chega!-Report-Executive-Summary.pdf|authors=Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste|website=CAVR|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 384 (1975)|date=1975-12-22|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/93713|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

=== Fascist invasions ===
Fascist invasions are wars of conquest organized around racial domination, colonial expansion, militant anti-communism, extermination, forced labor, and authoritarian empire.

Major examples include:

* '''[[Second Italo-Ethiopian War|Italian invasion of Ethiopia]]''': Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 and used chemical weapons, massacres, concentration camps, and colonial terror against Ethiopian resistance.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The dispute between Ethiopia and Italy|date=|url=https://libraryresources.unog.ch/leagueofnationsarchives/ethiopia|authors=League of Nations|website=United Nations Archives Geneva|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Italian invasion of Albania]]''': Fascist Italy invaded Albania in April 1939, deposed King Zog, and incorporated the country into the Italian imperial system.
* '''[[Invasion of Poland|German invasion of Poland]]''': Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, beginning the Second World War in Europe and imposing a genocidal occupation.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Invasion of Poland, Fall 1939|date=|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-poland-fall-1939|authors=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Battle of France|German invasion of France]]''': Germany conquered France in 1940 and established occupation alongside the collaborationist Vichy regime.
* '''[[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the Soviet Union]]''': The 1941 invasion was a genocidal war of annihilation aimed at destroying the [[Soviet Union]], communism, and large sections of the population of Eastern Europe.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941|date=|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941|authors=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Second Sino-Japanese War|Japanese invasion of China]]''': Imperial Japan's war in China involved occupation, massacres, forced labor, puppet governments, biological warfare, and widespread atrocities.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Second Sino-Japanese War|date=|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Second-Sino-Japanese-War|authors=Encyclopaedia Britannica|website=Britannica|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''Japanese invasions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific''': Japan's wartime expansion imposed military occupation, forced labor, resource extraction, and terror across the region.

=== Counterrevolutionary military interventions ===
Counterrevolutionary military intervention is armed foreign action intended to destroy a revolution, socialist government, communist movement, anti-colonial force, or popular reform process. It can take the form of invasion, expeditionary troops, air power, advisers, proxy armies, military intelligence, or direct logistical support.

Important examples include:

* '''[[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]]''': Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and other powers deployed forces against the [[Bolsheviks]] and supported the White armies between 1918 and 1920.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Russian Civil War: Foreign intervention|date=|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention|authors=Encyclopaedia Britannica|website=Britannica|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Bay of Pigs Invasion]]''': The United States organized, trained, armed, and transported a counterrevolutionary exile force that invaded Cuba in April 1961 in an attempt to overthrow the [[Cuban Revolution]].<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Bay of Pigs Invasion and its Aftermath, April 1961–October 1962|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/bay-of-pigs|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Vietnam War|U.S. intervention in Vietnam]]''': The United States deployed hundreds of thousands of troops, conducted a massive bombing campaign, and maintained the U.S.-backed southern state against communist-led national liberation and reunification.<ref name="VietnamDOS">{{Web citation|title=U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Korean War|U.S.-led intervention in Korea]]''': U.S. and United Nations forces intervened on behalf of the Republic of Korea. After the Inchon landing, U.S.-organized forces crossed the 38th parallel and advanced toward the Chinese border, transforming the war from defence of the South into an invasion of the North.<ref name="UN83">{{Web citation|title=Resolution 83 (1950)|date=1950-06-27|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/112026|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=The Korean War, 1950–1953|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war-2|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Contras|U.S. military support for the Contras]]''': The United States armed, trained, financed, and directed counterrevolutionary forces against the [[Sandinista National Liberation Front|Sandinista]] government of Nicaragua.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)|date=1986-06-27|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70|authors=International Court of Justice|website=International Court of Justice|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''South African intervention in Angola''': Apartheid South Africa invaded Angola and supported [[UNITA]] against the [[MPLA]], linking the Angolan Civil War to the regional struggle over apartheid and Western-backed counterrevolution.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 387 (1976)|date=1976-03-31|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/93727|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''South African support for [[RENAMO]] in Mozambique''': Apartheid South Africa armed and supported RENAMO against the [[FRELIMO]] government, prolonging the Mozambican Civil War and punishing Mozambique for supporting liberation movements in southern Africa.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Regional destabilisation and cross-border operations|date=1998|url=https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/reports/volume2/chapter2/subsection35.htm|authors=Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa|website=South African History Archive|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''U.S., Pakistani, and Saudi support for the Afghan mujahideen''': Foreign arms, money, training, and intelligence strengthened anti-communist Islamist factions against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet military presence.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

== Revolutionary and anti-imperialist interventions ==
Revolutionary and anti-imperialist interventions are military actions or forms of material assistance directed against fascism, colonialism, apartheid, genocide, imperialist invasion, or foreign-backed counterrevolution. They are not automatically progressive merely because they are carried out by a socialist state. Their legitimacy depends on whether they strengthen the sovereignty and revolutionary capacity of the assisted people or replace one domination with another.

=== Anti-fascist intervention ===
Anti-fascist intervention refers to military action that defeats fascist aggression and occupation. The use of armed force against fascist armies is politically distinct from fascist conquest, although postwar occupations and spheres of influence must still be analyzed separately.

Major examples include:

* '''[[Normandy landings|Allied invasion of Normandy]]''': The 1944 invasion was an armed entry into Nazi-occupied France, but its political content was the defeat of fascist occupation rather than conquest of France.<ref>{{Web citation|title=D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy|date=|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/d-day-the-invasion-of-normandy|authors=Imperial War Museums|website=Imperial War Museums|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Allied invasion of Italy]]''': The 1943 campaign helped destroy Mussolini's fascist state and opened a major front against the Axis.
* '''[[Eastern Front (World War II)|Soviet advance into Eastern Europe and Germany]]''': The [[Red Army]] destroyed the main body of the Nazi war machine and liberated territories occupied by Germany. Later Soviet domination in parts of Eastern Europe remains a separate political question from the anti-fascist character of the war against Nazism.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Union and the Eastern Front|date=|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-soviet-union-and-the-eastern-front|authors=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

=== Revolutionary internationalist intervention ===
Revolutionary internationalism is military assistance given by a socialist or revolutionary state to another revolutionary, socialist, anti-colonial, or anti-fascist force. It differs from imperialist intervention when it does not seek colonies, private investment privileges, permanent bases, territorial annexation, or the political subordination of the assisted country.

Cases of revolutionary internationalist or contested socialist-bloc intervention include:

* '''[[Cuban intervention in Angola]]''': Cuba deployed troops at the request of the MPLA government beginning in 1975 and fought apartheid South Africa, UNITA, and foreign-backed counterrevolution. Cuban forces later contributed to the defeat of South African forces at [[Battle of Cuito Cuanavale|Cuito Cuanavale]], a turning point in the regional struggle against apartheid.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 31/6: The policies of apartheid of the Government of South Africa|date=1976-11-09|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/190978|authors=United Nations General Assembly|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Address by Nelson Mandela in Matanzas, Cuba|date=1991-07-26|url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/nelson-mandela-address-to-the-people-of-cuba-matanzas-cuba-26-july-1991/|authors=Nelson Mandela|website=African National Congress|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Chinese intervention in the Korean War]]''': Chinese People's Volunteers entered Korea after U.S.-led forces crossed the 38th parallel and advanced toward the Yalu River. Anti-imperialists generally interpret the intervention as defensive assistance to the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]] and protection of China's border from U.S.-led escalation.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Korean War, 1950–1953|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war-2|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''Soviet military support to the Spanish Republic''': The Soviet Union supplied aircraft, tanks, advisers, pilots, and weapons to the [[Second Spanish Republic]] against Franco's fascist forces during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref>{{Web citation|title=Spanish Civil War: Foreign intervention|date=|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Spanish-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention|authors=Encyclopaedia Britannica|website=Britannica|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''Socialist-bloc military support for Vietnam''': The Soviet Union, China, the DPRK, Cuba, and other socialist states supplied air defence, weapons, advisers, engineering units, logistics, and economic support against French colonialism and later U.S. intervention.<ref name="VietnamDOS" />
* '''Soviet and Cuban support for Mozambique''': The Soviet Union and Cuba assisted FRELIMO with military training and material support while Mozambique faced RENAMO and apartheid-backed destabilization.
* '''Socialist-bloc involvement in Ethiopia and Somalia''': Soviet, Cuban, and South Yemeni support in the Horn of Africa became entangled in the Ogaden War, changing alliances, territorial conflict, and competing state interests. The case demonstrates that socialist alignment alone does not guarantee an intervention's liberatory character.
* '''[[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet intervention in Afghanistan]]''': The Soviet Union entered Afghanistan in 1979 after repeated requests from the Afghan government. It defended a socialist ally against armed counterrevolution, but also deepened foreign dependency, escalated the war, and caused extensive civilian suffering, making it a contested intervention among anti-imperialists.<ref>{{Web citation|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]]''': The 1968 intervention was justified by Soviet leaders as defence of socialism, but it violated Czechoslovak sovereignty and suppressed socialist self-determination.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968|date=|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/soviet-invasion-czechoslavkia|authors=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State|website=Office of the Historian|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Soviet intervention in Hungary]]''': The intervention suppressed an internal uprising and remains a major example of how a state claiming socialist defence can act hegemonically against another socialist country.

=== Anti-genocide interventions ===
An anti-genocide intervention is armed action that stops mass extermination or destroys a regime carrying out genocidal violence. Such interventions can be defensible, but their later occupation policies and political consequences still require separate analysis.

Important cases include:

* '''[[Cambodian–Vietnamese War|Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia]]''': Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea in December 1978 after border attacks and mass killings by the [[Khmer Rouge]]. Vietnamese forces captured Phnom Penh in January 1979 and ended Khmer Rouge rule, although the subsequent Vietnamese military presence and Cambodia's dependency remain debated.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Report of the Group of Experts for Cambodia established pursuant to General Assembly resolution 52/135|date=1999-03-16|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/255955|authors=United Nations|website=United Nations|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Case 002/02 Judgment|date=2018-11-16|url=https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/case/topic/1299|authors=Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia|website=ECCC|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Uganda–Tanzania War|Tanzanian intervention in Uganda]]''': Tanzania and Ugandan exile forces overthrew Idi Amin after Uganda invaded Tanzanian territory. The intervention ended a violent dictatorship and followed direct Ugandan aggression.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Idi Amin: Presidency and exile|date=|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin|authors=Encyclopaedia Britannica|website=Britannica|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''Allied and Soviet advances into Nazi-occupied Europe''': These military campaigns defeated regimes conducting genocide, colonial occupation, forced labor, and mass extermination.
* '''[[Rwandan Civil War|Rwandan Patriotic Front victory in Rwanda]]''': The RPF's military advance ended the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, although the later Rwandan political order and Rwandan interventions in Congo require separate analysis.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Outreach Programme on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda|date=|url=https://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/historical-background.shtml|authors=United Nations|website=United Nations|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

=== Reunification interventions ===
Reunification intervention is military action carried out in the name of restoring a country divided by colonial occupation, imposed partition, civil war, or Cold War settlement. Such interventions cannot be judged solely by which side crossed a partition line first. The history of the division, foreign sponsorship, class forces, and rival state projects must also be examined.

Major cases include:

* '''[[Korean War|Korean reunification struggle]]''': North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950, but the conflict developed from Japanese colonialism, the U.S.-Soviet division of Korea, occupation, competing governments, southern repression, uprisings, massacres, and border fighting.<ref name="UN83" /><ref>{{Web citation|title=What is the Jeju 4·3 Incident?|date=|url=https://jeju43peace.or.kr/eng/sub01_01.do|authors=Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation|website=Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Vietnam War|Vietnamese reunification struggle]]''': The Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the [[National Liberation Front of South Vietnam]] fought a national-liberation and reunification struggle against a U.S.-backed southern state created within the partition imposed after French colonial rule.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China|date=1954-07-21|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp|authors=Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference|website=Avalon Project, Yale Law School|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''[[Chinese Civil War|China and Taiwan]]''': The Taiwan question originates in Japanese colonial rule, the Chinese Civil War, the Kuomintang retreat to Taiwan, U.S. military protection, and the unresolved contest over Chinese sovereignty.
* '''Yemeni reunification and later wars''': The 1990 unification of North and South Yemen did not resolve class, regional, tribal, and geopolitical contradictions, and later civil wars became arenas for regional military intervention.

== Invitation and legitimacy ==

=== Invitation does not settle political character ===
A foreign military force remains an intervention even when invited by a recognized government or local faction. Invitation may indicate consent from one authority, but it does not prove that the intervening power supports popular sovereignty. Recognition can reflect imperial influence, partition, or the interests of dominant states rather than the will of the population.

Several cases demonstrate this distinction:

* '''South Vietnam''': The South Vietnamese state welcomed U.S. military support, but anti-imperialists understand the war as foreign intervention against national liberation and reunification.
* '''South Korea''': The southern government welcomed U.S. and United Nations support, but the invitation did not erase partition, U.S. occupation, repression, massacres, or the civil-war character of the conflict.
* '''Angola''': The MPLA government invited Cuba, but Cuban intervention is judged differently because it opposed apartheid invasion and foreign-backed counterrevolution.
* '''Afghanistan''': The Afghan government requested Soviet assistance, while mujahideen factions accepted U.S., Pakistani, and Saudi support. Invitation alone cannot determine which intervention strengthened liberation or reaction.
* '''Iraq''': Some Iraqis and exile forces welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but this did not make the U.S. invasion liberatory or erase occupation and state collapse.
* '''Libya''': Anti-Gaddafi forces welcomed NATO air power, but local support did not prevent the campaign from becoming regime change followed by state fragmentation.
* '''Congo''': Congolese factions have cooperated with neighboring states, but local allies do not make foreign military operations or proxy warfare compatible with Congolese sovereignty.
* '''Normandy''': Many French people welcomed the Allied armies against Nazi occupation, showing that local welcome can support legitimacy when it aligns with anti-fascist liberation rather than imperial domination.

=== Recognition is not legitimacy ===
International recognition does not automatically make a state popular, independent, or representative. South Vietnam, South Korea, rival Libyan authorities, and competing Chinese governments have all shown how recognition can be shaped by foreign power and civil-war alignments. A recognized government can be a client regime, a partition-created authority, or a government dependent on foreign military protection.

The political test is therefore broader: which class forces are strengthened; whether the assisted government or movement possesses a popular basis; whether sovereignty expands or contracts; what the foreign military does; and whether it withdraws after the stated objective or becomes a permanent source of domination.

== Contested interventions ==
Contested interventions combine real aggression, security concerns, competing national claims, civil war, foreign manipulation, and contradictory outcomes. Anti-imperialists analyze these cases concretely rather than assuming that every action by an opponent of the United States is progressive or that every Western-backed action is defensive.

Examples include:

* '''[[Iraqi invasion of Kuwait]]''': Iraq's 1990 invasion and annexation attempt violated Kuwait's sovereignty. The U.S.-led response nevertheless became an imperialist war that strengthened U.S. dominance, Gulf monarchies, and permanent regional militarization.
* '''Soviet intervention in Afghanistan''': The intervention defended a socialist government and confronted externally supported counterrevolution, while also escalating war, producing dependency, and causing mass suffering.
* '''Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia''': Vietnam destroyed the Khmer Rouge regime and ended genocide, but its subsequent military presence raised questions about Cambodian sovereignty and dependence.
* '''Tanzanian intervention in Uganda''': Tanzania responded to Ugandan aggression and removed Idi Amin, but the cross-border overthrow of a government still requires analysis of the political order established afterward.
* '''[[Russian invasion of Ukraine]]''': The invasion violated Ukrainian sovereignty and produced occupation and annexation claims. Its background includes NATO expansion, post-Soviet crisis, the conflict after 2014, and disputes over Russian-speaking populations, but these factors do not remove responsibility for invasion and occupation.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution ES-11/1: Aggression against Ukraine|date=2022-03-02|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3959039|authors=United Nations General Assembly|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

== Liberal interventionism ==
[[Liberalism|Liberal]] interventionism holds that powerful states, particularly the United States and its allies, can use military force for progressive purposes such as protecting civilians, enforcing human rights, defending democracy, or stopping dictatorship. Anti-imperialists argue that this approach treats imperial states as neutral moral actors rather than states shaped by ruling-class interests, military alliances, arms industries, strategic competition, and histories of colonial violence.

=== Humanitarian pretexts ===
Humanitarian suffering and atrocities are real, but imperial powers apply humanitarian claims selectively. They condemn abuses by enemy states while supporting allies responsible for occupation, dictatorship, or mass killing. Humanitarian language becomes a pretext when it enables bombing, regime change, occupation, or the destruction of sovereignty without producing durable protection for the population.

Military cases commonly discussed through humanitarian justification include:

* '''NATO bombing of Yugoslavia''': NATO presented the 1999 air war as humanitarian protection, but the bombing lacked Security Council authorization, weakened Yugoslav sovereignty, and expanded NATO power in the Balkans.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Operation Allied Force|date=|url=https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49602.htm|authors=NATO|website=NATO|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|title=Security Council rejects demand for cessation of use of force against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|date=1999-03-26|url=https://press.un.org/en/1999/19990326.sc6659.html|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''NATO intervention in Libya''': The intervention was authorized around civilian protection but developed into close air support for forces seeking regime change.<ref name="UN1973" />
* '''U.S. intervention in Afghanistan''': Women's rights and democracy became major retrospective justifications for a war rooted in counterterrorism and geopolitical power.
* '''Military intervention in Somalia''': Humanitarian and peacekeeping mandates developed into coercive military operations, illustrating how relief and armed intervention can merge.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 794 (1992)|date=1992-12-03|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/154648|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

=== Abstract invasion morality ===
The statement that every invasion is politically identical reduces history to the first visible border crossing. This approach cannot explain why Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union and the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France had opposite political meanings. Nor can it explain anti-colonial wars across partition lines, military assistance requested by revolutionary governments, or interventions that end genocide.

Context does not automatically justify force, but the trigger of a war is not always its full origin. Colonialism, occupation, imposed partition, repression, massacres, border clashes, foreign military aid, and rival state-building may precede open war. Korea and Vietnam demonstrate why the immediate outbreak of conventional fighting must be placed within a longer history.

=== Invader-victim moralism ===
An invaded state has a right not to be conquered, but invasion does not make its ruling class progressive or innocent. Anti-imperialists can defend sovereignty without romanticizing a monarchy, dictatorship, client regime, settler state, or anti-communist government.

Examples include:

* '''Kuwait''': Iraq's annexation violated sovereignty, but the Kuwaiti monarchy did not become democratic or socialist because it was invaded.
* '''South Korea under Syngman Rhee''': North Korea's attack did not erase the southern state's anti-communist terror, massacres, imprisonment, and dependence on the United States.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Truth and Reconciliation: Activities of the Past Three Years|date=|url=https://www.jinsil.go.kr/eng/|authors=Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea|website=Truth and Reconciliation Commission|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''South Vietnam''': Foreign recognition and invasion by northern forces did not erase the southern state's dependence, repression, blocked reunification elections, and role in the U.S. counterrevolutionary war.
* '''Ukraine''': Opposition to Russian invasion does not require ignoring NATO strategy, nationalist forces, Western arms, or the class contradictions of the Ukrainian state.

=== Land-area morality ===
The size of a state does not determine its political character. A smaller state can be colonial, fascist, or imperialist, while a larger state can be defending itself from invasion. France was smaller than Algeria but conquered it; Portugal was smaller than Brazil but colonized it; the Netherlands was smaller than Indonesia but ruled it; Japan was smaller than China but invaded it; and Nazi Germany was smaller than the Soviet Union but launched a genocidal war of conquest.

Likewise, military weakness does not make a movement progressive. The Afghan mujahideen were weaker than the Soviet Union and the Afghan government but included deeply reactionary forces armed by imperial and regional powers. Rwanda is much smaller than Congo, yet Rwandan military operations and support for armed groups have repeatedly violated Congolese sovereignty.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Final report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo|date=|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/search?ln=en&p=Group+of+Experts+Democratic+Republic+of+the+Congo|authors=United Nations Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

== Civil-war interventions ==
Civil-war intervention is foreign military participation in an internal war, revolutionary struggle, partition conflict, or national-liberation war. It includes combat troops, air power, weapons, training, intelligence, military advisers, mercenaries, naval support, and proxy forces. Foreign military support can transform a domestic conflict into an internationalized war while local movements continue to possess their own social roots and political aims.

=== Reactionary and imperialist civil-war interventions ===
Major cases include:

* '''Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War''': Foreign armies and supplies supported anti-Bolshevik forces.
* '''U.S. intervention in the Chinese Civil War''': The United States transported, trained, equipped, and supplied Kuomintang forces in an effort to preserve an anti-communist state in China.
* '''U.S. intervention in Vietnam''': U.S. troops and air power defended the southern state against the communist-led North and National Liberation Front.
* '''U.S. and United Nations intervention in Korea''': Foreign forces preserved the southern state and later invaded the North.
* '''South African intervention in Angola''': Apartheid forces invaded and supported UNITA against the MPLA.
* '''South African intervention in Mozambique''': South Africa armed RENAMO against FRELIMO.
* '''Foreign support for the Afghan mujahideen''': The United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and others armed Islamist factions against the Afghan government.
* '''Rwandan intervention in Congo''': Rwanda has used direct troops and local armed allies in eastern Congo, contributing to the internationalization of the Congolese wars.
* '''Foreign interventions in Syria''': The civil war became internationalized through U.S., Russian, Iranian, Turkish, Gulf-state, and other military involvement, together with foreign-backed armed groups.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic|date=|url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/iici-syria/independent-international-commission|authors=United Nations Human Rights Council|website=Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>
* '''Saudi-led intervention in Yemen''': The war became a regional conflict through Saudi and Emirati air power, blockade, foreign arms, and competing external support.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Resolution 2216 (2015)|date=2015-04-14|url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/791829|authors=United Nations Security Council|website=United Nations Digital Library|access-date=2026-07-16}}</ref>

=== Revolutionary and anti-imperialist civil-war interventions ===
Military support can also strengthen anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, anti-fascist, or socialist forces. Examples include:

* '''Chinese intervention in Korea''': Chinese forces defended the DPRK after U.S.-led forces invaded the North and approached China's border.
* '''Soviet military support for the DPRK''': The Soviet Union supplied the northern Korean state in a conflict created by colonialism and foreign partition.
* '''Chinese and Soviet support for Vietnam''': Socialist states supplied weapons, air defence, advisers, and logistics against French and U.S. intervention.
* '''Cuban intervention in Angola''': Cuban troops defended the MPLA against apartheid South Africa and UNITA.
* '''Soviet support for the Spanish Republic''': Soviet weapons and personnel assisted the anti-fascist side of the Spanish Civil War.

=== Proxy wars ===
A proxy war occurs when foreign states arm, fund, train, advise, or direct local forces instead of relying mainly on their own troops. Proxy warfare reduces the political cost of intervention for the sponsoring power while transferring death, displacement, and destruction to the target country.

Proxy wars expanded during the [[Cold War]] because nuclear weapons made direct war between major powers potentially catastrophic. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, and Congo became major arenas in which international powers pursued wider strategic struggles through local conflicts. The end of the Cold War did not end proxy warfare; it continued through arms networks, private military companies, regional patrons, foreign intelligence, air support, and military occupations.

External military support can prolong civil war by preventing clients from losing without enabling a just settlement. Patrons may continue supplying arms because their strategic goals outlast the local causes of war. Each intervention then becomes the justification for another, and the original social conflict becomes buried beneath regional rivalry and imperial competition.

== Cold War intervention narratives ==
Cold War narratives often begin at the moment a communist or anti-Western force launches a major military operation, while excluding the colonial, political, and military history that produced the conflict. Anti-imperialists distinguish the immediate trigger of war from its deeper origin.

=== Single-date framing ===
Single-date framing treats one attack or border crossing as the entire cause of a war. It is especially misleading in divided countries.

* '''Korea''': The June 1950 crossing of the 38th parallel triggered full conventional war, but the conflict developed from Japanese colonialism, foreign occupation, partition, southern repression, uprisings, massacres, border clashes, and rival national projects.
* '''Vietnam''': Accounts beginning with northern or NLF military action conceal French colonialism, the unimplemented reunification process, U.S. state-building in the South, and escalating foreign intervention.
* '''Afghanistan''': Accounts beginning in December 1979 conceal the Saur Revolution, land reform, armed counterrevolution, earlier foreign assistance, and repeated requests for Soviet support.
* '''Angola''': Accounts presenting Cuban troops as the origin of the war conceal Portuguese colonialism, apartheid South African invasion, U.S. support for anti-MPLA forces, and the MPLA's request for assistance.

=== Partition before war ===
Partition lines created by colonial or occupying powers may later be treated as natural international borders. Korea and Vietnam demonstrate how imposed division can create rival governments and reunification wars. Palestine and the Indian subcontinent likewise demonstrate how colonial partition can generate continuing military conflict, displacement, and contested sovereignty.

Partition does not automatically justify every reunification offensive, but it prevents the conflict from being understood as an ordinary war between unrelated states. Anti-imperialist analysis asks how the border was created, which powers imposed it, whether the people consented, and what social order each competing government represented.

== Aftermath and legacy ==
The aftermath of military intervention is part of its political content. A campaign may claim to defend civilians, defeat fascism, assist a revolution, or stop genocide, yet later produce occupation, permanent bases, annexation, dependency, state collapse, or the suppression of local sovereignty.

Imperialist interventions have repeatedly left behind destroyed institutions, client militaries, privatized economies, armed factions, sectarian division, foreign bases, and long-term instability. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Congo, and Yemen show different forms of this legacy. Revolutionary or anti-fascist interventions must also be judged by whether the assisting force withdraws and whether the affected people gain the capacity to govern themselves.

The history of military intervention since 1945 is increasingly the history of internationalized civil wars and proxy conflicts. Direct invasion remains central, but powerful states also rely on air campaigns, military advisers, special forces, arms transfers, intelligence, mercenaries, naval power, and local clients. The military form changes, but the central political question remains the same: whether intervention strengthens liberation and self-determination or deepens foreign domination.

== See also ==

* [[Imperialism]]
* [[Colonialism]]
* [[Settler colonialism]]
* [[Military occupation]]
* [[Proxy war]]
* [[Civil war]]
* [[National liberation]]
* [[Counterrevolution]]
* [[Fascism]]
* [[Anti-imperialism]]
* [[Self-determination]]
* [[United States imperialism]]
* [[NATO]]
* [[Cold War]]

== References ==
<references />

Military intervention

2026-07-14T16:47:16Z

Jadenw815: Forgot to add some stuff about liberal views on invasions ^•^

'''Military Intervention''', sometimes colloquially called an '''invasion''', is the use of armed force, political pressure, covert action, economic pressure, or institutional power by one state, coalition, or military force inside the territory or political conflict of another country. It can include invasion, occupation, bombing, expeditionary warfare, military advisers, proxy warfare, peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, covert operations, sanctions, aid conditionality, or direct support for one side in a civil war or national liberation struggle.

In ordinary speech, the word "invasion" is often used for any major foreign military entry into another country. More precisely, an invasion is a form of military intervention in which armed forces enter, attack, or occupy a territory. Military intervention is broader: it may occur through troops, airstrikes, proxy forces, intelligence agencies, humanitarian organizations, development agencies, sanctions, or military aid.

In international law, the [[United Nations Charter]] generally prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of states, while also recognizing self-defense if an armed attack occurs.<ref>https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text</ref><ref>https://legal.un.org/repertory/art51.shtml</ref> However, legality alone does not settle the political question. To anti-imperialists, military intervention must also be analyzed according to its class character, imperialist role, effect on self-determination, relationship to national liberation, and material consequences for the people affected.

In liberal and bourgeois discourse, military intervention is often discussed through abstract language such as "security", "humanitarianism", "democracy", "development", "stability", "peacekeeping", or "self-defense". Michael Parenti argues that imperialist interventions are often sanitized as matters of "national defense", "national security", and regional "stability", rather than named as imperial domination.<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/1995/Imperialism-101.htm</ref>

Military intervention is not politically identical in all cases. An imperialist invasion to seize territory, impose a client regime, crush socialism, or open markets is not the same as an anti-fascist intervention against a genocidal occupying power, or an internationalist intervention requested by a revolutionary government fighting apartheid or counterrevolution. However, because imperialist states frequently use humanitarian or democratic language to disguise domination, anti-imperialists generally treat foreign intervention with suspicion unless its liberatory character can be clearly demonstrated.

== Definition ==
An '''invasion''' is a form of military intervention in which armed forces enter, attack, or occupy another territory. An '''occupation''' is a prolonged form of military or political control following invasion or intervention. The International Committee of the Red Cross describes occupation as a situation in which territory is placed under the authority of a hostile army.<ref>https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/occupation</ref>

Military intervention can also occur without a formal invasion. Examples include bombing campaigns, naval blockades, military advisers, proxy armies, covert action, sanctions linked to military pressure, aid conditionality, development programs, intelligence operations, or support for coups and counterinsurgency.

The word "invasion" describes a military act, not by itself the political character of that act. For example, the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France in 1944 and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 were both invasions in the military sense, but they had opposite political meanings. One was part of the defeat of fascist occupation; the other was a genocidal fascist war of conquest.

Military intervention therefore has to be judged politically, not only linguistically. The question is not simply whether foreign force entered a country, but what social force the intervention served, who was harmed, who was strengthened, and whether it expanded or destroyed self-determination.

== Invasion and intervention ==
"Invasion" and "intervention" are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not identical. An invasion usually refers to the direct entry of armed forces into a territory. Intervention is broader and can include direct invasion, military aid, advisers, airstrikes, proxy armies, covert action, sanctions, aid conditionality, development programs, or support for coups and counterinsurgency.

Occupation is related to both terms, but it is not the same as either one. An invasion refers to the act of entering or attacking a territory; an intervention refers to foreign involvement in another country’s political or military conflict; occupation refers to prolonged foreign control after territory has been placed under the authority of an outside force. The International Committee of the Red Cross describes occupation as territory being placed under the authority of a hostile army.<ref>[https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/occupation "Occupation"]. International Committee of the Red Cross. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref> An invasion may lead to occupation, and an intervention may become occupation, but not every intervention includes occupation and not every invasion produces long-term occupation.

The political question is therefore not only whether foreign force entered a country, but what class and geopolitical project the intervention served. A military intervention may defend an oppressed people, assist a revolutionary government, defeat fascism, or stop genocide. It may also destroy self-determination, overthrow a popular government, defend imperial interests, protect private property, or impose colonial and capitalist domination.

In this sense, intervention is comparable to both nationalism and occupation. [[Nationalism]] can be progressive when oppressed nations use it against colonialism and imperialism, but reactionary when imperialist, settler-colonial, or fascist states use it to dominate others. [[Occupation]] can be part of defeating fascism or genocide in some cases, but it can also become imperialist, colonial, settler-colonial, or annexationist domination when it denies self-determination and imposes foreign control. Military intervention has to be judged in the same concrete way: not by the word alone, but by the forces involved, the historical context, and the results for the people affected.

== Anti-imperialist analysis ==

=== Self-determination ===
[[Self-determination]] is a central principle in anti-imperialist politics, but it is not an abstract slogan that applies equally to oppressor and oppressed forces. The right of oppressed nations to self-determination is progressive because it means liberation from colonialism, imperialism, occupation, apartheid, or national oppression. The "self-determination" of settler-colonial or imperial groups, however, can become reactionary when it is used to preserve domination over another people.

For example, Palestinian self-determination is an anti-colonial demand because Palestinians are a colonized and occupied people whose land, sovereignty, movement, and return have been denied. By contrast, Zionist claims to "Israeli self-determination" are not politically equivalent when they are used to justify settlement, apartheid, occupation, military domination, and the denial of Palestinian self-determination. In that case, the language of self-determination becomes a shield for settler-colonial power.

The same distinction appears in other contexts. Indigenous self-determination against settler states is not the same as settler claims to rule Indigenous land. Colonized peoples fighting empire are not the same as imperial states claiming the right to dominate colonies. A revolutionary movement struggling against occupation is not the same as a colonial power defending its occupation.

Self-determination therefore has to be analyzed according to concrete social relations. The key questions are: who is oppressed, who is oppressing, who controls land and resources, who is being denied sovereignty, and whether the political demand expands liberation or protects domination.

=== Imperialism and counterrevolution ===
Imperialist interventions are interventions carried out to preserve or expand the power of imperialist states, capitalist property, colonial domination, military alliances, or corporate access to resources, markets, labor, trade routes, and strategic territory. They are often justified through language such as "democracy", "human rights", "security", "anti-terrorism", "development", or "stability".

Western military and political interventions have often been connected to resources and strategic location. This does not mean every intervention has only one cause, but anti-imperialists argue that resources, markets, military geography, and control over independent states are central to imperial policy. Parenti argues that empires are commonly presented as defending order or humanitarianism while pursuing material interests and domination<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/2010/what-do-empires-do.htm</ref>

The 1953 coup in Iran followed the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and British and U.S. officials supported the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh's government.<ref>https://adst.org/2015/07/the-coup-against-irans-mohammad-mossadegh/</ref><ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7</ref> In Congo, U.S. officials described Katanga as central to Congo's mineral production, including copper, cobalt, manganese, and uranium<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7</ref> In Chile, U.S. covert action operated against Salvador Allende, whose program included nationalization of copper mines and other reforms<ref>https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-files-94chile.pdf</ref><ref>https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/allende</ref>

Counterrevolutionary interventions are interventions aimed at destroying socialist, communist, anti-colonial, nationalist, or popular movements. They may be carried out directly through invasion or indirectly through coups, proxy forces, death squads, sanctions, aid conditionality, non-governmental organizations, intelligence operations, or political funding.

Anti-imperialists therefore do not judge intervention only by whether it is violent in the immediate military sense. A coup, a proxy war, a sanctions regime, or a development program can function as intervention if it is used to reshape another country in the interests of imperialism and capital. Capitalist states also impose their influence without formally invading: through debt, investment pressure, sanctions, military alliances, international financial institutions, intelligence agencies, aid conditionality, and support for local ruling classes.

=== Revolutionary, anti-fascist, and reunification intervention ===
Not all military intervention is counterrevolutionary. Some interventions have been defended by communists, socialists, and anti-imperialists when they assisted anti-fascist struggle, defeated genocidal regimes, supported national liberation, or participated in struggles for reunification after colonial or imperial partition.

Such cases are usually judged by whether the intervention strengthens the independence of the oppressed people or replaces one domination with another. Even an initially defensible intervention can become reactionary if it turns into permanent occupation, plunder, annexation, or suppression of local self-determination.

The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France, Cuba's military assistance to Angola against apartheid South Africa, Vietnam's overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, and communist-led struggles for reunification in Korea and Vietnam are often cited as examples where foreign or cross-border military force cannot be judged only by the fact that troops crossed a line. The political meaning depends on the history of occupation, partition, class struggle, colonialism, and foreign domination.

In Korea and Vietnam, the issue of reunification was central. Both countries were shaped by colonialism, foreign partition, rival state-building projects, and Cold War intervention. Anti-imperialists therefore often reject narratives that describe northern military action only as foreign aggression while treating U.S.-backed southern states as innocent expressions of national self-determination. The U.S. Department of State notes that Korea was temporarily divided at the 38th parallel after the Second World War by agreement between the United States and Soviet Union to oversee the removal of Japanese forces<ref>https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war</ref>

=== Invitation and political legitimacy ===
A common argument is that a military action is not an invasion if some local force requests it. This is insufficient. Nearly every intervention has local allies.

* The United States intervened in Vietnam with the '''support of the South Vietnamese state.'''
* The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan after '''requests from the Afghan communist government.'''
* Cuba intervened in Angola at the '''request of the MPLA government.'''
* Rwanda has intervened in Congo '''while backed by some Congolese factions.'''
* The United States supported the [[Mujahideen|Afghan Mujahideen]] after sections of the '''mujahideen welcomed U.S.,''' Pakistani, and Saudi backing against the Afghan communist government and the Soviet Union.
* The United States and United Nations intervened in Korea with the '''support of the South Korean government.'''
* The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and was initially '''welcomed by some Iraqis who opposed Saddam Hussein''', only for the invasion to produce occupation, state collapse, sectarian violence, civil war, privatization, and long-term foreign domination.
* NATO intervened in Libya in 2011 with '''support from anti-Gaddafi forces'''.<ref>[https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_71652.htm "NATO and Libya"]. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* '''Pro-Mobutu and anti-Lumumba forces in the Congo in 1960,''' welcomed or benefited from Western support during the 1960 Congo Crisis, but their opposition to Patrice Lumumba did not make foreign intervention liberatory; anti-imperialists understand the crisis as a neocolonial intervention in which Western powers helped destroy Lumumba's government while protecting strategic and mineral interests in Congo, including copper, cobalt, manganese, and uranium.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7 "National Security Council Briefing"]. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIII, Congo. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* Some '''anti-Maduro Venezuelans''' welcomed the January 2026 U.S. operation against Nicolás Maduro.<ref>[https://www.wola.org/2026/01/military-action-venezuela-united-states-maduro-trump/ "Unilateral U.S. military intervention to remove authoritarian dictator Nicolas Maduro from power violates international law and sets a dangerous precedent for the region"]. WOLA. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* Some '''anti-Khamenei Iranians''' celebrated the U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Ali Khamenei<ref>[https://apnews.com/live/live-updates-israel-iran-february-28-2026 "Iranian Supreme Leader is dead, Trump says"]. Associated Press. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* The United States carried out military campaigns against Japanese forces in Guam, the Philippines, and other Pacific territories while many people under Japanese occupation welcomed Japan's defeat.
* The United States supported Panama's separation from Colombia in 1903 while some '''Panamanian separatists welcomed U.S. backing.'''
* The Allied invasion of Normandy was '''welcomed by many French anti-fascists''' and resisted by Nazi occupiers.

In reactionary cases, local welcome can become collaborationism when local elites, armed factions, opposition figures, or comprador forces invite imperialist power against their own people. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya show how foreign-backed "liberation" can produce occupation, civil war, state collapse, militia rule, or long-term destabilization rather than genuine self-determination.<ref>[https://www.cfr.org/articles/iraq-three-years "Iraq: Three Years On"]. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/lessons-libya-how-not-intervene "Lessons from Libya: How Not to Intervene"]. Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref> Congo shows how anti-Lumumba and pro-Mobutu forces benefited from Western support in a crisis that helped destroy a popular anti-colonial government and opened the way to decades of dictatorship, while Venezuela shows how some opposition support for U.S. intervention did not prevent the intervention from becoming a violation of sovereignty and an attempt to control the country's political future.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7 "National Security Council Briefing"]. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIII, Congo. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://www.wola.org/multimedia/a-shocking-u-s-attack-and-a-transition-without-a-transition-in-venezuela/ "A Shocking U.S. Attack and 'a Transition Without a Transition' in Venezuela"]. WOLA. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

A stricter liberal version of the invitation argument claims that foreign military action is not an invasion if the recognized government of the country requests or welcomes it. This also fails as a general rule, because recognition and state invitation do not automatically prove popular legitimacy or self-determination. The United States intervened in Vietnam with the support of the South Vietnamese government, but anti-imperialists still regard it as a foreign intervention because South Vietnam was a U.S.-backed anti-communist state fighting against a communist-led movement for national liberation and reunification.

The same problem appears in Korea. The South Korean government welcomed U.S. and United Nations military support during the Korean War, but that did not make the conflict purely domestic or erase the fact that foreign armies entered, fought, and later crossed the 38th parallel into the North. In divided, occupied, or civil-war contexts, an invitation from one recognized government may explain why foreign troops entered, but it does not settle whether the intervention was legitimate, popular, anti-imperialist, or destructive of self-determination. UN Security Council Resolution 83 recommended that member states provide assistance to the Republic of Korea after North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v07/d372</ref>

Invitation therefore matters, but does not settle the issue. The decisive questions are: who invited the foreign force, whether that force represents a legitimate popular government or liberation movement, whether the intervention supports self-determination, what the foreign army does, and whether it withdraws or imposes domination.

=== Occupation and aftermath ===
The aftermath of intervention is often as important as the initial justification. A military action may claim to stop oppression, but produce occupation, state collapse, economic dependency, sectarian violence, or permanent foreign bases.

Anti-imperialist analysis therefore asks whether the intervention leaves behind stronger sovereignty and popular power, or whether it produces dependency, privatization, repression, partition, or long-term imperial control. A foreign intervention that begins with a defensive, humanitarian, anti-fascist, or reunification justification can become reactionary if it turns into occupation or domination.

== Types and examples ==

=== Reactionary invasions and interventions ===
Reactionary invasions and interventions are military, political, economic, or covert actions that strengthen imperialism, colonialism, settler colonialism, fascism, capitalism, counterrevolution, annexation, or foreign domination. These interventions may be presented as defensive, democratic, humanitarian, civilizing, anti-terrorist, anti-communist, or stabilizing, but their political content is judged by the class forces involved, the social order they defend, and the consequences for the people affected.

==== Imperialist and regime-change invasion ====
An imperialist invasion is a military invasion carried out to expand the power of an imperialist state through territory, resources, markets, military bases, regime change, strategic dominance, or control over another country's political economy. Imperialist invasions often present themselves as defensive, democratic, humanitarian, or civilizing, while their actual result is usually the destruction of sovereignty, expansion of foreign military power, privatization, corporate access, or the installation of governments dependent on imperialist support.

* '''U.S. invasion of Iraq:''' 2003 regime-change invasion that overthrew the Iraqi government, destroyed much of the Iraqi state, caused mass death and displacement, and expanded U.S. influence in West Asia.

* '''Gulf War:''' 1990–1991 war in which Iraq's annexation of Kuwait violated Kuwaiti sovereignty, but the U.S.-led response was still a major imperialist intervention involving bombing, ground war, oil politics, Gulf monarchy politics, and the expansion of U.S. military power in West Asia.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/gulf-war "The Gulf War, 1991"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''NATO intervention in Libya:''' 2011 intervention presented as humanitarian protection, but used to overthrow the Libyan government, contributing to state collapse, militia rule, foreign interference, and long-term instability.<ref>[https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_71652.htm "NATO and Libya"]. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''U.S. invasion of Panama:''' 1989–1990 imperialist invasion, codenamed Operation Just Cause, in which the United States overthrew Manuel Noriega and reinforced U.S. dominance over a strategically important canal state under the stated justifications of protecting U.S. citizens, defending democracy, combating drug trafficking, and protecting the Panama Canal treaties.<ref>[https://history.army.mil/Publications/Publications-Catalog/Operation-Just-Cause-Collection/ "Operation Just Cause Collection"]. United States Army Center of Military History. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

==== Settler-colonial invasion ====
A settler-colonial invasion is a form of imperialist or colonial invasion aimed at replacing, displacing, or subordinating Indigenous peoples and taking their land for settlers. Settler-colonial invasion differs from ordinary military conflict because the goal is not only victory over another army, but the transformation of land, population, law, and sovereignty in favor of settlers.

* '''European conquest and colonization of the Americas''': long inhumane process of invasions, settlement, enslavement, genocide, land theft, and colonial state-building that subordinated Indigenous peoples and created the settler-colonial foundations for later states such as the United States, Canada, and other settler republics.

* '''Portuguese colonization of Brazil''': colonial and settler-colonial process beginning in the sixteenth century, involving Indigenous dispossession, plantation slavery, resource extraction, missionary rule, and the incorporation of Brazil into the Portuguese Empire.

* '''British colonization of Canada''': settler-colonial process in which British imperial power expanded over Indigenous lands through conquest, treaties, settlement, displacement, and colonial state-building, later forming the basis of the Canadian settler state.

* '''British colonization of Australia''': settler-colonial invasion beginning in 1788, followed by frontier wars, dispossession, massacres, and the imposition of British law over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands.<ref>[https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/introduction.php "Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788–1930"]. University of Newcastle. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''French conquest and colonization of Algeria''': settler-colonial invasion beginning with the French invasion of Algiers in 1830 and continuing through conquest, land seizure, European settlement, repression, and colonial rule until Algerian independence in 1962.

* '''Expansion of the United States''': settler-colonial process of Indigenous removal, territorial conquest, treaty-breaking, settlement, and military expansion across North America.

* '''U.S. invasion of Mexico''': settler-imperialist war waged by the Statesian settler republic from 1846 to 1848 that ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, through which Mexico ceded about 55 percent of its territory to the United States, opening large areas of Mexican and Indigenous land to U.S. settler expansion.<ref>[https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)"]. National Archives. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom''': 1893 settler-colonial and imperialist intervention in which U.S.-backed planter and business interests overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani and the Hawaiian monarchy, placed her under house arrest, and cleared the way for U.S. annexation and colonial control despite mass Native Hawaiian opposition.<ref>[https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hawaii-petition "The 1897 Petition Against the Annexation of Hawaii"]. National Archives. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Israeli invasions of neighboring territories''': understood by anti-imperialists in the context of settler colonialism, regional domination, military occupation, and U.S.-backed Israeli power.

==== Colonial invasion and occupation ====
A colonial invasion is an invasion or conquest carried out to establish or expand colonial rule over another people. It may involve land seizure, racial hierarchy, forced labor, resource extraction, military repression, and the denial of sovereignty, often justified through the language of civilization, modernization, order, development, or protection.

* '''British colonization of India:''' colonial process in which British imperial power subordinated the Indian subcontinent through conquest, company rule, military repression, taxation, extraction, famine policy, and later direct Crown rule.

* '''French colonization of Indochina:''' colonial conquest and occupation of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that imposed French imperial rule, plantation extraction, forced labor, taxation, and repression against anti-colonial movements.

* '''Japanese colonization of Taiwan:''' colonial occupation beginning after Japan acquired Taiwan from Qing China in 1895, involving military repression, assimilation policies, infrastructure development for imperial extraction, and incorporation into the Japanese Empire.

* '''Japanese colonization of Korea:''' colonial occupation formalized by Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910, involving land seizure, forced assimilation, repression of Korean nationalism, forced labor, and the use of Korea as a base for Japanese imperial expansion.

* '''Italian colonization of Somalia:''' colonial expansion beginning in the late nineteenth century, with Italy establishing protectorates and colonial rule over parts of Somali territory from 1889 onward.

* '''Ottoman imperial conquests:''' pre-capitalist imperial conquests that expanded Ottoman state power across parts of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa, involving military conquest, tribute, provincial rule, and the subordination of conquered peoples within an imperial order.

==== Fascist and Axis invasions ====
A fascist invasion is an invasion carried out by fascist states for conquest, racial domination, anti-communism, colonial expansion, or imperial power. Fascist invasions are among the clearest forms of reactionary and genocidal war because they are often wars of extermination, racial hierarchy, forced labor, anti-communism, and colonial domination.

* '''Italian invasion of Ethiopia / Abyssinia:''' fascist and colonial invasion from 1935 to 1936 involving chemical warfare, massacres, repression, and Ethiopian anti-colonial resistance.<ref>[https://blackpast.org/global-african-history/second-italo-abyssinian-war-1935-1936/ "The Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1935–1936)"]. BlackPast. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Italian invasion of Albania:''' fascist imperial invasion launched in April 1939, after which Albania became an Italian protectorate and King Zog fled the country.<ref>[https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=160 "Invasion of Albania"]. World War II Database. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''German invasion of Poland:''' fascist invasion launched in early September 1939 that began the Second World War in Europe and imposed brutal occupation.

* '''German invasion of France:''' fascist conquest launched in May 1940, followed by German occupation, the entry of German forces into Paris, and the establishment of the collaborationist Vichy regime.<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/film/german-invasion-of-france "German invasion of France"]. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''German invasion of the Soviet Union:''' genocidal fascist war of extermination launched on 22 June 1941 under Operation Barbarossa, involving anti-communism, racial domination, mass murder, starvation policy, and colonial conquest in Eastern Europe.<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941 "Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941"]. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Imperial Japan's invasion of China:''' imperialist, colonial, and fascistic war that escalated after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, marked by massacres, occupation, forced labor, and mass atrocities.<ref>[https://sfi.usc.edu/collections/nanjing-massacre "Nanjing Massacre"]. USC Shoah Foundation. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Imperial Japan's invasions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific:''' wars of imperial expansion across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, involving colonial occupation, forced labor, resource extraction, puppet regimes, and military terror.

==== Annexationist and anti-communist invasions ====
An annexationist invasion is an invasion carried out to seize territory and absorb it into another state. In the modern period, annexationist invasions often overlap with anti-communism, imperialism, colonialism, or regional domination, especially when the invading state destroys a left-wing or anti-colonial government and replaces self-determination with military occupation.

* '''Indonesian invasion of Timor-Leste:''' 1975 invasion and annexation by Indonesia after Timor-Leste's move toward independence, carried out in an anti-communist Cold War context and followed by occupation, mass killing, famine, repression, and resistance by the Timorese people.<ref>[https://www.hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-east-timor-guide/ "Genocide in East Timor"]. Holocaust Museum Houston. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

==== Counterrevolutionary intervention ====
Counterrevolutionary intervention is military, political, economic, or covert intervention aimed at destroying a revolution, socialist government, national liberation movement, or popular reform process. It may be carried out directly through invasion or indirectly through coups, proxy forces, death squads, sanctions, sabotage, aid programs, media operations, or political funding, and is usually justified as the defense of democracy, order, religion, markets, property, national security, or human rights.

* '''Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War:''' counterrevolutionary intervention from 1918 to 1920 by foreign powers in support of the White Armies and against the Bolshevik Revolution, often described as involving around fourteen foreign powers.

* '''Bay of Pigs invasion:''' U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary invasion in April 1961 intended to overthrow the Cuban Revolution, later acknowledged by the United States as a failed invasion after landing in Cuba.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/bay-of-pigs "The Bay of Pigs Invasion and its Aftermath, April 1961–October 1962"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''1953 Iran coup:''' a covert intervention against Mohammad Mossadegh's government after Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, commonly cited by anti-imperialists as an example of intervention serving oil interests and Western control.<ref>[https://adst.org/2015/07/the-coup-against-irans-mohammad-mossadegh/ "The Coup Against Iran's Mohammad Mossadegh"]. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''1960 Congo Crisis and Lumumba Coup:''' case of imperialist and neocolonial intervention in a resource-rich country, with U.S. documents describing Katanga as central to Congo's copper, cobalt, manganese, and uranium production.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7 "National Security Council Briefing"]. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIII, Congo. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''1973 Chile coup:''' counterrevolutionary intervention against Salvador Allende's Popular Unity government, whose program included nationalization of copper mines, agrarian reform, and socialization of major sectors of the economy.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/allende "The Allende Years and the Pinochet Coup, 1969–1973"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''U.S. intervention in Vietnam:''' imperialist and counterrevolutionary intervention against communist-led reunification and national liberation.

* '''U.S.-led intervention in Korea:''' United States-led military intervention through the United Nations during the Korean War that preserved a U.S.-backed southern state, militarized Korea's division, and turned the peninsula into a major Cold War battlefield.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war "Korean War and Japan's Recovery"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''United Nations invasion of northern Korea:''' U.S.-organized military offensive in which UN forces crossed the 38th parallel and invaded the North after the Inchon landing and recapture of Seoul, showing that the war cannot be reduced only to North Korea's initial crossing of the 38th parallel.

* '''Indonesian Mass Killings:''' 1965-1966 counterrevolutionary mass killing campaign and political transition in which the Indonesian military, led by Suharto, destroyed the Communist Party of Indonesia and displaced Sukarno's left-nationalist government; anti-imperialists treat it as a major Cold War intervention because U.S. Embassy files show that Statesian officials closely tracked the killings and saw the destruction of the Indonesian left as favorable to U.S. interests.<ref>[https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/indonesia/2017-10-17/indonesia-mass-murder-1965-us-embassy-files "U.S. Embassy Tracked Indonesia Mass Murder 1965"]. National Security Archive. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''1954 Guatemala Coup:''' CIA-backed counterrevolutionary coup that overthrew Jacobo Árbenz after his government pursued land reform that threatened United Fruit Company interests; the coup helped destroy Guatemala's democratic reform process and contributed to decades of military rule, civil war, repression, and genocidal violence against Indigenous Maya communities.<ref>[https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/ "CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents"]. National Security Archive. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''U.S. support for the Contras:''' 1980s proxy and counterrevolutionary intervention in which the Reagan administration funded, armed, and supported the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinista government, with Congress later approving aid and the Iran-Contra scandal revealing covert efforts to continue support after restrictions on military aid.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1981-1988/central-america "Central America, 1981–1993"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''U.S. invasion of Grenada:''' 1983 counterrevolutionary intervention launched after the internal coup against Maurice Bishop and his assassination, with the Reagan administration framing the invasion as a rescue mission and restoration of order while anti-imperialists understand it as the destruction of the Grenadian Revolution and a U.S. blow against Cuban and socialist influence in the Caribbean.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1981-1988/grenada "Grenada, 1983"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''British suppression of the Malayan Emergency:''' counterinsurgency and colonial intervention from 1948 to 1960 in which British imperial forces fought communist-led guerrillas and anti-colonial forces in Malaya, combining military repression, population control, detention, and colonial emergency rule.

* '''Western support for post-Soviet capitalist restoration:''' counterrevolutionary political and economic process in which Western states and institutions supported the transition from the Soviet system toward capitalism, privatization, market shock therapy, and integration into the capitalist world economy; this should not be confused with the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, which was carried out by Soviet hardliners rather than Western-backed forces.

=== Humanitarian pretext ===
A humanitarian pretext is the use of humanitarian language to justify imperialist intervention. Imperialist states often claim to intervene to protect civilians, stop dictatorship, defend women, provide aid, prevent atrocities, or promote development, while the actual result may be regime change, state collapse, occupation, sanctions, dependency, or expanded imperial control.

Humanitarian intervention can also appear through non-military institutions. Aid programs, development agencies, and NGOs may provide real relief to people in crisis, but they can also function as tools of imperial influence when they are tied to political conditionality, regime-change networks, counterinsurgency, market restructuring, or the weakening of socialist and anti-imperialist governments.

* '''NATO bombing of Yugoslavia:''' 1999 bombing campaign presented by NATO as humanitarian intervention, but condemned by anti-imperialists as an imperialist attack that bypassed the United Nations and expanded NATO power; Michael Parenti described the bombing as a humanitarian pretext for Western domination.<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/2010/rational-destruction-of-yugoslavia.htm "The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia"]. Michael Parenti. Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''NATO intervention in Libya:''' 2011 intervention presented as humanitarian protection, but used to overthrow the Libyan government, contributing to state collapse, militia rule, foreign interference, and long-term instability.<ref>[https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_71652.htm "NATO and Libya"]. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

=== USAID and development intervention ===
The [[United States Agency for International Development]] is often presented by liberals as a benevolent humanitarian institution that provides food, medicine, disaster relief, democratic assistance, and development aid. USAID was created under the Foreign Assistance Act framework during the Cold War, and U.S. foreign assistance law states that such assistance is intended to promote the foreign policy, security, and general welfare of the United States, while also assisting economic development and security abroad.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/pl-480 "USAID and PL–480, 1961–1969"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1071/pdf/COMPS-1071.pdf "Foreign Assistance Act of 1961"]. GovInfo. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

Anti-imperialists argue that USAID cannot be separated from the foreign policy of the United States. Even when USAID funds projects that provide real services, it can also serve broader imperial objectives by promoting pro-U.S. civil society networks, market reforms, privatization, anti-communist politics, and opposition to governments targeted by U.S. foreign policy. USAID oversight material describes democracy, human rights, and governance programming as supporting civil society, elections, governance, and human rights, showing how aid can directly enter political life in recipient countries.<ref>[https://oig.usaid.gov/dem-human-gov?page=3 "OIG Oversight: Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance"]. USAID Office of Inspector General. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

Michael Parenti's broader critique of empire describes "maldevelopment" abroad as part of the hidden cost of U.S. domination and the victory of finance capital over democracy, a framework often applied by anti-imperialists to development agencies, aid conditionality, democracy-promotion institutions, and NGO networks operating in countries targeted by U.S. foreign policy.<ref>[https://www.michael-parenti.org/book-against-empire "Against Empire"]. Michael Parenti. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''USAID and development programs:''' treated by liberals as nonviolent humanitarian assistance, but analyzed by anti-imperialists as part of a wider system of U.S. influence, especially when operating in countries targeted for regime change, sanctions, counterinsurgency, or anti-communist pressure.

=== Anti-fascist intervention ===
Anti-fascist intervention is military action aimed at defeating fascist aggression or occupation. Such interventions are distinguished from imperialist invasions by their target and context: they fight fascist regimes engaged in conquest, occupation, genocide, and anti-communist extermination, though anti-fascist victory can later be used by imperialist states to rewrite themselves as permanently virtuous while hiding their own colonialism, racism, and later counterrevolutionary wars.

* '''Allied invasion of Normandy:''' 1944 invasion in the military sense, but part of the anti-fascist war against Nazi occupation, making its political meaning different from fascist or imperialist wars of conquest.

* '''Allied invasion of fascist Italy:''' 1943 invasion that helped defeat Mussolini's fascist state and weaken the Axis powers.

* '''Soviet advance into Eastern Europe and Germany:''' helped defeat Nazi Germany and end fascist occupation, though later Soviet domination over parts of Eastern Europe remains a separate historical question.

=== Revolutionary internationalist intervention ===
Revolutionary internationalist intervention is military assistance given by a socialist or revolutionary state to another revolutionary or anti-colonial movement. Its legitimacy depends on whether it supports liberation and self-determination rather than domination, and whether it avoids creating a colony, seizing resources, imposing capitalist restructuring, installing permanent bases, or subordinating the assisted country to foreign control.

* '''Cuban intervention in Angola:''' Cuban military assistance from 1975 onward supported the MPLA government against apartheid South Africa and U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary forces, making it one of the clearest anti-imperialist examples of internationalist military assistance.<ref>[https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/cuba-and-angolan-war "Cuba and the Angolan War"]. South African History Online. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Chinese intervention in the Korean War:''' 1950 intervention in which the Chinese People's Volunteers entered northern Korea after U.S.-led United Nations forces crossed the 38th parallel and advanced toward the Yalu River, with anti-imperialists often framing it as defensive internationalist support for the DPRK against U.S.-led escalation, especially as General Douglas MacArthur pushed to expand the war against China and submitted atomic-bomb target proposals for Korea, Manchuria, and other parts of China.<ref>[https://history.army.mil/html/books/019/19-8-1/index.html "The Korean War: The Chinese Intervention"]. United States Army Center of Military History. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v07/d821 "Memorandum of Conversation, by the Ambassador at Large"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

=== Anti-genocide intervention ===
An anti-genocide intervention is a military intervention justified by the prevention or ending of genocide or mass extermination. Such interventions can be defensible when they stop genocide, but they can still become complicated if they produce occupation, dependency, or domination after the initial overthrow of the genocidal force.

* '''Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia:''' 1978–1979 intervention that overthrew the Khmer Rouge and ended its genocidal rule, though the later Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia remains debated.
* '''Tanzanian invasion of Uganda:''' another 1978-1979 intervention, also known as the Uganda–Tanzania War or Kagera War, in which Tanzania and Ugandan exile forces overthrew Idi Amin's regime after Uganda invaded and claimed the Kagera Salient. Anti-imperialists often treat it differently from imperialist regime-change wars because it followed Ugandan aggression against Tanzania and helped remove a violent military dictatorship, though it still requires analysis of cross-border force, local allies, and the political aftermath.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/event/Uganda-Tanzania-War "Uganda–Tanzania War"]. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* '''Allied invasions and advances into Nazi-occupied Europe:''' helped defeat fascist regimes responsible for genocide, occupation, and mass war, showing that military force can sometimes be defended when it stops fascism or genocide while still requiring analysis of the aftermath.

=== Reunification intervention ===
Reunification intervention is military action carried out in the name of reunifying a divided country. It is especially common in countries divided by colonialism, foreign occupation, imposed partition, or Cold War settlement, and is politically complicated because it can be framed either as national liberation or aggression depending on the history and class forces involved.

* '''North Korean invasion of South Korea:''' a contested reunification intervention in which North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950, but anti-imperialists argue that the war cannot be understood apart from Japanese colonialism, foreign partition, U.S. and Soviet occupation, southern anti-communist repression, Jeju 4·3, border clashes, and competing Korean state-building projects.<ref>[https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/revealing-truth-jeju-43-archives "Revealing Truth: Jeju 4·3 Archives"]. UNESCO Memory of the World. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''North Vietnamese and NLF struggle in South Vietnam:''' understood by many anti-imperialists as a national liberation and reunification struggle against a U.S.-backed southern state rather than simple foreign aggression, since Vietnam was shaped by colonialism, partition, competing governments, foreign intervention, and reunification politics.

=== Proxy intervention ===
Proxy intervention occurs when a state intervenes indirectly by funding, arming, training, or directing local forces. This allows imperialist states to influence or destroy other countries while avoiding the appearance of direct invasion, especially when they want to weaken socialist or anti-imperialist governments without openly deploying large numbers of troops.

* '''U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen:''' a proxy intervention against the Afghan communist government and the Soviet Union that strengthened reactionary Islamist forces.

* '''Rwandan intervention in the Congo:''' often justified through local allies and security claims, but criticized for worsening war, resource plunder, and the violation of Congolese sovereignty.

=== Contested intervention ===
A contested intervention is an intervention whose political character is debated among anti-imperialists, socialists, liberals, nationalists, or international lawyers. These cases often involve mixed conditions: real aggression by one side, foreign manipulation by another, rival claims to self-determination, civil war, national oppression, or competing geopolitical interests.

* '''Iraqi invasion of Kuwait:''' a reactionary invasion and annexation attempt in 1990 that violated Kuwaiti sovereignty and triggered the Gulf War, while the U.S.-led response also remained an imperialist intervention involving bombing, oil politics, Gulf monarchy politics, and expanded U.S. military power in West Asia.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/gulf-war "The Gulf War, 1991"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Soviet intervention in Afghanistan:''' a heavily contested intervention beginning in 1979, because the Afghan communist government promoted land reform, literacy, women's rights, and secular modernization, while the Soviet military intervention also escalated the war, caused civilian suffering, foreignized the revolution, and helped produce a backlash strengthened by U.S., Pakistani, and Saudi support for the mujahideen.

* '''Russian invasion of Ukraine:''' a contested case in some left-wing spaces because of NATO expansion, the post-2014 conflict, and Russian claims about protecting Russian-speaking populations, but a consistent self-determination standard can recognize minority-rights and security concerns while still weighing heavily against invasion, annexation, and the denial of Ukrainian sovereignty.<ref>[https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/767883?ln=en "Territorial Integrity of Ukraine"]. United Nations Digital Library. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://ukraine.ohchr.org/en/reports/crimea-and-occupied-territory "Crimea and other occupied territory"]. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

== Liberal, centrist, and reactionary views ==

=== Liberal and centrist views ===
Liberals and centrists often say that "all invasions are wrong" in the abstract. This can sound principled, and in many cases opposition to invasion is correct. However, anti-imperialists argue that this view often remains shallow when it refuses to ask why an invasion happened, what history produced it, what class forces were involved, whether the country was already divided by colonialism or foreign occupation, or whether the intervention was imperialist, anti-fascist, anti-genocide, or part of a national liberation struggle.

This does not mean that context automatically justifies invasion. Rather, it means that the first crossing of a border does not explain the whole political origin of a war. A serious analysis must distinguish between the trigger of a conflict and the deeper historical causes of that conflict.

Liberals and centrists may also argue that intervention is wrong because it means forcing one state's rule over another. Anti-imperialists generally agree that foreign domination is wrong, but also argue that capitalist states force their rule over other countries without formal invasion all the time. They do so through sanctions, debt, unequal trade, military bases, aid conditionality, coups, intelligence operations, corporate ownership, and support for local comprador elites.

==== Liberal interventionism and selective sovereignty ====
Liberals often defend intervention through the language of human rights, democracy, humanitarian aid, international law, development, women's rights, protection of civilians, and the defense of sovereignty. From this view, military intervention, sanctions, USAID, NGOs, peacekeeping, or democracy-promotion programs may be framed as flawed but necessary tools when they oppose dictatorships, provide relief to suffering populations, or support civil society.

This framework often treats the United States, NATO, and other imperialist powers as neutral moral actors rather than states with military alliances, corporations, intelligence agencies, geopolitical interests, and long records of colonial and counterrevolutionary violence. Interventions such as NATO in Libya, the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, sanctions against targeted states, or USAID activity in the Global South may therefore be presented as humanitarian or democratic even when they expand imperial influence, destabilize societies, or weaken self-determination.

Anti-imperialists argue that liberal interventionism applies sovereignty selectively. The U.S.-led Gulf War is often defended as legitimate because it expelled Iraq from Kuwait and restored Kuwaiti sovereignty, while comparable actions by socialist, communist-led, or anti-imperialist forces are usually reduced to aggression. North Korea's attempt to reunify Korea and remove U.S.-backed forces from the South is commonly treated as pure invasion, while the U.S.-led United Nations invasion of northern Korea after the crossing of the 38th parallel is framed as defense or liberation.

The same pattern appears in interpretations of the Second World War and the Cold War. Western Allied offensives against Nazi occupation are remembered as liberation, while Soviet advances against Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe are often remembered mainly as domination or occupation. Anti-imperialists do not argue that every Soviet, socialist, or anti-imperialist intervention was automatically progressive; rather, they argue that the same concrete standard should be applied to all cases. The real question is not whether an action is called invasion, liberation, defense, humanitarianism, or intervention, but whether it strengthens self-determination, defeats fascism or colonialism, or instead expands imperialism, occupation, counterrevolution, and foreign domination.

=== Land-area morality ===
Another liberal framing judges invasions mainly by the relative size of the states involved. In this view, a larger country invading a smaller country is treated as automatically wrong because land area is confused with power, while smaller states or non-state forces are treated as automatically more legitimate because they appear weaker on a map. Anti-imperialists reject this shortcut. Larger does not always mean more powerful, more imperialist, or more reactionary, and smaller does not automatically mean oppressed, progressive, or morally correct.

* '''Rwanda and Congo:''' The Democratic Republic of the Congo is over 91 times larger than Rwanda, but Rwanda has repeatedly intervened in eastern Congo through military involvement and support for armed forces such as M23. This shows why map size does not determine who is the aggressor, since a smaller state can still violate the sovereignty of a larger one or act through proxy forces, regional alliances, mineral interests, and Western backing.<ref>[https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo "Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo"]. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''Finland and the Soviet Union:''' Finland was much smaller than the Soviet Union, and the Soviet invasion that began the Winter War in 1939 cannot be erased; however, the later Continuation War also shows why size alone is not enough, since Finland fought alongside Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. A smaller state can still align with a larger fascist power or participate in an anti-communist war.<ref>[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/sweden-the-swastika-and-stalin/eastern-approaches-and-western-reproaches-finlands-continuation-war-and-the-collapse-of-germany-june-1941may-1945/9F1F71221A8B1D9D392BD3C4138E99A4 "Finland's Continuation War and the Collapse of Germany, June 1941–May 1945"]. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''France and Algeria:''' France was geographically smaller than Algeria, but French conquest beginning in 1830 created a colonial system that subordinated Algeria for more than a century. This shows that a smaller imperial state can dominate a larger colonized territory through military power, settlement, administration, and imperial institutions.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/countries/algeria "Algeria"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''Portugal and Brazil:''' Portugal was geographically smaller than Brazil, but Portuguese colonization made Brazil part of an overseas empire built through conquest, Indigenous dispossession, slavery, plantation production, and extraction. The colonizer was smaller on the map, but politically dominant through empire.<ref>[https://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/36208/excerpt/9781107036208_excerpt.pdf "Colonial Brazil (1500–1822)"]. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''The Netherlands and Indonesia:''' the Netherlands was geographically much smaller than Indonesia, but Dutch colonial rule subordinated the Indonesian archipelago through imperial administration, military force, forced cultivation, extraction, and repression. This shows that a small European state can still be an imperial power over a much larger colonized country.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/08/revolusi-by-david-van-reybrouck-review-indonesias-fight-for-freedom "Revolusi by David Van Reybrouck review — Indonesia's fight for freedom"]. The Guardian. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''Ukraine and Russia:''' Ukraine is much smaller than [[Russian Federation|Russia]], but the legitimacy of Ukraine's sovereignty does not come merely from being smaller. The issue is self-determination, annexation, NATO expansion, minority rights, and the concrete effects of invasion and occupation, not map size alone.

* '''Afghan mujahideen and the Soviet Union:''' the Afghan mujahideen were weaker than the Soviet Union in conventional state power, but that did not make them automatically progressive. Many mujahideen forces were reactionary Islamist groups backed by the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia against the Afghan communist government and the Soviet Union, showing that smaller or weaker forces can still serve counterrevolutionary and imperialist projects.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan "The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''China and Taiwan Province:''' Taiwan is much smaller than the People's Republic of China, but Taiwan's modern political history also includes the brutal Kuomintang regime that retreated to the island after the Chinese Civil War, massacred suspected leftists and dissidents during the White Terror, suppressed revolts such as the February 28 uprising, jailed political opponents, repressed communist and socialist organizers, and ruled through decades of anti-communist martial law. The real issue involves the unresolved Chinese Civil War, the legacy of Japanese colonialism and KMT rule, U.S. military and diplomatic support for Taiwan, the One China framework, and the question of whether Taiwan is being used as a forward base in U.S. containment of China; anti-imperialists therefore distinguish between genuine popular self-determination and imperialist use of Taiwan against the PRC.

* '''China and Hong Kong:''' Hong Kong is much smaller than mainland China, but this does not make Hong Kong a colonized country separate from China in the same sense as Algeria under France or India under Britain. Hong Kong was a British colony returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 under the "one country, two systems" framework, so anti-imperialists distinguish between democratic grievances inside Hong Kong and Western attempts to frame Hong Kong as a small nation oppressed by a larger foreign country.<ref>[https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/index/ "The Basic Law"]. Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''Germany and the Soviet Union:''' Nazi Germany was much smaller than the Soviet Union in land area, but it was the aggressor in Operation Barbarossa and launched a genocidal war of extermination against the Soviet peoples. This shows that a smaller state can still be the reactionary invading force, while a larger state can be defending itself against fascist conquest, colonial settlement, mass murder, and anti-communist extermination.<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941 "Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941"]. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''Italy and their larger African colonies:''' Italy was geographically smaller than Libya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, but Italian colonialism and fascism made Italy the imperial aggressor in each case. In Libya, Italian forces used mass deportations, executions, forced labor, starvation, and concentration camps during the so-called "pacification" of Cyrenaica; in Somalia, Italian colonial rule imposed racial hierarchy, forced labor, military repression, and camp systems such as Danane near Mogadishu; and in Ethiopia, Fascist Italy's 1935 invasion involved mustard gas, bombing, massacres, concentration camps, executions, and racial terror. These cases show that a smaller European state could still dominate larger African territories through colonial power, fascist violence, and imperial military organization.<ref>[https://libyanheritagehouse.org/the-pacification-of-cyrenaica-the-libyan-genocide "The Pacification of Cyrenaica: The Libyan Genocide"]. Libyan Heritage House. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref><ref>[https://blackpast.org/global-african-history/second-italo-abyssinian-war-1935-1936/ "The Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1935–1936)"]. BlackPast. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref><ref>[https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/Italo-Ethiopian-war.pdf "The use of chemical weapons in the 1935–36 Italo-Ethiopian War"]. SIPRI. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''Germany and larger African colonies:''' Before [[World War I|the Great War]], Germany was geographically smaller than both Namibia and Tanzania, but German imperialism made it the colonial aggressor in German South West Africa and German East Africa. In Namibia, German colonial rule produced the Herero and Nama genocide, including massacres, forced labor, desert expulsions, and concentration camps such as Shark Island; in Tanzania, German colonial rule provoked the Maji Maji War and was answered with scorched-earth repression, executions, famine, and mass death. These cases show that a smaller European state could still dominate larger African territories through colonial administration, racial rule, military terror, concentration camps, and genocidal violence.<ref>[https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/shark-island "German Colonial Genocide In Namibia: Shark Island"]. Forensic Architecture. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref><ref>[https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/botanischer-garten/unser-garten/kolonialismus/maji-maji-krieg "Maji Maji War"]. University of Potsdam. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

* '''Japan and China''': Japan was and still is geographically much smaller than China, but Imperial Japan was the invading imperial power during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the wider Second World War in Asia. Japanese forces occupied large parts of China, created puppet regimes, carried out massacres, forced labor, sexual slavery, biological warfare, and mass atrocities such as the Nanjing Massacre, where Japanese troops invaded Nanjing in 1937 and carried out a campaign of mass killing. This shows that a smaller island empire could still wage colonial and imperial war against a much larger country through militarism, occupation, racial ideology, and fascistic imperial violence.<ref>[https://sfi.usc.edu/collections/nanjing-massacre "Nanjing Massacre"]. USC Shoah Foundation. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

A similar argument appeared in fascist propaganda during the Second World War, when Nazi Germany tried to frame Britain as hypocritical by comparing Germany's territorial ambitions to the much larger British Empire. The existence of British imperialism was real, but Nazi Germany's criticism of British empire did not make Nazism anti-imperialist or progressive. Anti-imperialist analysis therefore cannot stop at land area, state size, or who appears smaller. It must ask what class forces are involved, whether the action supports self-determination, whether it serves colonial or imperial power, and what political order it creates.

Bigger countries can be more revolutionary while smaller countries can be more reactionary. Size does not equal morality, legitimacy, self-determination, anti-imperialism, or political correctness. The decisive question is not who looks bigger on a map, but which side serves liberation, fascism, colonialism, imperialism, counterrevolution, or popular sovereignty.

==== Reconstruction vs Destabilization ====
Liberals and centrists may accuse anti-imperialists of using a double standard when they oppose U.S. destabilization of the Global South while treating the postwar invasions and occupations of Germany and Japan differently. This comparison ignores the different historical conditions involved. Germany and Japan were defeated imperialist powers after the Second World War, not poor colonized countries trying to escape dependency through socialism, land reform, nationalization, or anti-colonial struggle. The U.S.-led occupations of Germany and Japan did impose foreign control, but they also rebuilt both states as advanced capitalist allies and anti-communist front-line powers in the Cold War.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconstruction "Occupation and Reconstruction of Japan, 1945–52"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

Anti-imperialists therefore distinguish reconstruction from destabilization. Germany and Japan were not destroyed in the same political sense as Libya, Cuba, Congo, Nicaragua, Haiti, Indonesia, or other Global South countries targeted for coups, sanctions, proxy war, blockade, regime change, or counterrevolution. They were politically '''rebooted'''; demilitarized, reorganized, and integrated into the U.S.-led capitalist bloc, partly as strategic barriers against the Soviet Union, socialism, and anti-colonial movements. This does not make the occupations neutral or anti-imperialist, but it shows why comparing them to the destruction of anti-imperialist or socialist projects in the Global South is a false equivalence.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconstruction "Occupation and Reconstruction of Japan, 1945–52"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref><ref>[https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/us-occupation-assistance-iraq-germany-japan-compared.html "U.S. Occupation Assistance: Iraq, Germany and Japan Compared"]. Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 2026-07-14.</ref>

In this sense, the issue is not a double standard, but historical nuance. Postwar Germany and Japan were reconstructed as wealthy Global North capitalist pawns, while many Global South interventions targeted countries attempting national liberation, socialist development, land reform, resource sovereignty, or independence from imperialist control. Liberal discourse often collapses these different histories into the vague word "destabilization," erasing the difference between rebuilding defeated imperialist states for Cold War capitalism and destroying poorer anti-imperialist states or movements for challenging Western power.

=== Reactionary interventionism ===
Reactionaries often defend intervention through nationalism, militarism, civilizational racism, anti-communism, anti-migrant politics, religious chauvinism, or settler-colonial security rhetoric. They may argue that imperialist states have the right to invade, bomb, sanction, or occupy other countries in order to defend national greatness, borders, markets, "Western civilization", or allies.

Reactionary arguments are usually more openly militarist than liberal arguments. Where liberals may justify intervention as humanitarian or democratic, reactionaries often justify it as punishment, conquest, revenge, deterrence, or the defense of empire.

In both cases, anti-imperialists argue that the oppressed people themselves, not imperialist states, should determine their own future.

=== Cold War origin narratives ===
Liberals and reactionaries often summarize the Korean War with the phrase that "North Korea invaded South Korea." The narrow factual claim is true: North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel and launched a coordinated conventional invasion in June 1950. However, anti-imperialists argue that this framing becomes misleading when it is used to explain the entire war as a simple case of communist aggression against an innocent democratic South Korea.

This narrative relies on single-date framing. It treats 25 June 1950 as the whole origin of the war while stripping away Japanese colonialism, foreign occupation, the artificial division of Korea, class conflict, People’s Committees, anti-communist repression, border clashes, and the authoritarian character of Syngman Rhee's southern regime. It also presents South Korea only as a victim while ignoring massacres, repression, anti-communist terror, and the suppression of Korean leftists and civilians before the war became a full conventional war.

A serious anti-imperialist analysis can acknowledge that North Korea launched the first major conventional invasion while still rejecting the claim that North Korea alone created the Korean War. Korea had been divided after Japan's defeat by foreign occupation zones, the 38th parallel was an externally imposed military line rather than an ancient Korean border, and both Korean governments claimed to represent the whole peninsula. The war grew out of occupation, partition, class struggle, repression, uprisings, and competing projects of national reunification.

The point is not that North Korea did nothing wrong. The point is that South Korea and the United States were not innocent guardians of democracy simply because North Korea crossed the line first. The trigger of a war is not the same as the origin of a war. North Korea crossed the 38th parallel first in 1950, but the Korean War was created by years of occupation, partition, repression, and class conflict before that line was crossed.

=== Invitation-based justification ===
A common liberal or reactionary argument is that foreign troops are not invading if some people in the affected country welcome them. This argument fails because almost every intervention has local allies. South Vietnam welcomed U.S. forces; the Afghan communist government requested Soviet help; the MPLA welcomed Cuba in Angola; some Iraqis welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003; French anti-fascists welcomed the Allied invasion of Normandy; and some Congolese factions have welcomed Rwandan involvement.

Liberals may argue that intervention is legitimate when the recognized government welcomes foreign troops, but the U.S. intervention in Vietnam shows why this is insufficient: South Vietnam welcomed U.S. forces, yet the war was still a foreign military intervention against a communist-led national liberation and reunification struggle.

The Korean War shows the same problem. South Korea welcomed U.S. and UN military intervention, but that did not mean foreign armies were absent or that the intervention stopped being an intervention. A foreign army can be invited by a recognized government and still function as a decisive outside force in a civil war, partition conflict, or national struggle.

The existence of local support does not automatically determine whether a military action is justified. It only raises further questions about legitimacy, class character, self-determination, and consequences.

=== Equivalence between all interventions ===
Another mistaken view is that all military interventions are morally identical. This erases the difference between fascist conquest, imperialist regime change, anti-fascist liberation, anti-genocide intervention, internationalist assistance to a revolutionary government, and contested reunification struggles.

A consistent anti-imperialist position does not treat Nazi Germany invading the Soviet Union, the United States invading Iraq, Cuba assisting Angola, North Korea crossing the 38th parallel, and the Allies invading Nazi-occupied France as politically equivalent. The military form may be similar, but the class forces, historical context, and political meaning may be very different.

=== Humanitarian justification ===
Liberals often argue that humanitarian intervention is necessary to stop atrocities, deliver aid, protect women, or support democracy. Reactionaries may use the same humanitarian language selectively, but combine it with racist or militarist narratives about "civilizing" other countries or defeating supposedly backward peoples.

Anti-imperialists argue that humanitarian claims must be tested against material results. If an intervention produces occupation, privatization, military bases, state collapse, sanctions, dependency, or foreign domination, its humanitarian language should not be accepted at face value.

Humanitarian claims are especially suspicious when used selectively by imperialist states that ignore or support atrocities committed by their allies. Parenti's criticism of NATO's war against Yugoslavia is one example of a left-wing critique of humanitarian language being used to justify bombing and imperial domination<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/2010/rational-destruction-of-yugoslavia.htm</ref>

If the Gulf War is not considered an intervention because it was framed as liberating Kuwait, then NATO's interventions in Yugoslavia and Libya could also be dismissed as non-interventions because their supporters framed them as humanitarian, making the term politically meaningless.

== Anti-imperialist criteria ==
A military intervention can be judged by the following questions:

* Does it support or violate the self-determination of the people affected?
* Is self-determination being claimed by an oppressed nation, or by a settler-colonial, imperialist, occupying, or dominant force?
* Who requested the intervention, and does that force represent a legitimate popular government, liberation movement, puppet regime, elite clique, occupation authority, comprador class, or foreign-dependent faction?
* Does the intervention fight fascism, colonialism, apartheid, genocide, or foreign-backed counterrevolution?Does the intervention attack a revolutionary, socialist, anti-colonial, independent, or popular government?
* Which class forces are strengthened: workers, peasants, oppressed peoples, and national liberation movements, or capitalists, landlords, settlers, comprador elites, and imperialist states?
* Is the intervention defensive and limited, or does it seek regime change, annexation, permanent bases, market access, resources, or geopolitical dominance?
* Is the force used proportionate and directed against military targets, or does it rely on collective punishment, bombing, sanctions, starvation, terror, or civilian destruction?
* Does the intervening power withdraw and strengthen sovereignty, or does it occupy, annex, privatize, install bases, control resources, or impose dependency?
* Does the intervention expand liberation and popular power, or does it produce collapse, dependency, dictatorship, civil war, or imperial domination?
* Is humanitarian, democratic, development, self-defense, anti-terrorism, or reunification language being used to hide counterrevolutionary, imperialist, settler-colonial, or capitalist goals?
* Are the same standards being applied consistently to allies and enemies, including cases where the first conventional attack hides a longer history of colonialism, partition, occupation, repression, civil conflict, and foreign interference?

== Legacy ==
Military intervention is not automatically progressive or reactionary based only on the word "invasion". The political character of an intervention depends on the class forces involved, the relation to imperialism, the question of self-determination, the target of the intervention, the legitimacy of any invitation, and the consequences for the people affected.

Self-determination is a progressive principle when it refers to oppressed nations, colonized peoples, Indigenous peoples, occupied peoples, and workers struggling against domination. It becomes reactionary when settler-colonial, imperialist, or fascist forces use the same language to defend domination over others.

Imperialist, colonial, settler, fascist, and counterrevolutionary interventions are reactionary because they crush self-determination and defend domination. Some interventions, however, may be defensible when they help defeat fascism, apartheid, genocide, colonialism, or foreign-backed counterrevolution, especially when requested by a legitimate popular government or liberation movement and when they do not become occupation, plunder, or permanent domination.

Reunification struggles are especially contested because they often involve countries divided by colonialism, foreign occupation, imposed partition, or Cold War settlement. North Korea's invasion of South Korea and North Vietnam's victory over South Vietnam cannot be understood only through the fact that one side crossed a border or partition line. They must be analyzed through the history of occupation, repression, class struggle, national liberation, foreign intervention, and the political character of the states involved.

The central question is therefore not only whether a military action is called an invasion, but whether it defeats domination and restores self-determination, or whether it becomes domination itself.

== See also ==
[[Imperialism]]

[[Anti-imperialism]]

[[War]]

[[Invasion]]

[[Military occupation]]

[[Invasion of Iraq]]

[[War in Afghanistan]]

[[Vietnam War]]

[[Korean War]]

[[Bay of Pigs invasion]]

[[Cuban intervention in Angola]]

[[Philippine-American War]]

[[Mexican-American War]]

[[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]]

[[Gulf War]]

[[National liberation]]

[[Self-determination]]

[[Counterrevolution]]

[[Fascism]]

[[Settler colonialism]]

[[United States Agency for International Development]]

[[Michael Parenti]]

== References ==
<references />

Military intervention

2026-07-14T06:22:29Z

Jadenw815: Fixed it and added the references to my page ^•^

'''Military Intervention''', sometimes colloquially called an '''invasion''', is the use of armed force, political pressure, covert action, economic pressure, or institutional power by one state, coalition, or military force inside the territory or political conflict of another country. It can include invasion, occupation, bombing, expeditionary warfare, military advisers, proxy warfare, peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, covert operations, sanctions, aid conditionality, or direct support for one side in a civil war or national liberation struggle.

In ordinary speech, the word "invasion" is often used for any major foreign military entry into another country. More precisely, an invasion is a form of military intervention in which armed forces enter, attack, or occupy a territory. Military intervention is broader: it may occur through troops, airstrikes, proxy forces, intelligence agencies, humanitarian organizations, development agencies, sanctions, or military aid.

In international law, the [[United Nations Charter]] generally prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of states, while also recognizing self-defense if an armed attack occurs.<ref>https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text</ref><ref>https://legal.un.org/repertory/art51.shtml</ref> However, legality alone does not settle the political question. From an anti-imperialist perspective, military intervention must also be analyzed according to its class character, imperialist role, effect on self-determination, relationship to national liberation, and material consequences for the people affected.

In liberal and bourgeois discourse, military intervention is often discussed through abstract language such as "security", "humanitarianism", "democracy", "development", "stability", "peacekeeping", or "self-defense". Michael Parenti argues that imperialist interventions are often sanitized as matters of "national defense", "national security", and regional "stability", rather than named as imperial domination.<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/1995/Imperialism-101.htm</ref>

Military intervention is not politically identical in all cases. An imperialist invasion to seize territory, impose a client regime, crush socialism, or open markets is not the same as an anti-fascist intervention against a genocidal occupying power, or an internationalist intervention requested by a revolutionary government fighting apartheid or counterrevolution. However, because imperialist states frequently use humanitarian or democratic language to disguise domination, anti-imperialists generally treat foreign intervention with suspicion unless its liberatory character can be clearly demonstrated.

== Definition ==
An '''invasion''' is a form of military intervention in which armed forces enter, attack, or occupy another territory. An '''occupation''' is a prolonged form of military or political control following invasion or intervention. The International Committee of the Red Cross describes occupation as a situation in which territory is placed under the authority of a hostile army.<ref>https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/occupation</ref>

Military intervention can also occur without a formal invasion. Examples include bombing campaigns, naval blockades, military advisers, proxy armies, covert action, sanctions linked to military pressure, aid conditionality, development programs, intelligence operations, or support for coups and counterinsurgency.

The word "invasion" describes a military act, not by itself the political character of that act. For example, the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France in 1944 and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 were both invasions in the military sense, but they had opposite political meanings. One was part of the defeat of fascist occupation; the other was a genocidal fascist war of conquest.

Military intervention therefore has to be judged politically, not only linguistically. The question is not simply whether foreign force entered a country, but what social force the intervention served, who was harmed, who was strengthened, and whether it expanded or destroyed self-determination.

== Invasion and intervention ==
"Invasion" and "intervention" are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not identical. An invasion usually refers to the direct entry of armed forces into a territory. Intervention is broader and can include direct invasion, military aid, advisers, airstrikes, proxy armies, covert action, sanctions, aid conditionality, development programs, or support for coups and counterinsurgency.

Occupation is related to both terms, but it is not the same as either one. An invasion refers to the act of entering or attacking a territory; an intervention refers to foreign involvement in another country’s political or military conflict; occupation refers to prolonged foreign control after territory has been placed under the authority of an outside force. The International Committee of the Red Cross describes occupation as territory being placed under the authority of a hostile army.<ref>[https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/occupation "Occupation"]. International Committee of the Red Cross. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref> An invasion may lead to occupation, and an intervention may become occupation, but not every intervention includes occupation and not every invasion produces long-term occupation.

The political question is therefore not only whether foreign force entered a country, but what class and geopolitical project the intervention served. A military intervention may defend an oppressed people, assist a revolutionary government, defeat fascism, or stop genocide. It may also destroy self-determination, overthrow a popular government, defend imperial interests, protect private property, or impose colonial and capitalist domination.

In this sense, intervention is comparable to both nationalism and occupation. [[Nationalism]] can be progressive when oppressed nations use it against colonialism and imperialism, but reactionary when imperialist, settler-colonial, or fascist states use it to dominate others. [[Occupation]] can be part of defeating fascism or genocide in some cases, but it can also become imperialist, colonial, settler-colonial, or annexationist domination when it denies self-determination and imposes foreign control. Military intervention has to be judged in the same concrete way: not by the word alone, but by the forces involved, the historical context, and the results for the people affected.

== Anti-imperialist analysis ==

=== Self-determination ===
[[Self-determination]] is a central principle in anti-imperialist politics, but it is not an abstract slogan that applies equally to oppressor and oppressed forces. The right of oppressed nations to self-determination is progressive because it means liberation from colonialism, imperialism, occupation, apartheid, or national oppression. The "self-determination" of settler-colonial or imperial groups, however, can become reactionary when it is used to preserve domination over another people.

For example, Palestinian self-determination is an anti-colonial demand because Palestinians are a colonized and occupied people whose land, sovereignty, movement, and return have been denied. By contrast, Zionist claims to "Israeli self-determination" are not politically equivalent when they are used to justify settlement, apartheid, occupation, military domination, and the denial of Palestinian self-determination. In that case, the language of self-determination becomes a shield for settler-colonial power.

The same distinction appears in other contexts. Indigenous self-determination against settler states is not the same as settler claims to rule Indigenous land. Colonized peoples fighting empire are not the same as imperial states claiming the right to dominate colonies. A revolutionary movement struggling against occupation is not the same as a colonial power defending its occupation.

Self-determination therefore has to be analyzed according to concrete social relations. The key questions are: who is oppressed, who is oppressing, who controls land and resources, who is being denied sovereignty, and whether the political demand expands liberation or protects domination.

=== Imperialism and counterrevolution ===
Imperialist interventions are interventions carried out to preserve or expand the power of imperialist states, capitalist property, colonial domination, military alliances, or corporate access to resources, markets, labor, trade routes, and strategic territory. They are often justified through language such as "democracy", "human rights", "security", "anti-terrorism", "development", or "stability".

Western military and political interventions have often been connected to resources and strategic location. This does not mean every intervention has only one cause, but anti-imperialists argue that resources, markets, military geography, and control over independent states are central to imperial policy. Parenti argues that empires are commonly presented as defending order or humanitarianism while pursuing material interests and domination<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/2010/what-do-empires-do.htm</ref>

The 1953 coup in Iran followed the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and British and U.S. officials supported the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh's government.<ref>https://adst.org/2015/07/the-coup-against-irans-mohammad-mossadegh/</ref><ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7</ref> In Congo, U.S. officials described Katanga as central to Congo's mineral production, including copper, cobalt, manganese, and uranium<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7</ref> In Chile, U.S. covert action operated against Salvador Allende, whose program included nationalization of copper mines and other reforms<ref>https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-files-94chile.pdf</ref><ref>https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/allende</ref>

Counterrevolutionary interventions are interventions aimed at destroying socialist, communist, anti-colonial, nationalist, or popular movements. They may be carried out directly through invasion or indirectly through coups, proxy forces, death squads, sanctions, aid conditionality, non-governmental organizations, intelligence operations, or political funding.

Anti-imperialists therefore do not judge intervention only by whether it is violent in the immediate military sense. A coup, a proxy war, a sanctions regime, or a development program can function as intervention if it is used to reshape another country in the interests of imperialism and capital. Capitalist states also impose their influence without formally invading: through debt, investment pressure, sanctions, military alliances, international financial institutions, intelligence agencies, aid conditionality, and support for local ruling classes.

=== Revolutionary, anti-fascist, and reunification intervention ===
Not all military intervention is counterrevolutionary. Some interventions have been defended by communists, socialists, and anti-imperialists when they assisted anti-fascist struggle, defeated genocidal regimes, supported national liberation, or participated in struggles for reunification after colonial or imperial partition.

Such cases are usually judged by whether the intervention strengthens the independence of the oppressed people or replaces one domination with another. Even an initially defensible intervention can become reactionary if it turns into permanent occupation, plunder, annexation, or suppression of local self-determination.

The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France, Cuba's military assistance to Angola against apartheid South Africa, Vietnam's overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, and communist-led struggles for reunification in Korea and Vietnam are often cited as examples where foreign or cross-border military force cannot be judged only by the fact that troops crossed a line. The political meaning depends on the history of occupation, partition, class struggle, colonialism, and foreign domination.

In Korea and Vietnam, the issue of reunification was central. Both countries were shaped by colonialism, foreign partition, rival state-building projects, and Cold War intervention. Anti-imperialists therefore often reject narratives that describe northern military action only as foreign aggression while treating U.S.-backed southern states as innocent expressions of national self-determination. The U.S. Department of State notes that Korea was temporarily divided at the 38th parallel after the Second World War by agreement between the United States and Soviet Union to oversee the removal of Japanese forces<ref>https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war</ref>

=== Invitation and political legitimacy ===
A common argument is that a military action is not an invasion if some local force requests it. This is insufficient. Nearly every intervention has local allies.

* The United States intervened in Vietnam with the '''support of the South Vietnamese state.'''
* The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan after '''requests from the Afghan communist government.'''
* Cuba intervened in Angola at the '''request of the MPLA government.'''
* Rwanda has intervened in Congo '''while backed by some Congolese factions.'''
* The United States supported the [[Mujahideen|Afghan Mujahideen]] after sections of the '''mujahideen welcomed U.S.,''' Pakistani, and Saudi backing against the Afghan communist government and the Soviet Union.
* The United States and United Nations intervened in Korea with the '''support of the South Korean government.'''
* The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and was initially '''welcomed by some Iraqis who opposed Saddam Hussein''', only for the invasion to produce occupation, state collapse, sectarian violence, civil war, privatization, and long-term foreign domination.
* NATO intervened in Libya in 2011 with '''support from anti-Gaddafi forces'''.<ref>[https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_71652.htm "NATO and Libya"]. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* '''Pro-Mobutu and anti-Lumumba forces in the Congo in 1960,''' welcomed or benefited from Western support during the 1960 Congo Crisis, but their opposition to Patrice Lumumba did not make foreign intervention liberatory; anti-imperialists understand the crisis as a neocolonial intervention in which Western powers helped destroy Lumumba's government while protecting strategic and mineral interests in Congo, including copper, cobalt, manganese, and uranium.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7 "National Security Council Briefing"]. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIII, Congo. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* Some '''anti-Maduro Venezuelans''' welcomed the January 2026 U.S. operation against Nicolás Maduro.<ref>[https://www.wola.org/2026/01/military-action-venezuela-united-states-maduro-trump/ "Unilateral U.S. military intervention to remove authoritarian dictator Nicolas Maduro from power violates international law and sets a dangerous precedent for the region"]. WOLA. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* Some '''anti-Khamenei Iranians''' celebrated the U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Ali Khamenei<ref>[https://apnews.com/live/live-updates-israel-iran-february-28-2026 "Iranian Supreme Leader is dead, Trump says"]. Associated Press. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* The United States carried out military campaigns against Japanese forces in Guam, the Philippines, and other Pacific territories while many people under Japanese occupation welcomed Japan's defeat.
* The United States supported Panama's separation from Colombia in 1903 while some Panamanian separatists welcomed U.S. backing.The Allied invasion of Normandy was welcomed by many French anti-fascists and resisted by Nazi occupiers.

In reactionary cases, local welcome can become collaborationism when local elites, armed factions, opposition figures, or comprador forces invite imperialist power against their own people. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya show how foreign-backed "liberation" can produce occupation, civil war, state collapse, militia rule, or long-term destabilization rather than genuine self-determination.<ref>[https://www.cfr.org/articles/iraq-three-years "Iraq: Three Years On"]. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/lessons-libya-how-not-intervene "Lessons from Libya: How Not to Intervene"]. Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref> Congo shows how anti-Lumumba and pro-Mobutu forces benefited from Western support in a crisis that helped destroy a popular anti-colonial government and opened the way to decades of dictatorship, while Venezuela shows how some opposition support for U.S. intervention did not prevent the intervention from becoming a violation of sovereignty and an attempt to control the country's political future.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7 "National Security Council Briefing"]. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIII, Congo. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://www.wola.org/multimedia/a-shocking-u-s-attack-and-a-transition-without-a-transition-in-venezuela/ "A Shocking U.S. Attack and 'a Transition Without a Transition' in Venezuela"]. WOLA. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>A stricter liberal version of the invitation argument claims that foreign military action is not an invasion if the recognized government of the country requests or welcomes it. This also fails as a general rule, because recognition and state invitation do not automatically prove popular legitimacy or self-determination. The United States intervened in Vietnam with the support of the South Vietnamese government, but anti-imperialists still regard it as a foreign intervention because South Vietnam was a U.S.-backed anti-communist state fighting against a communist-led movement for national liberation and reunification.

The same problem appears in Korea. The South Korean government welcomed U.S. and United Nations military support during the Korean War, but that did not make the conflict purely domestic or erase the fact that foreign armies entered, fought, and later crossed the 38th parallel into the North. In divided, occupied, or civil-war contexts, an invitation from one recognized government may explain why foreign troops entered, but it does not settle whether the intervention was legitimate, popular, anti-imperialist, or destructive of self-determination. UN Security Council Resolution 83 recommended that member states provide assistance to the Republic of Korea after North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel<ref>https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v07/d372</ref>

Invitation therefore matters, but does not settle the issue. The decisive questions are: who invited the foreign force, whether that force represents a legitimate popular government or liberation movement, whether the intervention supports self-determination, what the foreign army does, and whether it withdraws or imposes domination.

=== Occupation and aftermath ===
The aftermath of intervention is often as important as the initial justification. A military action may claim to stop oppression, but produce occupation, state collapse, economic dependency, sectarian violence, or permanent foreign bases.

Anti-imperialist analysis therefore asks whether the intervention leaves behind stronger sovereignty and popular power, or whether it produces dependency, privatization, repression, partition, or long-term imperial control. A foreign intervention that begins with a defensive, humanitarian, anti-fascist, or reunification justification can become reactionary if it turns into occupation or domination.

== Types and examples ==

=== Reactionary invasions and interventions ===
Reactionary invasions and interventions are military, political, economic, or covert actions that strengthen imperialism, colonialism, settler colonialism, fascism, capitalism, counterrevolution, annexation, or foreign domination. These interventions may be presented as defensive, democratic, humanitarian, civilizing, anti-terrorist, anti-communist, or stabilizing, but their political content is judged by the class forces involved, the social order they defend, and the consequences for the people affected.

==== Imperialist and regime-change invasion ====
An imperialist invasion is a military invasion carried out to expand the power of an imperialist state through territory, resources, markets, military bases, regime change, strategic dominance, or control over another country's political economy. Imperialist invasions often present themselves as defensive, democratic, humanitarian, or civilizing, while their actual result is usually the destruction of sovereignty, expansion of foreign military power, privatization, corporate access, or the installation of governments dependent on imperialist support.

* '''U.S. invasion of Iraq:''' 2003 regime-change invasion that overthrew the Iraqi government, destroyed much of the Iraqi state, caused mass death and displacement, and expanded U.S. influence in West Asia.

* '''Gulf War:''' 1990–1991 war in which Iraq's annexation of Kuwait violated Kuwaiti sovereignty, but the U.S.-led response was still a major imperialist intervention involving bombing, ground war, oil politics, Gulf monarchy politics, and the expansion of U.S. military power in West Asia.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/gulf-war "The Gulf War, 1991"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''NATO intervention in Libya:''' 2011 intervention presented as humanitarian protection, but used to overthrow the Libyan government, contributing to state collapse, militia rule, foreign interference, and long-term instability.<ref>[https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_71652.htm "NATO and Libya"]. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''U.S. invasion of Panama:''' 1989–1990 imperialist invasion, codenamed Operation Just Cause, in which the United States overthrew Manuel Noriega and reinforced U.S. dominance over a strategically important canal state under the stated justifications of protecting U.S. citizens, defending democracy, combating drug trafficking, and protecting the Panama Canal treaties.<ref>[https://history.army.mil/Publications/Publications-Catalog/Operation-Just-Cause-Collection/ "Operation Just Cause Collection"]. United States Army Center of Military History. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

==== Settler-colonial invasion ====
A settler-colonial invasion is a form of imperialist or colonial invasion aimed at replacing, displacing, or subordinating Indigenous peoples and taking their land for settlers. Settler-colonial invasion differs from ordinary military conflict because the goal is not only victory over another army, but the transformation of land, population, law, and sovereignty in favor of settlers.

* '''European conquest and colonization of the Americas''': long inhumane process of invasions, settlement, enslavement, genocide, land theft, and colonial state-building that subordinated Indigenous peoples and created the settler-colonial foundations for later states such as the United States, Canada, and other settler republics.

* '''Portuguese colonization of Brazil''': colonial and settler-colonial process beginning in the sixteenth century, involving Indigenous dispossession, plantation slavery, resource extraction, missionary rule, and the incorporation of Brazil into the Portuguese Empire.

* '''British colonization of Canada''': settler-colonial process in which British imperial power expanded over Indigenous lands through conquest, treaties, settlement, displacement, and colonial state-building, later forming the basis of the Canadian settler state.

* '''British colonization of Australia''': settler-colonial invasion beginning in 1788, followed by frontier wars, dispossession, massacres, and the imposition of British law over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands.<ref>[https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/introduction.php "Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788–1930"]. University of Newcastle. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''French conquest and colonization of Algeria''': settler-colonial invasion beginning with the French invasion of Algiers in 1830 and continuing through conquest, land seizure, European settlement, repression, and colonial rule until Algerian independence in 1962.

* '''Expansion of the United States''': settler-colonial process of Indigenous removal, territorial conquest, treaty-breaking, settlement, and military expansion across North America.

* '''U.S. invasion of Mexico''': settler-imperialist war waged by the Statesian settler republic from 1846 to 1848 that ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, through which Mexico ceded about 55 percent of its territory to the United States, opening large areas of Mexican and Indigenous land to U.S. settler expansion.<ref>[https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)"]. National Archives. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom''': 1893 settler-colonial and imperialist intervention in which U.S.-backed planter and business interests overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani and the Hawaiian monarchy, placed her under house arrest, and cleared the way for U.S. annexation and colonial control despite mass Native Hawaiian opposition.<ref>[https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hawaii-petition "The 1897 Petition Against the Annexation of Hawaii"]. National Archives. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Israeli invasions of neighboring territories''': understood by anti-imperialists in the context of settler colonialism, regional domination, military occupation, and U.S.-backed Israeli power.

==== Colonial invasion and occupation ====
A colonial invasion is an invasion or conquest carried out to establish or expand colonial rule over another people. It may involve land seizure, racial hierarchy, forced labor, resource extraction, military repression, and the denial of sovereignty, often justified through the language of civilization, modernization, order, development, or protection.

* '''British colonization of India:''' colonial process in which British imperial power subordinated the Indian subcontinent through conquest, company rule, military repression, taxation, extraction, famine policy, and later direct Crown rule.

* '''French colonization of Indochina:''' colonial conquest and occupation of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that imposed French imperial rule, plantation extraction, forced labor, taxation, and repression against anti-colonial movements.

* '''Japanese colonization of Taiwan:''' colonial occupation beginning after Japan acquired Taiwan from Qing China in 1895, involving military repression, assimilation policies, infrastructure development for imperial extraction, and incorporation into the Japanese Empire.

* '''Japanese colonization of Korea:''' colonial occupation formalized by Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910, involving land seizure, forced assimilation, repression of Korean nationalism, forced labor, and the use of Korea as a base for Japanese imperial expansion.

* '''Italian colonization of Somalia:''' colonial expansion beginning in the late nineteenth century, with Italy establishing protectorates and colonial rule over parts of Somali territory from 1889 onward.

* '''Ottoman imperial conquests:''' pre-capitalist imperial conquests that expanded Ottoman state power across parts of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa, involving military conquest, tribute, provincial rule, and the subordination of conquered peoples within an imperial order.

==== Fascist and Axis invasions ====
A fascist invasion is an invasion carried out by fascist states for conquest, racial domination, anti-communism, colonial expansion, or imperial power. Fascist invasions are among the clearest forms of reactionary and genocidal war because they are often wars of extermination, racial hierarchy, forced labor, anti-communism, and colonial domination.

* '''Italian invasion of Ethiopia / Abyssinia:''' fascist and colonial invasion from 1935 to 1936 involving chemical warfare, massacres, repression, and Ethiopian anti-colonial resistance.<ref>[https://blackpast.org/global-african-history/second-italo-abyssinian-war-1935-1936/ "The Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1935–1936)"]. BlackPast. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Italian invasion of Albania:''' fascist imperial invasion launched in April 1939, after which Albania became an Italian protectorate and King Zog fled the country.<ref>[https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=160 "Invasion of Albania"]. World War II Database. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''German invasion of Poland:''' fascist invasion launched in early September 1939 that began the Second World War in Europe and imposed brutal occupation.

* '''German invasion of France:''' fascist conquest launched in May 1940, followed by German occupation, the entry of German forces into Paris, and the establishment of the collaborationist Vichy regime.<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/film/german-invasion-of-france "German invasion of France"]. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''German invasion of the Soviet Union:''' genocidal fascist war of extermination launched on 22 June 1941 under Operation Barbarossa, involving anti-communism, racial domination, mass murder, starvation policy, and colonial conquest in Eastern Europe.<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941 "Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941"]. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Imperial Japan's invasion of China:''' imperialist, colonial, and fascistic war that escalated after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, marked by massacres, occupation, forced labor, and mass atrocities.<ref>[https://sfi.usc.edu/collections/nanjing-massacre "Nanjing Massacre"]. USC Shoah Foundation. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Imperial Japan's invasions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific:''' wars of imperial expansion across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, involving colonial occupation, forced labor, resource extraction, puppet regimes, and military terror.

==== Annexationist and anti-communist invasions ====
An annexationist invasion is an invasion carried out to seize territory and absorb it into another state. In the modern period, annexationist invasions often overlap with anti-communism, imperialism, colonialism, or regional domination, especially when the invading state destroys a left-wing or anti-colonial government and replaces self-determination with military occupation.

* '''Indonesian invasion of Timor-Leste:''' 1975 invasion and annexation by Indonesia after Timor-Leste's move toward independence, carried out in an anti-communist Cold War context and followed by occupation, mass killing, famine, repression, and resistance by the Timorese people.<ref>[https://www.hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-east-timor-guide/ "Genocide in East Timor"]. Holocaust Museum Houston. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

==== Counterrevolutionary intervention ====
Counterrevolutionary intervention is military, political, economic, or covert intervention aimed at destroying a revolution, socialist government, national liberation movement, or popular reform process. It may be carried out directly through invasion or indirectly through coups, proxy forces, death squads, sanctions, sabotage, aid programs, media operations, or political funding, and is usually justified as the defense of democracy, order, religion, markets, property, national security, or human rights.

* '''Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War:''' counterrevolutionary intervention from 1918 to 1920 by foreign powers in support of the White Armies and against the Bolshevik Revolution, often described as involving around fourteen foreign powers.

* '''Bay of Pigs invasion:''' U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary invasion in April 1961 intended to overthrow the Cuban Revolution, later acknowledged by the United States as a failed invasion after landing in Cuba.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/bay-of-pigs "The Bay of Pigs Invasion and its Aftermath, April 1961–October 1962"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''1953 Iran coup:''' a covert intervention against Mohammad Mossadegh's government after Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, commonly cited by anti-imperialists as an example of intervention serving oil interests and Western control.<ref>[https://adst.org/2015/07/the-coup-against-irans-mohammad-mossadegh/ "The Coup Against Iran's Mohammad Mossadegh"]. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''1960 Congo Crisis and Lumumba Coup:''' case of imperialist and neocolonial intervention in a resource-rich country, with U.S. documents describing Katanga as central to Congo's copper, cobalt, manganese, and uranium production.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23/d7 "National Security Council Briefing"]. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIII, Congo. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''1973 Chile coup:''' counterrevolutionary intervention against Salvador Allende's Popular Unity government, whose program included nationalization of copper mines, agrarian reform, and socialization of major sectors of the economy.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/allende "The Allende Years and the Pinochet Coup, 1969–1973"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''U.S. intervention in Vietnam:''' imperialist and counterrevolutionary intervention against communist-led reunification and national liberation.

* '''U.S.-led intervention in Korea:''' United States-led military intervention through the United Nations during the Korean War that preserved a U.S.-backed southern state, militarized Korea's division, and turned the peninsula into a major Cold War battlefield.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war "Korean War and Japan's Recovery"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''United Nations invasion of northern Korea:''' U.S.-organized military offensive in which UN forces crossed the 38th parallel and invaded the North after the Inchon landing and recapture of Seoul, showing that the war cannot be reduced only to North Korea's initial crossing of the 38th parallel.

* '''Indonesian Mass Killings:''' 1965-1966 counterrevolutionary mass killing campaign and political transition in which the Indonesian military, led by Suharto, destroyed the Communist Party of Indonesia and displaced Sukarno's left-nationalist government; anti-imperialists treat it as a major Cold War intervention because U.S. Embassy files show that Statesian officials closely tracked the killings and saw the destruction of the Indonesian left as favorable to U.S. interests.<ref>[https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/indonesia/2017-10-17/indonesia-mass-murder-1965-us-embassy-files "U.S. Embassy Tracked Indonesia Mass Murder 1965"]. National Security Archive. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''1954 Guatemala Coup:''' CIA-backed counterrevolutionary coup that overthrew Jacobo Árbenz after his government pursued land reform that threatened United Fruit Company interests; the coup helped destroy Guatemala's democratic reform process and contributed to decades of military rule, civil war, repression, and genocidal violence against Indigenous Maya communities.<ref>[https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/ "CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents"]. National Security Archive. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''U.S. support for the Contras:''' 1980s proxy and counterrevolutionary intervention in which the Reagan administration funded, armed, and supported the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinista government, with Congress later approving aid and the Iran-Contra scandal revealing covert efforts to continue support after restrictions on military aid.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1981-1988/central-america "Central America, 1981–1993"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''U.S. invasion of Grenada:''' 1983 counterrevolutionary intervention launched after the internal coup against Maurice Bishop and his assassination, with the Reagan administration framing the invasion as a rescue mission and restoration of order while anti-imperialists understand it as the destruction of the Grenadian Revolution and a U.S. blow against Cuban and socialist influence in the Caribbean.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1981-1988/grenada "Grenada, 1983"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''British suppression of the Malayan Emergency:''' counterinsurgency and colonial intervention from 1948 to 1960 in which British imperial forces fought communist-led guerrillas and anti-colonial forces in Malaya, combining military repression, population control, detention, and colonial emergency rule.

* '''Western support for post-Soviet capitalist restoration:''' counterrevolutionary political and economic process in which Western states and institutions supported the transition from the Soviet system toward capitalism, privatization, market shock therapy, and integration into the capitalist world economy; this should not be confused with the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, which was carried out by Soviet hardliners rather than Western-backed forces.

=== Humanitarian pretext ===
A humanitarian pretext is the use of humanitarian language to justify imperialist intervention. Imperialist states often claim to intervene to protect civilians, stop dictatorship, defend women, provide aid, prevent atrocities, or promote development, while the actual result may be regime change, state collapse, occupation, sanctions, dependency, or expanded imperial control.

Humanitarian intervention can also appear through non-military institutions. Aid programs, development agencies, and NGOs may provide real relief to people in crisis, but they can also function as tools of imperial influence when they are tied to political conditionality, regime-change networks, counterinsurgency, market restructuring, or the weakening of socialist and anti-imperialist governments.

* '''NATO bombing of Yugoslavia:''' 1999 bombing campaign presented by NATO as humanitarian intervention, but condemned by anti-imperialists as an imperialist attack that bypassed the United Nations and expanded NATO power; Michael Parenti described the bombing as a humanitarian pretext for Western domination.<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/2010/rational-destruction-of-yugoslavia.htm "The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia"]. Michael Parenti. Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''NATO intervention in Libya:''' 2011 intervention presented as humanitarian protection, but used to overthrow the Libyan government, contributing to state collapse, militia rule, foreign interference, and long-term instability.<ref>[https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_71652.htm "NATO and Libya"]. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

=== USAID and development intervention ===
The [[United States Agency for International Development]] is often presented by liberals as a benevolent humanitarian institution that provides food, medicine, disaster relief, democratic assistance, and development aid. USAID was created under the Foreign Assistance Act framework during the Cold War, and U.S. foreign assistance law states that such assistance is intended to promote the foreign policy, security, and general welfare of the United States, while also assisting economic development and security abroad.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/pl-480 "USAID and PL–480, 1961–1969"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1071/pdf/COMPS-1071.pdf "Foreign Assistance Act of 1961"]. GovInfo. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

Anti-imperialists argue that USAID cannot be separated from the foreign policy of the United States. Even when USAID funds projects that provide real services, it can also serve broader imperial objectives by promoting pro-U.S. civil society networks, market reforms, privatization, anti-communist politics, and opposition to governments targeted by U.S. foreign policy. USAID oversight material describes democracy, human rights, and governance programming as supporting civil society, elections, governance, and human rights, showing how aid can directly enter political life in recipient countries.<ref>[https://oig.usaid.gov/dem-human-gov?page=3 "OIG Oversight: Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance"]. USAID Office of Inspector General. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

Michael Parenti's broader critique of empire describes "maldevelopment" abroad as part of the hidden cost of U.S. domination and the victory of finance capital over democracy, a framework often applied by anti-imperialists to development agencies, aid conditionality, democracy-promotion institutions, and NGO networks operating in countries targeted by U.S. foreign policy.<ref>[https://www.michael-parenti.org/book-against-empire "Against Empire"]. Michael Parenti. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''USAID and development programs:''' treated by liberals as nonviolent humanitarian assistance, but analyzed by anti-imperialists as part of a wider system of U.S. influence, especially when operating in countries targeted for regime change, sanctions, counterinsurgency, or anti-communist pressure.

=== Anti-fascist intervention ===
Anti-fascist intervention is military action aimed at defeating fascist aggression or occupation. Such interventions are distinguished from imperialist invasions by their target and context: they fight fascist regimes engaged in conquest, occupation, genocide, and anti-communist extermination, though anti-fascist victory can later be used by imperialist states to rewrite themselves as permanently virtuous while hiding their own colonialism, racism, and later counterrevolutionary wars.

* '''Allied invasion of Normandy:''' 1944 invasion in the military sense, but part of the anti-fascist war against Nazi occupation, making its political meaning different from fascist or imperialist wars of conquest.

* '''Allied invasion of fascist Italy:''' 1943 invasion that helped defeat Mussolini's fascist state and weaken the Axis powers.

* '''Soviet advance into Eastern Europe and Germany:''' helped defeat Nazi Germany and end fascist occupation, though later Soviet domination over parts of Eastern Europe remains a separate historical question.

=== Revolutionary internationalist intervention ===
Revolutionary internationalist intervention is military assistance given by a socialist or revolutionary state to another revolutionary or anti-colonial movement. Its legitimacy depends on whether it supports liberation and self-determination rather than domination, and whether it avoids creating a colony, seizing resources, imposing capitalist restructuring, installing permanent bases, or subordinating the assisted country to foreign control.

* '''Cuban intervention in Angola:''' Cuban military assistance from 1975 onward supported the MPLA government against apartheid South Africa and U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary forces, making it one of the clearest anti-imperialist examples of internationalist military assistance.<ref>[https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/cuba-and-angolan-war "Cuba and the Angolan War"]. South African History Online. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Chinese intervention in the Korean War:''' 1950 intervention in which the Chinese People's Volunteers entered northern Korea after U.S.-led United Nations forces crossed the 38th parallel and advanced toward the Yalu River, with anti-imperialists often framing it as defensive internationalist support for the DPRK against U.S.-led escalation, especially as General Douglas MacArthur pushed to expand the war against China and submitted atomic-bomb target proposals for Korea, Manchuria, and other parts of China.<ref>[https://history.army.mil/html/books/019/19-8-1/index.html "The Korean War: The Chinese Intervention"]. United States Army Center of Military History. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v07/d821 "Memorandum of Conversation, by the Ambassador at Large"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

=== Anti-genocide intervention ===
An anti-genocide intervention is a military intervention justified by the prevention or ending of genocide or mass extermination. Such interventions can be defensible when they stop genocide, but they can still become complicated if they produce occupation, dependency, or domination after the initial overthrow of the genocidal force.

* '''Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia:''' 1978–1979 intervention that overthrew the Khmer Rouge and ended its genocidal rule, though the later Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia remains debated.
* '''Tanzanian invasion of Uganda:''' another 1978-1979 intervention, also known as the Uganda–Tanzania War or Kagera War, in which Tanzania and Ugandan exile forces overthrew Idi Amin's regime after Uganda invaded and claimed the Kagera Salient. Anti-imperialists often treat it differently from imperialist regime-change wars because it followed Ugandan aggression against Tanzania and helped remove a violent military dictatorship, though it still requires analysis of cross-border force, local allies, and the political aftermath.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/event/Uganda-Tanzania-War "Uganda–Tanzania War"]. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>
* '''Allied invasions and advances into Nazi-occupied Europe:''' helped defeat fascist regimes responsible for genocide, occupation, and mass war, showing that military force can sometimes be defended when it stops fascism or genocide while still requiring analysis of the aftermath.

=== Reunification intervention ===
Reunification intervention is military action carried out in the name of reunifying a divided country. It is especially common in countries divided by colonialism, foreign occupation, imposed partition, or Cold War settlement, and is politically complicated because it can be framed either as national liberation or aggression depending on the history and class forces involved.

* '''North Korean invasion of South Korea:''' a contested reunification intervention in which North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950, but anti-imperialists argue that the war cannot be understood apart from Japanese colonialism, foreign partition, U.S. and Soviet occupation, southern anti-communist repression, Jeju 4·3, border clashes, and competing Korean state-building projects.<ref>[https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/revealing-truth-jeju-43-archives "Revealing Truth: Jeju 4·3 Archives"]. UNESCO Memory of the World. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''North Vietnamese and NLF struggle in South Vietnam:''' understood by many anti-imperialists as a national liberation and reunification struggle against a U.S.-backed southern state rather than simple foreign aggression, since Vietnam was shaped by colonialism, partition, competing governments, foreign intervention, and reunification politics.

=== Proxy intervention ===
Proxy intervention occurs when a state intervenes indirectly by funding, arming, training, or directing local forces. This allows imperialist states to influence or destroy other countries while avoiding the appearance of direct invasion, especially when they want to weaken socialist or anti-imperialist governments without openly deploying large numbers of troops.

* '''U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen:''' a proxy intervention against the Afghan communist government and the Soviet Union that strengthened reactionary Islamist forces.

* '''Rwandan intervention in the Congo:''' often justified through local allies and security claims, but criticized for worsening war, resource plunder, and the violation of Congolese sovereignty.

=== Contested intervention ===
A contested intervention is an intervention whose political character is debated among anti-imperialists, socialists, liberals, nationalists, or international lawyers. These cases often involve mixed conditions: real aggression by one side, foreign manipulation by another, rival claims to self-determination, civil war, national oppression, or competing geopolitical interests.

* '''Iraqi invasion of Kuwait:''' a reactionary invasion and annexation attempt in 1990 that violated Kuwaiti sovereignty and triggered the Gulf War, while the U.S.-led response also remained an imperialist intervention involving bombing, oil politics, Gulf monarchy politics, and expanded U.S. military power in West Asia.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/gulf-war "The Gulf War, 1991"]. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

* '''Soviet intervention in Afghanistan:''' a heavily contested intervention beginning in 1979, because the Afghan communist government promoted land reform, literacy, women's rights, and secular modernization, while the Soviet military intervention also escalated the war, caused civilian suffering, foreignized the revolution, and helped produce a backlash strengthened by U.S., Pakistani, and Saudi support for the mujahideen.

* '''Russian invasion of Ukraine:''' a contested case in some left-wing spaces because of NATO expansion, the post-2014 conflict, and Russian claims about protecting Russian-speaking populations, but a consistent self-determination standard can recognize minority-rights and security concerns while still weighing heavily against invasion, annexation, and the denial of Ukrainian sovereignty.<ref>[https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/767883?ln=en "Territorial Integrity of Ukraine"]. United Nations Digital Library. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref><ref>[https://ukraine.ohchr.org/en/reports/crimea-and-occupied-territory "Crimea and other occupied territory"]. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Retrieved 2026-07-13.</ref>

== Liberal, centrist, and reactionary views ==

=== Liberal and centrist views ===
Liberals and centrists often say that "all invasions are wrong" in the abstract. This can sound principled, and in many cases opposition to invasion is correct. However, anti-imperialists argue that this view often remains shallow when it refuses to ask why an invasion happened, what history produced it, what class forces were involved, whether the country was already divided by colonialism or foreign occupation, or whether the intervention was imperialist, anti-fascist, anti-genocide, or part of a national liberation struggle.

This does not mean that context automatically justifies invasion. Rather, it means that the first crossing of a border does not explain the whole political origin of a war. A serious analysis must distinguish between the trigger of a conflict and the deeper historical causes of that conflict.

Liberals and centrists may also argue that intervention is wrong because it means forcing one state's rule over another. Anti-imperialists generally agree that foreign domination is wrong, but also argue that capitalist states force their rule over other countries without formal invasion all the time. They do so through sanctions, debt, unequal trade, military bases, aid conditionality, coups, intelligence operations, corporate ownership, and support for local comprador elites.

=== Liberal interventionism ===
Liberals often defend intervention through the language of human rights, democracy, humanitarian aid, international law, development, women's rights, and protection of civilians. They may argue that military intervention, sanctions, USAID, NGOs, peacekeeping, or democracy-promotion programs can be positive when they oppose dictatorships or provide relief to suffering populations.

From this view, interventions such as NATO in Libya, the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, sanctions against targeted states, or USAID activity in the Global South may be framed as flawed but necessary attempts to defend human rights or support civil society.

Liberals often say that the Gulf War was legitimate because it was the right thing to do to expel Iraq from Kuwait, but they rarely apply the same standard to socialist or anti-imperialist forces that fought to expel fascist, colonial, or U.S.-backed forces from their own regions.

Anti-imperialists criticize liberal interventionism for treating imperialist states as neutral moral actors. The United States, NATO, and other imperialist powers do not intervene from outside history. They intervene as states with military alliances, corporations, intelligence agencies, geopolitical interests, and long records of colonial and counterrevolutionary violence.

=== Reactionary interventionism ===
Reactionaries often defend intervention through nationalism, militarism, civilizational racism, anti-communism, anti-migrant politics, religious chauvinism, or settler-colonial security rhetoric. They may argue that imperialist states have the right to invade, bomb, sanction, or occupy other countries in order to defend national greatness, borders, markets, "Western civilization", or allies.

Reactionary arguments are usually more openly militarist than liberal arguments. Where liberals may justify intervention as humanitarian or democratic, reactionaries often justify it as punishment, conquest, revenge, deterrence, or the defense of empire.

In both cases, anti-imperialists argue that the oppressed people themselves, not imperialist states, should determine their own future.

=== Cold War origin narratives ===
Liberals and reactionaries often summarize the Korean War with the phrase that "North Korea invaded South Korea." The narrow factual claim is true: North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel and launched a coordinated conventional invasion in June 1950. However, anti-imperialists argue that this framing becomes misleading when it is used to explain the entire war as a simple case of communist aggression against an innocent democratic South Korea.

This narrative relies on single-date framing. It treats 25 June 1950 as the whole origin of the war while stripping away Japanese colonialism, foreign occupation, the artificial division of Korea, class conflict, People’s Committees, anti-communist repression, border clashes, and the authoritarian character of Syngman Rhee's southern regime. It also presents South Korea only as a victim while ignoring massacres, repression, anti-communist terror, and the suppression of Korean leftists and civilians before the war became a full conventional war.

A serious anti-imperialist analysis can acknowledge that North Korea launched the first major conventional invasion while still rejecting the claim that North Korea alone created the Korean War. Korea had been divided after Japan's defeat by foreign occupation zones, the 38th parallel was an externally imposed military line rather than an ancient Korean border, and both Korean governments claimed to represent the whole peninsula. The war grew out of occupation, partition, class struggle, repression, uprisings, and competing projects of national reunification.

The point is not that North Korea did nothing wrong. The point is that South Korea and the United States were not innocent guardians of democracy simply because North Korea crossed the line first. The trigger of a war is not the same as the origin of a war. North Korea crossed the 38th parallel first in 1950, but the Korean War was created by years of occupation, partition, repression, and class conflict before that line was crossed.

=== Invitation-based justification ===
A common liberal or reactionary argument is that foreign troops are not invading if some people in the affected country welcome them. This argument fails because almost every intervention has local allies. South Vietnam welcomed U.S. forces; the Afghan communist government requested Soviet help; the MPLA welcomed Cuba in Angola; some Iraqis welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003; French anti-fascists welcomed the Allied invasion of Normandy; and some Congolese factions have welcomed Rwandan involvement.

Liberals may argue that intervention is legitimate when the recognized government welcomes foreign troops, but the U.S. intervention in Vietnam shows why this is insufficient: South Vietnam welcomed U.S. forces, yet the war was still a foreign military intervention against a communist-led national liberation and reunification struggle.

The Korean War shows the same problem. South Korea welcomed U.S. and UN military intervention, but that did not mean foreign armies were absent or that the intervention stopped being an intervention. A foreign army can be invited by a recognized government and still function as a decisive outside force in a civil war, partition conflict, or national struggle.

The existence of local support does not automatically determine whether a military action is justified. It only raises further questions about legitimacy, class character, self-determination, and consequences.

=== Equivalence between all interventions ===
Another mistaken view is that all military interventions are morally identical. This erases the difference between fascist conquest, imperialist regime change, anti-fascist liberation, anti-genocide intervention, internationalist assistance to a revolutionary government, and contested reunification struggles.

A consistent anti-imperialist position does not treat Nazi Germany invading the Soviet Union, the United States invading Iraq, Cuba assisting Angola, North Korea crossing the 38th parallel, and the Allies invading Nazi-occupied France as politically equivalent. The military form may be similar, but the class forces, historical context, and political meaning may be very different.

=== Humanitarian justification ===
Liberals often argue that humanitarian intervention is necessary to stop atrocities, deliver aid, protect women, or support democracy. Reactionaries may use the same humanitarian language selectively, but combine it with racist or militarist narratives about "civilizing" other countries or defeating supposedly backward peoples.

Anti-imperialists argue that humanitarian claims must be tested against material results. If an intervention produces occupation, privatization, military bases, state collapse, sanctions, dependency, or foreign domination, its humanitarian language should not be accepted at face value.

Humanitarian claims are especially suspicious when used selectively by imperialist states that ignore or support atrocities committed by their allies. Parenti's criticism of NATO's war against Yugoslavia is one example of a left-wing critique of humanitarian language being used to justify bombing and imperial domination<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/parenti/2010/rational-destruction-of-yugoslavia.htm</ref>

If the Gulf War is not considered an intervention because it was framed as liberating Kuwait, then NATO's interventions in Yugoslavia and Libya could also be dismissed as non-interventions because their supporters framed them as humanitarian, making the term politically meaningless.

== Anti-imperialist criteria ==
A military intervention can be judged by the following questions:

* Does it support or violate the self-determination of the people affected?
* Is self-determination being claimed by an oppressed nation, or by a settler-colonial, imperialist, occupying, or dominant force?
* Who requested the intervention, and does that force represent a legitimate popular government, liberation movement, puppet regime, elite clique, occupation authority, comprador class, or foreign-dependent faction?
* Does the intervention fight fascism, colonialism, apartheid, genocide, or foreign-backed counterrevolution?Does the intervention attack a revolutionary, socialist, anti-colonial, independent, or popular government?
* Which class forces are strengthened: workers, peasants, oppressed peoples, and national liberation movements, or capitalists, landlords, settlers, comprador elites, and imperialist states?
* Is the intervention defensive and limited, or does it seek regime change, annexation, permanent bases, market access, resources, or geopolitical dominance?
* Is the force used proportionate and directed against military targets, or does it rely on collective punishment, bombing, sanctions, starvation, terror, or civilian destruction?
* Does the intervening power withdraw and strengthen sovereignty, or does it occupy, annex, privatize, install bases, control resources, or impose dependency?
* Does the intervention expand liberation and popular power, or does it produce collapse, dependency, dictatorship, civil war, or imperial domination?
* Is humanitarian, democratic, development, self-defense, anti-terrorism, or reunification language being used to hide counterrevolutionary, imperialist, settler-colonial, or capitalist goals?
* Are the same standards being applied consistently to allies and enemies, including cases where the first conventional attack hides a longer history of colonialism, partition, occupation, repression, civil conflict, and foreign interference?

== Legacy ==
Military intervention is not automatically progressive or reactionary based only on the word "invasion". The political character of an intervention depends on the class forces involved, the relation to imperialism, the question of self-determination, the target of the intervention, the legitimacy of any invitation, and the consequences for the people affected.

Self-determination is a progressive principle when it refers to oppressed nations, colonized peoples, Indigenous peoples, occupied peoples, and workers struggling against domination. It becomes reactionary when settler-colonial, imperialist, or fascist forces use the same language to defend domination over others.

Imperialist, colonial, settler, fascist, and counterrevolutionary interventions are reactionary because they crush self-determination and defend domination. Some interventions, however, may be defensible when they help defeat fascism, apartheid, genocide, colonialism, or foreign-backed counterrevolution, especially when requested by a legitimate popular government or liberation movement and when they do not become occupation, plunder, or permanent domination.

Reunification struggles are especially contested because they often involve countries divided by colonialism, foreign occupation, imposed partition, or Cold War settlement. North Korea's invasion of South Korea and North Vietnam's victory over South Vietnam cannot be understood only through the fact that one side crossed a border or partition line. They must be analyzed through the history of occupation, repression, class struggle, national liberation, foreign intervention, and the political character of the states involved.

The central question is therefore not only whether a military action is called an invasion, but whether it defeats domination and restores self-determination, or whether it becomes domination itself.

== See also ==
[[Imperialism]]

[[Anti-imperialism]]

[[War]]

[[Invasion]]

[[Military occupation]]

[[Invasion of Iraq]]

[[War in Afghanistan]]

[[Vietnam War]]

[[Korean War]]

[[Bay of Pigs invasion]]

[[Cuban intervention in Angola]]

[[Philippine-American War]]

[[Mexican-American War]]

[[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]]

[[Gulf War]]

[[National liberation]]

[[Self-determination]]

[[Counterrevolution]]

[[Fascism]]

[[Settler colonialism]]

[[United States Agency for International Development]]

[[Michael Parenti]]

== References ==
<references />

Topic:Zhmiccxwu8bwux24

2026-07-14T03:18:26Z

Jadenw815 (talk | contribs) commented on "Your edit on military intervention" (Oh hey, thanks comrade! I was still writing it and looking for sources, but I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for the help!!! I’ll check...)

Vietnam War

2026-07-12T04:27:03Z

Jadenw815:

[[File:Liberation of Saigon.png|thumb|The last [[United States of America|U.S.]] occupation forces fleeing Saigon (now [[Ho Chi Minh City]]) in 1975]]
The '''Vietnam War''' (''Chiến tranh Việt Nam''), also known as the '''Second Indochina War''' or the '''Resistance War against the United States''' (''Kháng chiến chống Mỹ''), was a military conflict between the [[United States of America|United States]], [[Republic of Vietnam (1955–1975)|South Vietnam]], and their allies, and the free [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945–1975)|North Vietnam]] and its allies. The war began shortly after the division of Vietnam in 1954 as per the [[1954 Geneva Conference|Geneva Conference]] and lasted until the [[Liberation of Saigon]] on 30 April 1975.<ref>{{Citation|author=Charles G. Boyd|year=1998|title=The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Twenty-five Years Later|chapter=|section=|page=|quote=|pdf=|city=Washington, DC|publisher=The Nixon Center|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/paris.htm|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> The United States entered the war directly in 1964 under false pretenses, namely the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]], a false-flag attack on Statesian ships.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Andrew Glass|date=2016-08-07|title=Congress approves Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: Aug. 7, 1964|url=https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/congress-approves-gulf-of-tonkin-resolution-aug-7-1964-226732|newspaper=Politico|archive-url=|archive-date=|retrieved=2022-01-05}}</ref> In total, the war killed three million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians<ref>{{Citation|author=Ziad Obermeyer, et al.|year=2008|title=Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme|chapter=|section=|page=|quote=|pdf=|city=|publisher=British Medical Journal|isbn=|doi=10.1136/bmj.a137|lg=|mia=|title-url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440905/|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> and cost the USA between 700 billion and 1 trillion USD.<ref name=":1222">{{Citation|author=Nick Turse|year=2013|title=Kill Anything That Moves|isbn=9780805086911|city=[[New York City]]|publisher=Metropolitan Books|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9C38F09ECE21CCBF99DF72C4C1BC04B8|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecxjlu6vjw5bpohintus4ozngphwc2eiqgatjl66f5nzjsnh6sx5a?filename=Nick%20Turse%20-%20Kill%20Anything%20That%20Moves_%20The%20Real%20American%20War%20in%20Vietnam-Picador%20USA%20%282013%29.pdf|chapter=Overkill|page=65–74}}</ref>

== Background ==
During the [[Second World War]], the [[Viet Minh]] led an [[Anti-colonialism|anti-colonial]] guerrilla movement against the [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] occupation of Vietnam.<ref name=":1" />

Japan was defeated in the fall of 1945 and left Indochina. Vietnamese revolutionaries led by [[Ho Chi Minh]] declared independence from [[French Republic (1870–1940)|France]] and briefly united their country for the first time in modern history.<ref name=":02">{{Citation|author=[[Howard Zinn]]|year=1980|title=A People's History of the United States|title-url=https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/peoples-history/|chapter=The Impossible Victory: Vietnam|page=438–439|pdf=https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People's%20History%20of%20the%20Unite%20-%20Howard%20Zinn.pdf|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=0060194480}}</ref> The United States supported France against Vietnam and was providing 80% of its funding by 1953. Vietnamese forces led by [[Võ Nguyên Giáp]] defeated France at Điện Biên Phủ in 1954.

The 1954 Geneva Conference partitioned Vietnam into two states and planned to reunify them in 1956 following a national election. The United States created a [[Corruption|corrupt]], autocratic state in the south led by [[Ngô Đình Diệm]] and thwarted plans for reunification.<ref name=":1" />

== U.S. invasion ==
The number of U.S. troops in Vietnam increased from 800 in early 1961 to 3,000 by the end of the year and 11,000 in 1962. They began as military advisers for the South Vietnamese army but later participated in combat operations against [[National Liberation Front of South Vietnam|guerrillas in the south]]. After [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]]'s assassination in 1963, [[Lyndon B. Johnson|Lyndon Johnson]] escalated the war with bombing raids. He abandoned the guise of military advisers in 1965 and began openly fighting against [[Communism|communist]] forces.

By June 1967, U.S. troops were spending 86% of their time attempting to draw enemy troops out of hiding to fight them. The Vietnamese rarely fell for such traps and instead lured the U.S. into situations that would be advantageous for the revolutionaries.<ref name=":122" />

At the peak of the war in 1969, there were over 540,000 troops in Vietnam in addition to over 100,000 in nearby countries. Soldiers from U.S. satellite states such as [[Commonwealth of Australia|Australia]], [[New Zealand]], the [[Republic of the Philippines|Philippines]], [[Kingdom of Thailand|Thailand]], and [[Republic of Korea|south Korea]] also participated in the war. The [[Army of the Republic of Vietnam|south Vietnamese army]] also grew to a force of nearly a million by the end of the war.<ref name=":1" /> 37% of the U.S. military budget was spent on Vietnam, and 50% of Marines and 33% of the [[United States Navy|Navy]] were fighting against Vietnam.<ref name=":1222" /> The United States retreated from Vietnam in early 1973 but continued to support the southern government until its defeat in 1975.<ref name=":1" />

== U.S. war crimes ==
From 1967 to 1972, the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] helped South Vietnam identify and kill suspected communist guerrillas as part of the [[Phoenix Program]], causing at least 26,000 deaths.<ref>{{Library citation|link=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Killing_Hope|quote=Phoenix was a coordinated effort of the United States and South Vietnam to wipe out this infrastructure. Under the program, Vietnamese citizens were rounded up and jailed, often in tiger cages, often tortured, often killed, either in the process of being arrested or subsequently. By Colby's records, during the period between early 1968 and May 1971, 20,587 alleged Vietcong cadres met their death as a result of the Phoenix Program.}}</ref>

Many commanders did not understand the [[Geneva Convention]] and believed they could legally kill or torture POWs. 60% of officers surveyed in 1969 said they would use or threaten torture, and 25% of lieutenants and warrant officers believed they could legally execute civilians for spying.<ref name=":12">{{Citation|author=Nick Turse|year=2013|title=Kill Anything That Moves|isbn=9780805086911|city=[[New York City]]|publisher=Metropolitan Books|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9C38F09ECE21CCBF99DF72C4C1BC04B8|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecxjlu6vjw5bpohintus4ozngphwc2eiqgatjl66f5nzjsnh6sx5a?filename=Nick%20Turse%20-%20Kill%20Anything%20That%20Moves_%20The%20Real%20American%20War%20in%20Vietnam-Picador%20USA%20%282013%29.pdf|chapter=The Massacre at Trieu Ai|page=25–36}}</ref> A postwar survey of U.S. generals found that only 19% believed the [[rules of engagement]] were carefully followed.<ref name=":122" />

U.S. officers rewarded soldiers for killing Vietnamese people, and soldiers with high kill counts received rest and recreation passes, extra food and beer, medals, badges, and light duty at base camp. In order to increase their kill count, soldiers often killed prisoners. However, in the event of large massacres, they often reported lower numbers or planted weapons on bodies to avoid suspicion.<ref name=":122">{{Citation|author=Nick Turse|year=2013|title=Kill Anything That Moves|isbn=9780805086911|city=[[New York City]]|publisher=Metropolitan Books|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9C38F09ECE21CCBF99DF72C4C1BC04B8|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecxjlu6vjw5bpohintus4ozngphwc2eiqgatjl66f5nzjsnh6sx5a?filename=Nick%20Turse%20-%20Kill%20Anything%20That%20Moves_%20The%20Real%20American%20War%20in%20Vietnam-Picador%20USA%20%282013%29.pdf|chapter=A System of Suffering|page=40–60}}</ref>

A 1970 study of refugees in Quảng Nam Province found that 80% of refugees blamed the U.S. and its allies for destroying their villages, 18% blamed firefights between both sides, and only 2% blamed revolutionary forces.<ref name=":122" />

=== Massacres of civilians ===
On 9 July 1965, U.S. forces killed 100 civilians and burned 185 houses on Kỳ Hòa island off the coast Quảng Tín Province.<ref name=":122" />

On 21 October 1967, Lieutenant [[Robert Maynard]] ordered [[United States Marine Corps|Marines]] to kill the entire population of Triệu Ái village in Quảng Trị Province following the death of a marine from a trap. Soldiers threw grenades into bomb shelters, burned houses, and killed a total of 12 civilians. Maynard was eventually court-martialed, but only for failing to properly report the incident.<ref name=":12" />

The U.S. Army killed almost 20 women and children in a village in Quảng Nam Province on 6 February 1968.<ref name=":1" />

In March 1968, US soldiers [[Mỹ Lai massacre|killed at least 347 unarmed civilians in Sơn Mỹ village]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Susan Brownmiller|year=1975|title=Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape|chapter=|section=|page=103–05|quote=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=9780671220624|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> The soldiers who tried to stop the massacre were considered traitors by the other soldiers and U.S. congressmen.<ref>{{Citation|author=Hugh Thompson|year=2003|title=Moral Courage In Combat: The My Lai Story|chapter=|section=|page=|quote=|pdf=http://www.usna.edu/Ethics/_files/documents/ThompsonPg1-28_Final.pdf|city=|publisher=Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics, United States Naval Academy|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

In March 1969, helicopters from the 1st Cavalry Division fired tear gas at nine woodcutters in Bình Long Province and started a fire in the truck. Soldiers fired on them after they ran away, killing all except one.<ref name=":122" />

In 1970, near the Minh Thanh rubber plantation in Bình Long Province, U.S. soldiers killed 10 civilians. They reported them as enemy soldiers, but investigators later discovered the victims' bodies with civilian identification cards and without military uniforms. Supposed weapons that they had been carrying ended up being bamboo shoots and agricultural tools. No soldiers were ever prosecuted for this massacre.<ref name=":1" />

U.S. soldiers killed 63 civilians at Truong Khanh. They reported 13 as enemy KIAs and claimed that 18 more died from airstrikes.<ref name=":122" />

=== Bombing ===
In 1962, US planes launched 12,000 sorties<ref group="lower-alpha">One sortie is one mission flown by one plane</ref> in South Vietnam. The [[United States Air Force|U.S.]] and [[South Vietnam Air Force|South Vietnam Air Forces]] flew 3.4 million sorties across Southeast Asia between 1965 and 1972, with the majority in South Vietnam. B-52 bombers flew 126,615 sorties between 1965 and 1973, often bombing civilian areas.

Between 1965 and 1968, the U.S. dropped an average of 32 tons of bombs per hour on North Vietnam. The total explosive power of the U.S. bombs in all of Southeast Asia was equivalent to 640 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs, but most of the bombs were used on the south. The most heavily bombed province was Quảng Trị, whose capital district had 3,000 bombs per km2. Only 11 of the province's 3,500 villages avoided bombings.

Between 1964 and 1971, the USA ordered 37 million BLU-3 bomblets, each with 250 steel pellets, and 285 million CBU-24 bombs, each with over 600 smaller cluster bombs inside them, between 1966 and 1971. A single CBU-24 bomb could release 200,000 steel fragments.<ref name=":1222" />

==== Villages destroyed ====

* On 17 March 1965, a U.S. air strike killed 45 civilians, including 37 children, in Mân Quang.
* The bombing of Làng Vây on 2 March 1967 killed at least 100 civilians and wounded 175 more.
* In April 1967, a U.S. F-100 Supersabre bombed the town of Trúc Giang and a nearby village, killing 14 people and wounding 25.
* In February 1968, a B-52 bomber destroyed the village of Nhị Bình in Gia Định Province, killing 200 civilians and wounding 70.
* On 8 August 1968, the USA destroyed the village of Cái Răng, killing 72 people and injuring over 200.
* On 26 February 1969, U.S. and RVA planes, helicopters, and artillery bombed the village of Tân Hiệp in Biên Hòa Province, killing 10 civilians and wiping out the village's livestock.<ref name=":1222" />

=== Chemical weapons ===
The USA, as part of [[Operation Ranch Hand]], used [[Agent Orange]], a chemical weapon, over vast areas of jungle in Vietnam.<ref>{{Citation|author=Anuva Goel|year=2022|title=Agent Orange Reviewed: Potential Role in Peripheral Neuropathy and Neurodegeneration|title-url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9920643/|chapter=Agent Orange-The Back Story|chapter-url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9920643/#S1|quote=In 1962, the U.S. Air Force initiated the Rainbow Herbicide (green, pink, purple, blue, white orange) spraying missions in South Vietnam. Agent Orange was introduced in 1965 and its use increased between 1966 and 1969. However, reports linking Agent Orange to birth defects (1) halted its use by April, 1970. C-123 aircraft were used for Agent Orange spraying missions because they achieved rapid, broad and intense coverage, i. e. 3 gallons per acre over 340 acres within just a few minutes (1). It is estimated that over eleven million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed via Operation Ranch Hand, accounting for over 60% of the total recorded herbicide applications during the Vietnam War (1). Between 1965 and 1971, when most of the spraying occurred, 10% of South Vietnam was sprayed once, while 30% or more of the region was sprayed repeatedly (1). After the spraying program was terminated, the nearly 2.2 million remaining gallons of Agent Orange were either incinerated at sea or deposited on Johnston Island, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean.|pdf=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9920643/pdf/nihms-1869478.pdf}}</ref> The government of Vietnam states that 4 million people were exposed to the agent most of whom suffered life long illnesses and some of whom suffered birth defects.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Ben Stocking|newspaper=The Washington Post|title=Agent Orange Still Haunts Vietnam, US|date=2007-06-14|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061401077.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170423062058/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061401077.html|archive-date=2017-04-23|retrieved=2025-11-16|quote=Vietnam says up to 3 million of its 84 million people have birth defects or other health problems related to dioxin.}}</ref> The USA used millions of gallons of chemical defoliants and millions of pounds of chemical gases.<ref name=":1222" />

Agent Orange was produced by the [[Dow Chemical|Dow Chemical Company]] and the [[Monsanto|Monsanto Company,]] as well as others.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Agent Orange Record|title=Manufacturing Sites|url=https://agentorangerecord.com/manufacturing-sites/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921161821/https://agentorangerecord.com/manufacturing-sites/|archive-date=2020-09-21|retrieved=2025-11-16|quote=For the war effort, the US military procured over 20 million gallons of Agent Orange (a roughly fifty-fifty mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T), primarily from nine different companies:

* Dow Chemical, in Midland MI
* Monsanto, in Nitro, WV
* Diamond Alkali/Shamrock, in Newark, NJ
* Hercules, in Jacksonville, AR
* Thompson-Hayward Chemical, in Kansas City, KS
* US Rubber Company/Uniroyal, in Elmira, Ontario
* Thomson Chemical Corporation, in St Louis, MO
* Hoffman-Taff Inc, in Verona, MO
* Agrisect}}</ref>

==== Napalm ====
The USA used 400,000 tons of [[napalm]] in Southeast Asia. It killed most of its victims, including 35% within 15–20 minutes. 62% died before their wounds had time to heal.<ref name=":1222" />

==== White phosphorus ====
White phosphorus spontaneously combusts when exposed to air and burns until its oxygen supply runs out. The U.S. Air Force used over three million white phosphorus rockets throughout the war, and the U.S. military bought 379 white phosphorus grenades in 1969 alone.<ref name=":1222" />

=== Operation Sunrise ===
During the 1960s, the U.S. burned many villages (including over a dozen in one week in 1962) and forced their inhabitants into concentration camps. Villagers only received a 24-hour notice, and almost a quarter lost all their possessions. 95% of refugees said their new houses were less comfortable and 87% said their overall lives were worse than in the war zone. Within months, thousands of refugees were starving. The U.S. only spent 0.25% of its war budget on supporting these refugees by 1967, and it continued to drop afterwards.<ref name=":122" />

== South Korean war crimes ==
South Korean soldiers massacred civilians at An Truong near the city of Hội An on 9 January 1968.<ref name=":1" />

== Casualties ==
Harvard Medical School and the University of Washington estimated a total of 3.8 million deaths including both civilians and soldiers.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=Nick Turse|year=2013|title=Kill Anything That Moves|isbn=9780805086911|city=[[New York City]]|publisher=Metropolitan Books|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9C38F09ECE21CCBF99DF72C4C1BC04B8|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecxjlu6vjw5bpohintus4ozngphwc2eiqgatjl66f5nzjsnh6sx5a?filename=Nick%20Turse%20-%20Kill%20Anything%20That%20Moves_%20The%20Real%20American%20War%20in%20Vietnam-Picador%20USA%20%282013%29.pdf|chapter=Introduction|page=11–22}}</ref>

=== Imperialist forces ===
The USA lost 58,000 soldiers in Southeast Asia and 75,000 more became severely disabled. 254,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died and 783,000 were wounded.<ref name=":1" />

=== Revolutionary forces ===
Revolutionary forces lost 1.7 million troops, including one million in battle. 300,000 more went missing.<ref name=":1" />

=== Civilians ===
The USA killed at least 65,000 civilians in North Vietnam, mostly through air raids. In the south, 8,000 to 16,000 people were paralyzed, 30,000 to 60,000 became blind, and 83,000 to 166,000 became amputees. A quarter of wounded civilians were children under 13 years old.<ref name=":1" />

== Legacy ==
In the USA, the Vietnam War was correctly considered a U.S. defeat until [[Ronald Reagan]] rebranded it as a "[[Historical revisionism|noble cause]]." Historians continue to deny or ignore U.S. war crimes.<ref name=":1" />

== Notes ==
<references group="lower-alpha" />

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:History of Vietnam]]
[[Category:Wars started by the USA]]

Military intervention

2026-07-08T07:04:27Z

Jadenw815: Added a page about military interventions like how there is a page about nationalism

'''Military intervention''', sometimes colloquially called an '''invasion''', is the use of armed force, political pressure, covert action, economic pressure, or institutional power by one state, coalition, or military force inside the territory or political conflict of another country. It can include invasion, occupation, bombing, expeditionary warfare, military advisers, proxy warfare, peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, covert operations, sanctions, aid conditionality, or direct support for one side in a civil war or national liberation struggle.

In ordinary speech, the word "invasion" is often used for any major foreign military entry into another country. More precisely, an invasion is a form of military intervention in which armed forces enter, attack, or occupy a territory. Military intervention is broader: it may occur through troops, airstrikes, proxy forces, intelligence agencies, humanitarian organizations, development agencies, sanctions, or military aid.

In liberal and bourgeois discourse, military intervention is often discussed through abstract language such as "security", "humanitarianism", "democracy", "development", "stability", "peacekeeping", or "self-defense". However, to anti-imperialists, intervention must be analyzed according to its class character, imperialist role, effect on self-determination, relationship to national liberation, and material consequences for the people affected.

Military intervention is not politically identical in all cases. An imperialist invasion to seize territory, impose a puppet regime, crush socialism, or open markets is not the same as an anti-fascist intervention against a genocidal occupying power, or an internationalist intervention requested by a revolutionary government fighting apartheid or counterrevolution. However, because imperialist states frequently use humanitarian or democratic language to disguise domination, anti-imperialists generally treat foreign intervention with suspicion unless its liberatory character can be clearly demonstrated.

== Definition ==
An '''invasion''' is a form of military intervention in which armed forces enter, attack, or occupy another territory. An '''occupation''' is a prolonged form of military or political control following invasion or intervention. Military intervention can also occur without a formal invasion, such as through bombing campaigns, naval blockades, military advisers, proxy armies, covert action, sanctions linked to military pressure, aid programs, or support for coups and counterinsurgency.

The word "invasion" describes a military act, not by itself the political character of that act. For example, the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France in 1944 and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 were both invasions in the military sense, but they had opposite political meanings. One was part of the defeat of fascist occupation; the other was a genocidal fascist war of conquest.

Military intervention therefore has to be judged politically, not only linguistically. The question is not simply whether foreign force entered a country, but what social force the intervention served, who was harmed, who was strengthened, and whether it expanded or destroyed self-determination.

== Invasion and intervention ==
"Invasion" and "intervention" are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not identical. An invasion usually refers to the direct entry of armed forces into a territory. Intervention is broader and can include direct invasion, military aid, advisers, airstrikes, proxy armies, covert action, sanctions, aid conditionality, or support for coups and counterinsurgency.

The political question is therefore not only whether foreign force entered a country, but what class and geopolitical project the intervention served. A military intervention may defend an oppressed people, assist a revolutionary government, defeat fascism, or stop genocide. It may also destroy self-determination, overthrow a popular government, defend imperial interests, protect private property, or impose colonial and capitalist domination.

In this sense, intervention is comparable to nationalism. Nationalism can be progressive when oppressed nations use it against colonialism and imperialism. It can be reactionary when imperialist, settler-colonial, or fascist states use it to dominate others. Military intervention has to be judged in the same concrete way.

== Anti-imperialist analysis ==

=== Self-determination and national oppression ===
Self-determination is a central principle in anti-imperialist politics, but it is not an abstract slogan that applies equally to oppressor and oppressed forces. The right of oppressed nations to self-determination is progressive because it means liberation from colonialism, imperialism, occupation, apartheid, or national oppression. The "self-determination" of settler-colonial or imperial groups, however, can become reactionary when it is used to preserve domination over another people.

For example, Palestinian self-determination is an anti-colonial demand because Palestinians are a colonized and occupied people whose land, sovereignty, movement, and return have been denied. By contrast, Zionist claims to "Israeli self-determination" are not politically equivalent when they are used to justify settlement, apartheid, occupation, military domination, and the denial of Palestinian self-determination. In that case, the language of self-determination becomes a shield for settler-colonial power.

The same distinction appears in other contexts. Indigenous self-determination against settler states is not the same as settler claims to rule Indigenous land. Colonized peoples fighting empire are not the same as imperial states claiming the right to dominate colonies. A revolutionary movement struggling against occupation is not the same as a colonial power defending its occupation.

Self-determination therefore has to be analyzed according to concrete social relations. The key questions are: who is oppressed, who is oppressing, who controls land and resources, who is being denied sovereignty, and whether the political demand expands liberation or protects domination.

=== Imperialism and counterrevolution ===
Imperialist interventions are interventions carried out to preserve or expand the power of imperialist states, capitalist property, colonial domination, military alliances, or corporate access to resources and markets. They are often justified through language such as "democracy", "human rights", "security", "anti-terrorism", "development", or "stability".

Counterrevolutionary interventions are interventions aimed at destroying socialist, communist, anti-colonial, nationalist, or popular movements. They may be carried out directly through invasion or indirectly through coups, proxy forces, death squads, sanctions, aid conditionality, non-governmental organizations, intelligence operations, or political funding.

Anti-imperialists therefore do not judge intervention only by whether it is violent in the immediate military sense. A coup, a proxy war, a sanctions regime, or a development program can function as intervention if it is used to reshape another country in the interests of imperialism and capital.

=== Revolutionary and anti-fascist intervention ===
Not all military intervention is counterrevolutionary. Some interventions have been defended by communists, socialists, and anti-imperialists when they assisted anti-fascist struggle, defeated genocidal regimes, or supported national liberation against colonial or apartheid forces.

Such cases are usually judged by whether the intervention strengthens the independence of the oppressed people or replaces one domination with another. Even an initially defensible intervention can become reactionary if it turns into permanent occupation, plunder, annexation, or suppression of local self-determination.

The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France, Cuba's military assistance to Angola against apartheid South Africa, and Vietnam's overthrow of the Khmer Rouge are often cited as examples where foreign military force can be defended by some leftists because of the forces being fought and the results produced.

=== Invitation and political legitimacy ===
A common argument is that a military action is not an invasion if some local force requests it. This is insufficient. Nearly every intervention has local allies.

The United States intervened in Vietnam with the support of the South Vietnamese state. The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan after requests from the Afghan communist government. Cuba intervened in Angola at the request of the MPLA government. Rwanda has intervened in Congo while backed by some Congolese factions. The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and was initially welcomed by some Iraqis who opposed Saddam Hussein. The Allied invasion of Normandy was welcomed by many French anti-fascists and resisted by Nazi occupiers.

Invitation therefore matters, but does not settle the issue. The decisive questions are: who invited the foreign force, whether that force represents a legitimate popular government or liberation movement, whether the intervention supports self-determination, what the foreign army does, and whether it withdraws or imposes domination.

A stricter liberal version of the invitation argument claims that foreign military action is not an invasion if the recognized government of the country requests or welcomes it. This also fails as a general rule, because recognition and state invitation do not automatically prove popular legitimacy or self-determination. The United States intervened in Vietnam with the support of the South Vietnamese government, but anti-imperialists still regard it as a foreign intervention because South Vietnam was a U.S.-backed anti-communist state fighting against the communist-led movement for national liberation and reunification. In such cases, the question is not only whether a government invited foreign troops, but what kind of government it was, whom it represented, whether it depended on foreign power, and whether the intervention strengthened or destroyed the self-determination of the people.

=== Occupation and aftermath ===
The aftermath of intervention is often as important as the initial justification. A military action may claim to stop oppression, but produce occupation, state collapse, economic dependency, sectarian violence, or permanent foreign bases.

Anti-imperialist analysis therefore asks whether the intervention leaves behind stronger sovereignty and popular power, or whether it produces dependency, privatization, repression, partition, or long-term imperial control. A foreign intervention that begins with a defensive or humanitarian justification can become reactionary if it turns into occupation or domination.

== Types ==

=== Imperialist invasion ===
An imperialist invasion is a military invasion carried out to expand the power of an imperialist state. It may seek territory, resources, markets, military bases, regime change, or geopolitical dominance.

Imperialist invasions often present themselves as defensive, democratic, humanitarian, or civilizing. Their actual result is usually the destruction of sovereignty, expansion of foreign military power, privatization, corporate access, or the installation of governments dependent on imperialist support.

=== Settler-colonial invasion ===
A settler-colonial invasion is an invasion or conquest aimed at replacing, displacing, or subordinating Indigenous peoples and taking their land for settlers. Settler-colonial invasion differs from ordinary military conflict because the goal is not only victory over another army, but the transformation of land, population, law, and sovereignty in favor of settlers.

=== Fascist invasion ===
A fascist invasion is an invasion carried out by fascist states for conquest, racial domination, anti-communism, or imperial expansion. Such invasions are among the clearest forms of reactionary and genocidal war.

Fascist invasions are not simply wars between states. They are often wars of extermination, racial hierarchy, slavery, anti-communism, and colonial domination.

=== Counterrevolutionary intervention ===
Counterrevolutionary intervention is military, political, economic, or covert intervention aimed at destroying a revolution, socialist government, national liberation movement, or popular reform process. It may be carried out directly through invasion or indirectly through coups, proxy forces, death squads, sanctions, sabotage, aid programs, media operations, or political funding.

Counterrevolutionary intervention is usually justified as the defense of democracy, order, religion, markets, property, national security, or human rights.

=== Humanitarian pretext ===
A humanitarian pretext is the use of humanitarian language to justify imperialist intervention. Imperialist states often claim to intervene to protect civilians, stop dictatorship, defend women, provide aid, prevent atrocities, or promote development, while the actual result is regime change, state collapse, occupation, sanctions, dependency, or expanded imperial control.

Humanitarian intervention can also appear through non-military institutions. Aid programs, development agencies, and NGOs may provide real relief to people in crisis, but they can also function as tools of imperial influence when they are tied to political conditionality, regime-change networks, counterinsurgency, market restructuring, or the weakening of socialist and anti-imperialist governments.

=== Development intervention and USAID ===
The [[United States Agency for International Development]] is often presented by liberals as a benevolent humanitarian institution that provides food, medicine, disaster relief, democratic assistance, and development aid. In this liberal view, USAID represents a "good" form of intervention because it appears non-military and is associated with charity, public health, education, and civil society.

Anti-imperialists argue that USAID cannot be separated from the foreign policy of the United States. Even when USAID funds projects that provide real services, it can also serve broader imperial objectives by promoting pro-U.S. civil society networks, market reforms, privatization, anti-communist politics, and opposition to governments targeted by U.S. foreign policy. In this sense, development aid can become a softer form of intervention: not an invasion by troops, but an intervention into the political economy and civil society of another country.

USAID is therefore often criticized as counterrevolutionary and counterproductive. It may present itself as humanitarian, but in practice it can strengthen dependency, undermine sovereignty, cultivate comprador elites, and support political forces aligned with U.S. imperial interests. This does not mean every individual aid worker or every medical or food program is fake; rather, it means that humanitarian aid under imperialist direction has to be analyzed as part of a wider system of power.

=== Anti-fascist intervention ===
Anti-fascist intervention is military action aimed at defeating fascist aggression or occupation. Such interventions are distinguished from imperialist invasions by their target and context: they fight fascist regimes engaged in conquest, occupation, genocide, and anti-communist extermination.

However, even anti-fascist victory can later be used by imperialist states to rewrite themselves as permanently virtuous, while hiding their own colonialism, racism, and later counterrevolutionary wars.

=== Revolutionary internationalist intervention ===
Revolutionary internationalist intervention is military assistance given by a socialist or revolutionary state to another revolutionary or anti-colonial movement. Its legitimacy depends on whether it supports liberation and self-determination rather than domination.

Such intervention differs from imperialist intervention when it does not create a colony, seize resources, impose capitalist restructuring, install permanent bases, or subordinate the assisted country to imperialist control.

=== Anti-genocide intervention ===
An anti-genocide intervention is a military intervention justified by the prevention or ending of genocide or mass extermination. Such interventions can be defensible when they stop genocide, but they can still become complicated if they produce occupation, dependency, or domination after the initial overthrow of the genocidal force.

The political assessment must therefore distinguish between the act of stopping genocide and the longer-term structure created afterward.

=== Proxy intervention ===
Proxy intervention occurs when a state intervenes indirectly by funding, arming, training, or directing local forces. This allows imperialist states to influence or destroy other countries while avoiding the appearance of direct invasion.

Proxy intervention is especially common when imperialist states want to weaken socialist or anti-imperialist governments without openly deploying large numbers of troops.

== Examples ==

=== Imperialist and counterrevolutionary interventions ===
'''U.S. invasion of Mexico:''' a settler-imperialist war that annexed large amounts of Mexican territory and expanded the settler republic.

'''Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War:''' a counterrevolutionary intervention by a coalition of foreign powers in support of the White Armies and against the Bolshevik Revolution. The intervention is often described as involving around fourteen foreign powers, including the United States, Britain, France, Japan, Canada, Italy, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Czechoslovak forces, Poland, China, Australia, and others. It was an early example of capitalist states attempting to strangle a socialist revolution through military intervention.

'''Bay of Pigs invasion:''' a U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary invasion intended to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.

'''U.S. intervention in Vietnam:''' an imperialist and counterrevolutionary intervention against communist-led reunification and national liberation.

'''U.S. invasion of Iraq:''' a regime-change invasion that destroyed the Iraqi state, caused mass death and displacement, and expanded U.S. influence in the region.

'''NATO intervention in Libya:''' presented as humanitarian intervention, but used to overthrow the Libyan government and contributing to state collapse, militia rule, and long-term instability.

'''NATO bombing of Yugoslavia:''' presented by NATO as humanitarian intervention, but condemned by anti-imperialists as an illegal imperialist attack that bypassed the United Nations and expanded NATO power.

'''U.S. support for the Afghan Mujahideen:''' a proxy intervention against the Afghan communist government and the Soviet Union, strengthening reactionary Islamist forces.

'''Rwandan intervention in Congo:''' often justified through local allies and security claims, but criticized for worsening war, resource plunder, and the violation of Congolese sovereignty.

'''Israeli invasions of neighboring countries:''' understood by anti-imperialists in the context of settler colonialism, regional domination, and U.S.-backed military power.

=== Fascist and colonial invasions ===
'''Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland:''' a fascist invasion that began the Second World War in Europe and imposed brutal occupation.

'''Nazi Germany's invasion of France:''' a fascist conquest that led to occupation, collaborationist rule, and resistance.

'''Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union:''' a genocidal fascist war of extermination, anti-communism, racial domination, and colonial conquest.

'''Imperial Japan's invasion of China:''' an imperialist and colonial war marked by massacres, occupation, forced labor, and mass atrocities.

'''Imperial Japan's invasions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific:''' wars of imperial expansion, colonial occupation, forced labor, and resource extraction.

=== Anti-fascist and liberation interventions ===
'''Allied invasion of Normandy:''' an invasion in the military sense, but part of the anti-fascist war against Nazi occupation. Its political meaning cannot be equated with fascist or imperialist wars of conquest.

'''Allied invasion of fascist Italy:''' an invasion that helped defeat Mussolini's fascist state and weaken the Axis powers.

'''Soviet advance into Eastern Europe and Germany:''' helped defeat Nazi Germany and end fascist occupation, though later Soviet domination over parts of Eastern Europe remains a separate historical question.

'''Cuban intervention in Angola:''' supported the MPLA government against apartheid South Africa and U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary forces. It is commonly cited by anti-imperialists as one of the strongest examples of internationalist military assistance.

'''Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia:''' overthrew the Khmer Rouge and ended its genocidal rule. It is often defended as an anti-genocide intervention, though the later Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia remains debated.

'''North Vietnamese and NLF struggle in South Vietnam:''' understood by many anti-imperialists as a national liberation and reunification struggle against a U.S.-backed state rather than simple foreign aggression.

=== Contested interventions ===
'''Soviet intervention in Afghanistan:''' heavily contested. The Afghan communist government promoted land reform, literacy, women's rights, and secular modernization, while the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia supported reactionary mujahideen forces. However, the Soviet military intervention also escalated the war, caused civilian suffering, foreignized the revolution, and helped produce a backlash that strengthened reactionary forces.

'''Russian invasion of Ukraine:''' contested in some left-wing spaces, especially because of NATO expansion and the post-2014 conflict, but a consistent self-determination standard weighs heavily against invasion, annexation, and the denial of Ukrainian sovereignty. Opposition to NATO expansion does not automatically justify Russian military intervention.

'''NATO intervention in Yugoslavia:''' sometimes defended by liberals as humanitarian intervention, but condemned by many anti-imperialists as NATO expansion, violation of sovereignty, and military action outside United Nations authorization.

'''USAID and development programs:''' treated by liberals as nonviolent humanitarian assistance, but analyzed by anti-imperialists as part of a wider system of U.S. influence, especially when operating in countries targeted for regime change, sanctions, counterinsurgency, or anti-communist pressure.

'''Gulf War:''' Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait violated Kuwaiti sovereignty, but the U.S.-led response was still a major imperialist military intervention involving an extensive bombing campaign, a ground offensive, oil politics, support for Gulf monarchies, and the consolidation of U.S. military power in West Asia.

== Liberal and reactionary views ==

=== Liberal interventionism ===
Liberals often defend intervention through the language of human rights, democracy, humanitarian aid, international law, development, women's rights, and protection of civilians. They may argue that military intervention, sanctions, USAID, NGOs, peacekeeping, or democracy-promotion programs can be positive when they oppose dictatorships or provide relief to suffering populations.

To them, interventions such as NATO in Libya, the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, sanctions against targeted states, or USAID activity in the Global South may be framed as flawed but necessary attempts to defend human rights or support civil society.

Anti-imperialists criticize this view for treating imperialist states as neutral moral actors. The United States, NATO, and other imperialist powers do not intervene from outside history. They intervene as states with military alliances, corporations, intelligence agencies, geopolitical interests, and long records of colonial and counterrevolutionary violence.

Liberal interventionism often applies the principle of sovereignty inconsistently. Liberals may argue that the Gulf War was legitimate because the U.S.-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and this claim contains a partial truth because Iraq's annexation of Kuwait violated Kuwaiti sovereignty. However, the same logic is rarely applied consistently to anti-fascist, socialist, or anti-imperialist forces. The Soviet Union is often condemned even where it drove Nazi forces out of Eastern Europe; the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is condemned even by liberals who defend U.S. interventions elsewhere; and communist-led forces in Korea and Vietnam are often treated as illegitimate even when they fought U.S.-backed states and foreign military presence. This reveals that liberal support for intervention often depends less on a consistent defense of sovereignty than on whether the intervention aligns with Western imperial interests.

=== Reactionary interventionism ===
Reactionaries often defend intervention through nationalism, militarism, civilizational racism, anti-communism, anti-migrant politics, religious chauvinism, or settler-colonial security rhetoric. They may argue that imperialist states have the right to invade, bomb, sanction, or occupy other countries in order to defend national greatness, borders, markets, "Western civilization", or allies.

Reactionary arguments are usually more openly militarist than liberal arguments. Where liberals may justify intervention as humanitarian or democratic, reactionaries often justify it as punishment, conquest, revenge, deterrence, or the defense of empire.

In both cases, anti-imperialists argue that the oppressed people themselves, not imperialist states, should determine their own future.

=== Invitation-based justification ===
A common liberal or reactionary argument is that foreign troops are not invading if some people in the affected country welcome them. This argument fails because almost every intervention has local allies. South Vietnam welcomed U.S. forces; the Afghan communist government requested Soviet help; the MPLA welcomed Cuba in Angola; some Iraqis welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003; French anti-fascists welcomed the Allied invasion of Normandy; and some Congolese factions have welcomed Rwandan involvement.

The existence of local support does not automatically determine whether a military action is justified. It only raises further questions about legitimacy, class character, self-determination, and consequences.

Liberals also may argue that intervention is legitimate when the recognized government welcomes foreign troops, but the U.S. intervention in Vietnam shows why this is insufficient: South Vietnam welcomed U.S. forces, yet the war was still a foreign military intervention against a communist-led national liberation and reunification struggle.

=== Equivalence between all interventions ===
Another mistaken view is that all military interventions are morally identical. This erases the difference between fascist conquest, imperialist regime change, anti-fascist liberation, anti-genocide intervention, and internationalist assistance to a revolutionary government.

A consistent anti-imperialist position does not treat Nazi Germany invading the Soviet Union, the United States invading Iraq, Cuba assisting Angola, and the Allies invading Nazi-occupied France as politically equivalent.

=== Humanitarian justification ===
Liberals often argue that humanitarian intervention is necessary to stop atrocities, deliver aid, protect women, or support democracy. Reactionaries may use the same humanitarian language selectively, but combine it with racist or militarist narratives about "civilizing" other countries or defeating supposedly backward peoples.

Anti-imperialists argue that humanitarian claims must be tested against material results. If an intervention produces occupation, privatization, military bases, state collapse, sanctions, dependency, or foreign domination, its humanitarian language should not be accepted at face value.

Humanitarian claims are especially suspicious when used selectively by imperialist states that ignore or support atrocities committed by their allies.

== Anti-imperialist criteria ==
A military intervention can be judged by the following questions:

Does it support or violate the self-determination of the people affected?

Is self-determination being claimed by an oppressed nation, or by a settler-colonial, imperialist, occupying, or dominant force?

Who requested the intervention, and does that force represent a legitimate popular government, liberation movement, puppet regime, elite clique, occupation authority, comprador class, or foreign-dependent faction?

Does the intervention fight fascism, colonialism, apartheid, genocide, or foreign-backed counterrevolution?

Does the intervention attack a revolutionary, socialist, anti-colonial, independent, or popular government?

Which class forces are strengthened: workers, peasants, oppressed peoples, and national liberation movements, or capitalists, landlords, settlers, comprador elites, and imperialist states?

Is the intervention defensive and limited, or does it seek regime change, annexation, permanent bases, market access, or geopolitical dominance?

Is the force used proportionate and directed against military targets, or does it rely on collective punishment, bombing, sanctions, starvation, terror, or civilian destruction?

Does the intervening power withdraw and strengthen sovereignty, or does it occupy, annex, privatize, install bases, control resources, or impose dependency?

Does the intervention expand liberation and popular power, or does it produce collapse, dependency, dictatorship, civil war, or imperial domination?

Is humanitarian, democratic, development, or self-defense language being used to hide counterrevolutionary, imperialist, settler-colonial, or capitalist goals?

Are the same standards being applied consistently to allies and enemies, or is the intervention defended or condemned only according to geopolitical loyalty?

== Conclusion ==
Military intervention is not automatically progressive or reactionary based only on the word "invasion". The political character of an intervention depends on the class forces involved, the relation to imperialism, the question of self-determination, the target of the intervention, the legitimacy of any invitation, and the consequences for the people affected.

Self-determination is a progressive principle when it refers to oppressed nations, colonized peoples, Indigenous peoples, occupied peoples, and workers struggling against domination. It becomes reactionary when settler-colonial, imperialist, or fascist forces use the same language to defend domination over others.

Imperialist, colonial, settler, fascist, and counterrevolutionary interventions are reactionary because they crush self-determination and defend domination. Some interventions, however, may be defensible when they help defeat fascism, apartheid, genocide, colonialism, or foreign-backed counterrevolution, especially when requested by a legitimate popular government or liberation movement and when they do not become occupation, plunder, or permanent domination.

== See also ==
[[Imperialism]]

[[Anti-imperialism]]

[[War]]

[[Invasion]]

[[Invasion of Iraq]]

[[War in Afghanistan]]

[[Vietnam War]]

[[Bay of Pigs invasion]]

[[Cuban intervention in Angola]]

[[Philippine-American War]]

[[Mexican-American War]]

[[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]]

[[National liberation]]

[[Self-determination]]

[[Counterrevolution]]

[[Fascism]]

[[Settler colonialism]]

[[United States Agency for International Development]]

== References ==

Cambodian genocide

2026-07-06T01:47:40Z

Jadenw815:

'''Cambodian genocide''', also referred to as the '''Khmer Rouge genocide''', was the mass killing, forced labor, starvation, disease, forced displacement, and political repression carried out under [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Democratic Kampuchea]], the state ruled by the [[Khmer Rouge]] from 1975 to 1979. The regime was led by [[Pol Pot]] and attempted to remake Cambodian society through an extreme agrarian program, abolishing money, attacking religion, emptying cities, and forcing much of the population into rural labor camps. Approximately 1.7 million people died, around one fifth of Cambodia's population at the time.
[[File:Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum.jpg|thumb|Prison cells at Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, one of the most infamous prisons used by the Khmer Rouge.]]
'''Cambodian genocide''', also referred to as the '''Khmer Rouge genocide''', was the mass killing, forced labor, starvation, disease, forced displacement, and political repression carried out under [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Democratic Kampuchea]], the state ruled by the [[Khmer Rouge]] from 1975 to 1979. The regime was led by genocidal anti-communist, [[Pol Pot]], and attempted to remake Cambodian society through an extreme agrarian program, abolishing money, attacking religion, emptying cities, and forcing much of the population into rural labor camps. Approximately 1.7 million people died, around one fifth of Cambodia's population at the time.<ref>https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/cambodian-genocide-program</ref>

Although Democratic Kampuchea claimed communist legitimacy and is often described in anti-communist sources as a communist regime, many communists reject Pol Pot's politics as a nationalist, ultra-left, anti-Vietnamese deviation rather than socialism. The Khmer Rouge's rule destroyed working-class organization, attacked urban life, targeted minority groups, and produced a coercive agrarian state hostile to proletarian democracy. The regime was also closely aligned with the [[People's Republic of China]] against Vietnam and the Soviet Union, especially during the conflicts that developed into the [[Third Indochina War]].<ref>https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/03/mertha-documents-chinese-tutelage-khmer-rouge</ref>

== Background ==
Cambodia attempted to maintain a neutral position during the [[Vietnam War]], but this position became increasingly unstable as the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, China, and other powers treated Southeast Asia as a major Cold War battlefield. In March 1970, Prince [[Norodom Sihanouk]] was overthrown by General [[Lon Nol]], who established the anti-communist Khmer Republic. The coup pulled Cambodia more directly into the war and weakened the neutralist position that Sihanouk had attempted to maintain.

After the coup, Sihanouk allied with the Khmer Rouge from exile. This gave the insurgency greater nationalist legitimacy among many rural Cambodians, since Sihanouk remained a widely recognized symbol of Cambodian independence. The Khmer Rouge therefore grew not only through its own organization, but also through the crisis produced by war, displacement, and the collapse of the old political order.

== U.S. bombing and destabilization ==
Under President [[Richard Nixon]] and National Security Adviser [[Henry Kissinger]], the United States expanded the war into Cambodia. U.S. bombing campaigns, including [[Operation Menu]] and later bombing under [[Operation Freedom Deal]], targeted Vietnamese communist bases and supply routes but also devastated rural Cambodian society. Researchers Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen argue that the bombing drove many ordinary Cambodians toward the Khmer Rouge and helped transform a relatively small insurgency into a mass movement.{{Web citation|title=Bombs Over Cambodia: New Light on US Air War|date=2007-05-02|url=https://apjjf.org/taylor-owen/2420/article|website=The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus|access-date=2026-06-27}}

The bombing destroyed villages, displaced peasants, damaged agriculture, and deepened hatred toward the U.S.-backed Lon Nol government. The Khmer Rouge used this devastation in its propaganda and recruitment, presenting itself as the force capable of resisting foreign intervention and the collapsing Khmer Republic. Although the United States did not create the Khmer Rouge as an organization, U.S. policy helped create the conditions in which the Khmer Rouge could grow.

The expansion of the war into Cambodia also produced major opposition inside the United States. In May 1970, protests against Nixon's Cambodia campaign culminated in the [[Kent State massacre]], where the Ohio National Guard killed four student protesters. In 1973, the Paris Peace Accords ended direct U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but U.S. bombing in Cambodia continued until Congress cut off funding in August 1973.

== Khmer Rouge seizure of power ==
By 1974 and 1975, Lon Nol's government was collapsing. The Khmer Rouge surrounded [[Phnom Penh]], and on 17 April 1975 they captured the capital. Soon after taking power, the regime forcibly evacuated Phnom Penh and other cities, sending millions of people into the countryside. The Khmer Rouge claimed that this evacuation was necessary for revolutionary reconstruction and protection from possible U.S. bombing, but in practice it began a vast system of forced labor, starvation, political repression, and mass death.

The regime declared the beginning of "Year Zero", attempting to destroy the old society and build a new agrarian order. Money, markets, many schools, religious institutions, and private property were abolished. People associated with the former Khmer Republic, urban life, education, religion, foreign influence, or suspected opposition were targeted as enemies of the revolution. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the Khmer Rouge as promoting a radical agrarian ideology based on one-party rule, rejection of urban and Western ideas, and abolition of private property.<ref>https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/cambodia/origins-of-the-khmer-rouge</ref>

== Genocide and mass repression ==
From 1975 to 1979, Democratic Kampuchea carried out mass killing, forced labor, starvation policies, forced transfers, political purges, and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. Deaths resulted from execution, torture, hunger, disease, exhaustion, and the destruction of normal social life. Victims included former officials of the Khmer Republic, intellectuals, Buddhist monks, ethnic Vietnamese, Cham Muslims, suspected dissidents, and many ordinary peasants and workers accused of disloyalty.

The security prison S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, became one of the most infamous sites of Khmer Rouge repression. Prisoners were tortured, forced to confess to imaginary conspiracies, and then executed. Across Cambodia, local prisons, worksites, cooperatives, and execution sites became part of the regime's machinery of terror.

In 2018, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted senior Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of genocide, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. The judgment found that they were guilty of genocide against ethnic Vietnamese, while Nuon Chea was also found guilty of genocide against the Cham. <ref>https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-legal-materials/article/trial-chamber-case-00202-against-nuon-chea-and-khieu-samphan-extraordinary-chambers-in-the-courts-of-cambodia/0A1B861657D78185D9BDB0C9A5AA9DCA</ref>

== Third Indochina War and Vietnam's intervention ==
The fall of Democratic Kampuchea took place within the wider [[Third Indochina War]], a period of conflict involving Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Laos, Thailand, and rival Cold War blocs after the communist victories in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in 1975. Relations between Democratic Kampuchea and [[Vietnam]] deteriorated after 1975. Khmer Rouge forces carried out attacks along the Vietnamese border, killing civilians and escalating conflict between the two states.

In December 1978, Vietnam launched a major invasion of Cambodia. Vietnamese forces entered Phnom Penh in January 1979 and overthrew the Khmer Rouge government, establishing the [[People's Republic of Kampuchea]]. Vietnam's intervention ended the Khmer Rouge's rule over most of Cambodia, but it also intensified the Third Indochina War by bringing Cambodia into the wider Sino-Soviet split and the conflict between China and Vietnam. <ref>https://www.routledge.com/The-Third-Indochina-War-Conflict-between-China-Vietnam-and-Cambodia-1972-79/Westad-Quinn-Judge/p/book/9780415545051</ref>

The overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea ended the Khmer Rouge's control over most of Cambodia, but it did not destroy the movement. Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge forces retreated toward the Thai-Cambodian border, where they continued to operate as part of the anti-Vietnamese resistance.

== China and Democratic Kampuchea ==
Democratic Kampuchea was closely aligned with the People's Republic of China. China provided political, military, and diplomatic support to the Khmer Rouge, and Pol Pot's regime was shaped in part by its relationship with Maoist China. This alignment was especially important because Vietnam was increasingly aligned with the Soviet Union, making Cambodia a battlefield in the Sino-Soviet split as well as the Third Indochina War. <ref>https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/03/mertha-documents-chinese-tutelage-khmer-rouge</ref>

This relationship complicates anti-communist attempts to present the Cambodian genocide as a simple result of communism in general. Democratic Kampuchea was not aligned with Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, or the Soviet Union, and it fought violently against Vietnam, which was the state that overthrew it. The genocide was carried out by the Khmer Rouge state itself, but its rise and survival were shaped by U.S. bombing, civil war, Chinese support, Thai border policy, and wider Cold War conflict.

== Ford administration and the Mayaguez incident ==
The Ford administration's most direct confrontation with Democratic Kampuchea came shortly after the Khmer Rouge victory. In May 1975, Khmer Rouge naval forces seized the American cargo ship SS Mayaguez. President [[Gerald Ford]] ordered a military operation in response, leading to combat between U.S. forces and Khmer Rouge forces near Koh Tang.<ref>https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196018/final-combat-the-mayaguez-incident-at-koh-tang/</ref>

The incident showed that the United States and the Khmer Rouge were not simple allies during the Khmer Rouge's time in power. However, after Vietnam overthrew Democratic Kampuchea in 1979, U.S. policy shifted toward opposing the Vietnamese-backed government and favoring the anti-Vietnamese diplomatic position.

== International support after 1979 ==
After the fall of Democratic Kampuchea, Cold War politics shaped the international response. The United States under President [[Jimmy Carter]], China, Thailand, and other U.S.-aligned states opposed Vietnam's intervention and refused to recognize the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. Instead, Democratic Kampuchea retained Cambodia's seat at the United Nations after 1979, despite the Khmer Rouge's responsibility for the genocide. The Association for Asian Studies describes this as a situation in which the Khmer Rouge retained the UN seat in spite of its widely known atrocities. <ref>https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea/</ref>

In 1982, the Khmer Rouge joined with royalist and republican anti-Vietnamese factions to form the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. This coalition continued to hold Cambodia's UN seat for years. Although the coalition included non-Khmer Rouge factions, the arrangement allowed the Khmer Rouge to remain internationally relevant after its overthrow. China and ASEAN states pressured the Khmer Rouge to join this wider anti-Vietnamese coalition along the Thai border. <ref>https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea/</ref>

== Thailand's role ==
Thailand became central to the post-1979 conflict. After Vietnam overthrew Democratic Kampuchea, Khmer Rouge forces and other anti-Vietnamese Cambodian factions operated along the Thai-Cambodian border. Yale's Cambodian Genocide Program describes the Vietnamese intervention as transforming the Khmer Rouge from Thailand's enemy into a useful anti-Vietnamese ally from Bangkok's perspective.<ref>https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/thailands-response-cambodian-genocide</ref>

Thailand also hosted large numbers of Cambodian refugees, but the border camp system became entangled with the armed struggle against the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. Some camps and border zones became linked to Khmer Rouge and other anti-Vietnamese forces. This made the refugee crisis inseparable from the wider Cold War proxy struggle over Cambodia after 1979.

== Legacy ==
The Cambodian genocide remains one of the most severe mass atrocities of the twentieth century. It devastated Cambodian society, killed a large share of the population, and left lasting trauma across generations. It also became a major ideological weapon in Cold War politics, often used by anti-communists to equate the Khmer Rouge with all communism while ignoring the role of U.S. bombing, the Lon Nol regime, Chinese support, Thai border policy, and Western diplomatic support for anti-Vietnamese forces after 1979.

The Cambodian genocide cannot be understood only as the product of Pol Pot's ideology. It must also be understood in the wider context of colonialism, the Vietnam War, U.S. imperial intervention, the collapse of Cambodian neutrality, the destruction of rural society, the Sino-Soviet split, the Third Indochina War, and Cold War opposition to Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge carried out the genocide, but the conditions of war and the later international protection of anti-Vietnamese forces show how imperialist and geopolitical interests helped shape both the rise and survival of the movement.

== References ==
<references />

File:Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.jpg

2026-07-05T08:45:39Z

Jadenw815: Skulls from the Cambodian Genocide

== Summary ==
Skulls from the Cambodian Genocide

United States of America

2026-07-04T18:12:23Z

Jadenw815:

<blockquote>''"United States" redirects here. For other uses, see [[United States (disambiguation)]].''</blockquote>{{Infobox country
| name = United States of America
| image_flag = Flag of the United States.svg
| population_estimate_year = 2021
| population_estimate = 331,893,745
| area_km2 = 9,833,520
| established_date1 = July 4, 1776
| established_event1 = [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]]
| empire = yes
| official_languages = None (de jure) English (de facto)
| demonym = Statesian United Statesian US-American Yankee (pejorative) Gringo (pejorative) American (common)<ref group="lower-alpha">Inhabitants of the USA are sometimes called simply "Americans," which can cause confusion because there are many other countries in the [[Americas]]. The terms "Statesian" and "United Statesian" are based on words in other languages, notably including the Spanish ''estadounidense'', that refer specifically to the USA. The term "US-American" has precedent in the German term ''US-amerikanisch'', though that term is not universally accepted in German.</ref>
| image_map_size = 220px
| image_map = USA orthographic.svg
| leader_name3 = [[JD Vance]]
| native_name = ᏌᏊᎢᏳᎾᎵᏍᏔᏅᏍᎦᏚᎩ ᎾᎿ ᎠᎺᏰᏟ ʻAmelika Hui Pūʻia Tannapta Nunaat Amiarikami Mílahaŋska Tȟamákȟočhe Wááshindoon Bikéyah Ałhidadiidzooígíí Gichi-mookomaan-aki
| leader_title3 = President of the Senate
| leader_name2 = [[Mike Johnson]]
| leader_title2 = Speaker of the House
| leader_name1 = [[Donald Trump]]
| leader_title1 = [[President of the United States of America|President]]
| largest_city = [[New York City]]
| image_coat = Coat of arms of the United States.svg
| capital = [[Washington, D.C.]]
| government_type = Federal corporatocratic republic
| currency = United States dollar
| mode_of_production = [[Imperialism|Imperialist capitalism]]
| event_pre = Beginning of [[Statesian Revolution|revolution]]
| date_pre = April 19, 1775
| established_event2 = Current [[Constitution of the United States|constitution]]
| established_date2 = March 4, 1789
| established_event3 = Last state admitted
| established_date3 = August 21, 1959
}}
The '''United States of America''' ('''USA'''), commonly referred to as just the '''United States''' ('''US''') or '''America''', is a [[Settler colonialism|settler colonial]] [[state]]<ref>{{Web citation|author=Albert Bender|newspaper=Communist Party USA|title=What’s at stake in the settler colonial debate|date=2022-05-12|url=https://www.cpusa.org/article/whats-at-stake-in-the-settler-colonial-debate/|archive-url=https://archive.is/mE0sL|archive-date=2022-05-13|retrieved=2025-08-22|quote=To begin with, the U.S. definitely was founded as a settler colonial state as well as a capitalist state.}}</ref> located primarily in [[North America]]. Consisting of [[U.S. state|50 states]], the [[Washington, D.C.|District of Columbia]], [[Territories of the United States|14 internationally-recognised territories]], and 326 [[Indian reservation|Indian reservations]], it is the [[List of North American countries by area|second-largest]] [[country]] in [[North America]] and [[List of countries by area|fourth-largest in the world]]. It borders [[Canada]] to the north, [[Mexican United States|Mexico]] to the south, the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] to the east, and the [[Pacific Ocean|Pacific]] to the west. The country's system of governance is a [[Liberalism|liberal]], [[Federation|federal]] [[Presidential system|presidential]] [[republic]].

The United States is the most influential [[Capitalism|capitalist]] and [[Imperialism|imperialist]] state today, accounting for 15% of global GDP (PPP)<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Statista|title=United States' share of global gross domestic product (GDP) adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) from 2019 to 2029|url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/270267/united-states-share-of-global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250716164332/https://www.statista.com/statistics/270267/united-states-share-of-global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/|archive-date=2025-07-16|retrieved=2025-08-22}}</ref> and more than 50% of global military spending.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Sara Flounders|newspaper=[[Workers World]]|title=Congressional chaos – deals and trades|date=2023-01|url=https://www.workers.org/2023/01/68509/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230110165054/https://www.workers.org/2023/01/68509/|archive-date=2023-01-10|retrieved=2023-01-22}}</ref> With a population of more than 340 million,<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=World Bank Group|title=Population, total - United States|url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=US|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250726154511/https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=US|archive-date=2025-07-26|retrieved=2025-08-22}}</ref> it is the third-most populous country in the world; it constitutes 4.2% of the total human population, but is home to over 20% of the world's prisoners.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Roy Walmsley|newspaper=World Prison Brief|title=World Prison Population List, twelfth edition|url=https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/wppl_12.pdf|archive-url=https://megalodon.jp/2025-0823-0056-37/https://www.prisonstudies.org:443/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/wppl_12.pdf|archive-date=2025-08-22|retrieved=2025-08-22}}</ref>

A modern [[United States imperialism|empire]], the United States sits at the center of a group of [[Imperial core|imperialist Western regimes]]. The USA is the leading country of many international imperialist organizations, such as the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]], [[Organization of American States]], [[The World Bank|World Bank]], [[International Monetary Fund]], [[National Endowment for Democracy]], [[Human Rights Watch]], and others.

The pervasiveness of [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] ideology, the frequent relationship between government officials and corporate board of directors, the tendency for war, and the reach of [[Nationalism|nationalist]], [[Patriarchy|patriarchal]] and [[Racism|racial chauvinist]] ideas makes the USA a [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] with traits of [[fascism]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Michael Cetewayo Tabor|title=Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide|title-url=https://exhibits.library.illinois.edu/s/rbml/item/1811#?xywh=-2988%2C0%2C7954%2C2999&cv=1|pdf=https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/Michael_Cetewayo_Tabor/513.Michael.Tabor.Capitalism.Dope.Genocide.pdf|mia=https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1970/dope.htm}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author=Fred Hampton|year=1969|title=It’s a Class Struggle, Godamnit!|title-url=https://www.lfks.net/en/content/fred-hampton-its-class-struggle-goddammit-november-1969|mia=https://www.marxists.org/archive/hampton/1969/11/class-struggle-godamnit.htm}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=KCNAWatch|title=Minju Joson on Final Doom of U.S.|url=https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/255411/minju-joson-on-final-doom-of-u-s/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210528023946/https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/255411/minju-joson-on-final-doom-of-u-s/|archive-date=2021-05-28|retrieved=2025-08-22}}</ref> Wealth distribution is extremely unequal, with the richest three Statesians owning more than the poorest 160 million combined.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Noah Kirsch|newspaper=Forbes|title=The 3 Richest Americans Hold More Wealth Than Bottom 50% Of The Country, Study Finds|date=2017-11-09|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/11/09/the-3-richest-americans-hold-more-wealth-than-bottom-50-of-country-study-finds/?sh=7144ebfe3cf8|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230121000741/https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/11/09/the-3-richest-americans-hold-more-wealth-than-bottom-50-of-country-study-finds/?sh=3e972c243cf8|archive-date=2023-01-21|retrieved=2023-01-23}}</ref>

Beginning as a [[Settler colonialism|settler-colony]] of European maritime empires, the USA became an independent country in 1776. It has achieved remarkable economic, scientific and military development through the process of imperialism, where it uses military power to ensure access for its private industries to exploit the nations of the world. The United States deliberately killed over 11 million unarmed civilians in its imperialist wars and conquests before 2000<ref name=":6">{{Citation|author=Austin Murphy|year=2000|title=The Triumph of Evil|chapter=Introduction|section=|page=22–24, 34|pdf=https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil.pdf|publisher=European Press Academic Publishing|isbn=8883980026|anna=https://annas-archive.org/md5/1463915729b5ae8f30fac63de6d2d87e}}</ref> and another 4.5 million in the 21st century.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Patrick Martin|newspaper=[[WSWS]]|title=US wars since 2001 have killed 4.5 million people|date=2023-05-19|url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/19/gmyj-m19.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230519034557/https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/19/gmyj-m19.html|archive-date=2023-05-19}}</ref>

Many of its methods of exploitation employed outwardly are also employed inwardly towards its own population with increasing intensity as its economy has been in steady decline since the [[Great Recession|2008 financial crisis]] and the [[COVID-19 pandemic|2020–2022 COVID-19 pandemic]].

== Nomenclature ==
The official name of the country is the United States of America, but it is often shortened to US, America, or United States; however, these names are erroneous, as other countries, such as the [[Mexican United States]], share the same wording "United States" in their name. Furthermore, the term "America" and "American" could refer to the geographic locations or inhabitants of [[North America]], [[South America]], or both.

Some of the indigenous names for the whole of North America include: ''Mishiike Minisi'', ''Anowara:kowa'', and ''Khéya Wíta''.<ref group="lower-alpha">Respectively in Anishinaabe, Kanien'kéha and Lakota. All mean "Turtle Island".</ref> "America" is often respelled as "AmeriKKKa" in reference to the pervasiveness of [[White supremacy|white supremacist]] ideology in the US.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Encyclopedia.com|title=FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/figurative-language|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250813235039/https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/figurative-language|archive-date=August 13th, 2025|retrieved=September 9th, 2025|quote=The spelling Amerikkka has sometimes been used, especially in graffiti, to suggest that the Ku Klux Klan has great influence over how the US is governed. The usage is both imaginative and striking, but to many Americans it is very far from pleasing.}}</ref> In [[Islamic Republic of Iran|Iran]], the US is referred to as ''Shaytân-e Bozorg'',<ref group="lower-alpha">Persian: شيطان بزرگ</ref> which means "the great Satan."<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Ruhollah Khomeini|date=1979-11-05|title=America the Great Satan|url=http://emam.com/posts/view/15718/Speech|newspaper=Emam.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160522133828/http://emam.com/posts/view/15718/Speech/|archive-date=2016-05-22|retrieved=2021-12-29}}</ref>

== History ==

=== Pre-colonization ===
{{Main article|History of humanity}}
[[File:US native nations.png|thumb|Indigenous nations in what is now the United States before colonization. California natives are grouped together as "California Indians" because there are too many groups to fit into the map. Numbers show US military forts.]]
[[File:USA native languages.png|thumb|Map of indigenous groups by language family]]
Human settlement in the [[America|Americas]] began between 12,500 to 27,000 years ago through different possible routes recognized by researchers. The most common and accepted theory is that humans crossed through land between Siberia and Alaska in the Beringia region at least 30,000 years ago,<ref>{{Citation|author=David J. Meltzer|year=2009|title=First peoples in a New World: colonizing Ice Age America|page=329|quote=The port of entry for America’s ﬁrst peoples was the Bering Sea region. They could, and likely did, walk across from Siberia to Alaska when expanding continental ice sheets dropped sea levels worldwide and Beringia surfaced. Crossing its Mammoth Steppe, blanketed by parkland and grazed by mammoth, horse, and bison, was possible anytime between 27,000 and 10,000 years ago. The recent genetic evidence of a possible Beringian standstill suggests the ﬁrst peoples may have been relatively isolated in this region for much of that time.|publisher=University of California Press}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author=Erika Tamm, et al|year=2007|title=Beringian Standstill and spread of Native American founders|title-url=https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000829#pone.0000829-Pitulko1|quote=The new data suggest that the initial founders of the Americas emerged from a single source ancestral population that evolved in isolation, likely in Beringia. This scenario is consistent with the unique pattern of diversity from autosomal locus D9S1120 of a private allele in high frequency and ubiquitous in the Americas. The finding that humans were present at the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site dated to 30,000 ybp suggests that the isolation in Beringia might have lasted up to 15,000 years. Following this isolation, the initial founders of the Americas began rapidly populating the New World from North to South America.|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0000829}}</ref> when the sea levels were at a minimum, revealing a pathway which made possible to cross between the lands, and stayed there until at least 12,500 years ago,<ref>{{Citation|author=David J. Meltzer|year=2009|title=First peoples in a New World: colonizing Ice Age America|page=329|quote=In any case, it appears from the evidence at Monte Verde that the ﬁrst Americans were here by at least 12,500 BP and possibly earlier still. Certainly by 11,500 BP, Clovis Paleoindians were widespread, possibly representing a second migratory pulse to the New World, one that may have spread across the continent in less than a thousand years.|publisher=University of California Press}}</ref> when they went deep into American land.

Genetic evidence based on mitochondrial DNA suggests that the last common ancestor between central Asian and North American indigenous peoples was estimated to have diverged between 25,000 to 20,000 years ago,<ref>{{Citation|author=Goebel, Waters & O’Rourke|year=2008|title=The Late Pleistocene dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas|quote=Establishing when central Asian and Native American haplogroup lineages last shared a common ancestor has proven to be difficult. Current coalescent estimates based on variation in extant mtDNA lineages set the event at 25 to 20 ka or less than 20 ka, after the last glacial maximum (LGM), and estimates based on Y- chromosome variability suggest that divergence occurred after 22.5 ka, possibly as late as 20 to 15 ka.|doi=10.1126/science.1153569}}</ref> during the time humans were located at the Beringian region, and sub-haplogroup analysis suggest that dispersion from Beringia may have occurred as early as 16,000 years ago.<ref>{{Citation|author=Goebel, Waters & O’Rourke|year=2008|title=The Late Pleistocene dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas.|doi=10.1126/science.1153569|quote=New analyses of haplogroup subclades help to resolve when modern humans subsequently spread from Beringia to the rest of the Americas. Three subclades of mtDNA subhaplogroup C1 are widely distributed among North, Central, and South Americans but absent in Asian populations, which suggests that they evolved after the central Asian–Native American split, as the first Americans were dispersing from Beringia. The estimated date of coalescence for these subclades is 16.6 to 11.2 ka, which suggests that the colonization of the Americas south of the continental ice sheets may have occurred some time during the late-glacial period, thousands of years after the initial splitting of Asian and Native American lineages.|page=}}</ref>

Around 10,500 years ago, the peoples of the eastern region of North America, developed agriculture based on corn, domestication of animals, along with hunting, fishing and gathering.<ref>{{Citation|author=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz|year=2014|title=An indigenous peoples' history of the United States|page=15-16|quote=Domestication of plants took place around the globe in seven locales during approximately the same period, around 8500 BC. Three of the seven were in the Americas, all based on corn: the Valley of Mexico and Central America (Mesoamerica); the South-Central Andes in South America; and eastern North America. [...] During this time, many of the same human societies began domesticating animals. Only in the American continents was the parallel domestication of animals eschewed in favor of game management, a kind of animal husbandry different from that developed in Africa and Asia. In these seven areas, agriculture based "civilized" societies developed in symbiosis with hunting, fishing, and gathering peoples on their peripheries, gradually enveloping many of the latter into the realms of their civilizations, except for those in regions inhospitable to agriculture.|pdf=https://www.sackett.net/An-Indigenous-Peoples-History-of-the-United-States-Ortiz.pdf|isbn=978-0-8070-0040-3|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D80C34C2EDEF56A1CA68F01727416207|anna=https://annas-archive.org/md5/9b788412e2170da83e6cd2d8eec681a4}}</ref> The development of agriculture in the region also required complex irrigation systems and developed through extensive trade between the peoples of Central and South America.<ref>{{Citation|author=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz|year=2014|title=An indigenous peoples' history of the United States|page=16|isbn=978-0-8070-0040-3|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D80C34C2EDEF56A1CA68F01727416207|quote=Corn, being a summer crop, can tolerate no more than twenty to thirty days without water and even less time in high temperatures. Many of the areas where corn was the staple were arid or semiarid, so its cultivation required the design and construction of complex irrigation systems-in place at least two thousand years be fore Europeans knew the Americas existed. The proliferation of agriculture and cultigens could not have occurred without centuries of cultural and commercial interchange among the peoples of North, Central, and South America, whose traders carried seeds as well as other goods and cultural practices.}}</ref> By the 15th century, the population of the whole continent of America was about 100 million people, and about 40 million lived in North America. In comparison, the [[Europe|European]] peoples at that time amounted to around 50 million.<ref>{{Citation|author=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz|year=2014|title=An indigenous peoples' history of the United States|page=17|isbn=978-0-8070-0040-3|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D80C34C2EDEF56A1CA68F01727416207|quote=The total population of the hemisphere was about one hundred million at the end of the fifteenth century, with about two-fifths in North America, including Mexico. Central Mexico alone supported some thirty million people. At the same time, the population of Europe as far east as the Ural Mountains was around fifty million.}}</ref>

At the beginning of European colonization, most indigenous peoples lived in agricultural societies but others were hunters and gatherers.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Dennis Etler|newspaper=CGTN|title=U.S. treatment of Native Americans is a gross human rights violation|date=2021-03-29|url=https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/U-S-treatment-of-Native-Americans-is-a-gross-human-rights-violation-YVtGCFbCJa/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210326013127/https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/U-S-treatment-of-Native-Americans-is-a-gross-human-rights-violation-YVtGCFbCJa/index.html|archive-date=2021-03-29|retrieved=2025-08-22|quote=Most were agriculturalists living in settled communities, some were hunters and gatherers.}}</ref>

=== European colonization ===
In the 17th century, settlers from Britain and Holland began to arrive in North America. Of 10,000 settlers who left from Bristol between 1654 and 1685, most were farmers and artisans and less than 15% were [[Proletariat|proletarians]]. The settlers initially enslaved both Africans and natives.<ref name=":3">{{Citation|author=[[J. Sakai]]|year=1983|title=Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat|title-url=https://readsettlers.org/text-index.html|chapter=The Heart of Whiteness|chapter-url=https://readsettlers.org/ch1.html|section=|pdf=https://readsettlers.org/settlers.pdf|isbn=9781629630762|anna=https://annas-archive.org/md5/d453946b79db6fbfdbf43812fa038826}}</ref>

In 1675, [[Metacomet]], also known as "King Philip," led an uprising against the settlers.<ref name=":4">{{Citation|author=J. Sakai|year=1983|title=Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat|title-url=https://readsettlers.org/text-index.html|chapter=Struggles & Alliances|chapter-url=https://readsettlers.org/ch2.html|isbn=9781629630762}}</ref>

In 1715, the settlers sold their native slaves abroad and focused on enslaving Africans. By the Revolutionary War, New Afrikans made up over 20% of the non-indigenous population, including more than half in Virginia and South Carolina.<ref name=":3" />
==== Bacon's Rebellion ====
Soon after King Philip's War, a conflict broke out in Virginia between settlers and the Susquehannock. A settler army of 1,100 surrounded the Susquehannock fort and executed five of their leaders, inspiring them to begin a guerrilla warfare campaign. In May 1676, plantation owner [[Nathaniel Bacon]] formed a vigilante group to attack the Susquehannock, against the orders of the British colonial governor. He went to an Occaneechee fort and persuaded the Occaneechee to attack the Susquehannock. After the Susquehannock were defeated, Bacon attacked the Occaneechee to steal their beaver furs, which were worth about £1,000.

After defeating the Occaneechee, Bacon turned against Governor [[William Berkeley]], whom he accused of secretly selling guns to the indigenous peoples. On June 23, 1676, he marched to Jamestown with an army of over 500 and captured the city. Loyalist forces arrived in September but Bacon soon recaptured the city and burned it down.<ref name=":4" />

==== Seven Years' War ====
During the [[Seven Years' War]], the British fought against [[Kingdom of France (987–1792)|France]] and their indigenous allies. The indigenous peoples supported the French because they traded with them but did not want to occupy their land. The British defeated the French in 1763 and France ceded the land west of the Appalachians to Britain. The natives continued a guerrilla warfare campaign against the British until they passed the Proclamation of 1763, which prevented colonists from settling west of the Appalachians.<ref name=":02">{{Citation|author=[[Howard Zinn]]|year=1980|title=A People's History of the United States|title-url=https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/peoples-history/|chapter=A Kind of Revolution|page=89–90|pdf=https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People's%20History%20of%20the%20Unite%20-%20Howard%20Zinn.pdf|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=0060194480|anna=https://annas-archive.org/md5/c5f1afe8541ac325484af47ca6d3e525}}</ref>

After 1765, a crisis began between British authorities and colonists and local newspapers were pressured to censor anti-secessionist material. The [[Sons of Liberty]] attacked and rioted against loyalists.<ref name=":023">{{Citation|author=Albert Szymanski|year=1984|title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union|chapter=The Land of the Free|page=152–156|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceazdmtb2y3qq27fve5ib3gk7uv2unt6ae2xss74xmfpur7k5uhl5m?filename=Albert%20Szymanski%20-%20Human%20Rights%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union_%20Including%20Comparisons%20with%20the%20U.S.A.-Zed%20Books%20Ltd.%20%281984%29.pdf|city=London|publisher=Zed Books Ltd|isbn=0862320186|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=C597B1232D9EA6B0F3DCB438D7E15A81}}</ref>

=== Independence War ===
{{Main article|Statesian Revolution}}Between 1775 and 1778, state governments passed laws making it illegal to criticize the [[Continental Congress]], which was organizing a rebellion against the British. Eight states banished prominent loyalists and all states deprived their right to vote. Between 80,000 and 100,000 loyalists fled during the revolution, half of which moved to [[Canada]]. The percentage of colonists that fled from the Statesian Revolution (4% of the white population) was higher than those who fled the [[Russian revolution of 1917|Russian Revolution]] (only 1.5% of the total population).<ref name=":023" />

During the Statesian Revolution, the British tried to form an alliance with the [[Cherokee Nation (1794–1907)|Cherokee Nation]] and provided them with weapons and funding. In 1776, over 5,000 settlers from Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas invaded the Cherokee Nation. Settlers attacked the Cherokee Nation again in 1780 and 1781.

In 1777, the British formed an alliance with the Shawnee in what is now Ohio. In 1780, settlers from Virginia attacked the Shawnee in what is now southern Ohio.

In the north, the six nations of the [[Haudenosaunee Confederacy|Haudenosaunee]] took different sides in the war. The Mohawk and Senecas sided with the British, the Oneidas sided with the settlers, and the Cayuga, Onondaga, and Tuscarora were neutral. [[George Washington]] gave orders to destroy the villages of the nations that did not side with the United States. The British surrendered in 1783 and allowed Statesian settlers to expand west into the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]]|year=2014|title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States|chapter=Bloody Footprints|page=72–78|pdf=https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10601/An%20Indigenous%20Peoples%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Ortiz.pdf|city=Boston|publisher=Beacon Press Books|series=ReVisioning American History|title-url=}}</ref>

=== Early republic ===

==== Articles of Confederation ====

===== Shays' rebellion =====
In 1786, farmers in western Massachusetts rebelled because of [[debt]] and [[Tax|taxes]], which were four times as high as they had been under the British. Washington opposed the uprising, and [[Samuel Adams]] passed the Riot Act to crush dissent.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Chad Pearson|newspaper=[[MR Online]]|title=Sober Up Liberals: The U.S. Constitution Sucks|date=2023-07-12|url=https://mronline.org/2023/07/12/sober-up-liberals-the-u-s-constitution-sucks/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230712132453/https://mronline.org/2023/07/12/sober-up-liberals-the-u-s-constitution-sucks/|archive-date=2023-07-12}}</ref>

==== Federalist Era ====
The first decades after U.S. independence were characterized by conflict between the [[Federalist Party (United States)|Federalist Party]], which favored the wealthy, and the [[Democratic-Republican Party]], which favored small farmers. [[John Adams]], George Washington's Federalist successor, passed the [[Alien and Sedition Acts]] in 1798 to enforce [[censorship]] and ban criticism of the government. The law sentenced the radical labor leader David Brown to prison in October 1798 after he put up a pole saying "Downfall to the tyrants of America."<ref name=":023" />

===== Whiskey Rebellion =====

===== Invasion of Ohio =====
In 1784, the Continental Congress deployed [[Josiah Harmar]] to the [[Northwest Territory]] to survey the land so it could be sold to settlers. The USA built its first fort, Fort Harmar, in what is now [[Ohio]] in 1785, followed by Fort Washington in modern-day Cincinnati in 1789. From there, Harmar invaded the Miami and Shawnee nations and lost almost 200 troops in four days before retreating.<ref name=":123">{{Citation|author=David Vine|year=2020|title=The United States of War|isbn=9780520972070|city=Oakland|publisher=University of California Press|lg=http://library.lol/main/191568BFAC73F009132DB00ECD0F0F05|page=|chapter=Why Are So Many Places Named Fort?}}</ref>:103–6

Mohawk leader Thayendanegea had formed an alliance of the indigenous nations in the Ohio River valley in the 1780s and received weapons from the British. Secretary of War [[Henry Knox]] organized an army of settlers from Kentucky to invade the territory of the Miami and Shawnee nations.<ref name=":8">{{Citation|author=[[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]]|year=2014|title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States|chapter=The Birth of a Nation|page=81–87|pdf=https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10601/An%20Indigenous%20Peoples%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Ortiz.pdf|city=Boston|publisher=Beacon Press Books|series=ReVisioning American History|title-url=}}</ref> Little Turtle and Blue Jacket ambushed the settler army, who destroyed 300 buildings and looted the two largest Miami towns. In 1791, they destroyed the invading army led by [[Arthur St. Clair]] at the Battle of Wabash, which was one of the largest defeats of the U.S. military in history.<ref name=":9">{{Citation|author=[[Nick Estes]], et al.|year=2021|title=Red Nation Rising|chapter=Anti-Indianism|page=22–27|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacechp4anuu3vkx7ttze5vwtbbslqpqkouqemkpa5xui27eulvyntx2?filename=Nick%20Estes%2C%20Melanie%20Yazzie%2C%20Jennifer%20Nez%20Denetdale%2C%20David%20Correia%20-%20Red%20Nation%20Rising_%20From%20Bordertown%20Violence%20to%20Native%20Liberation-PM%20Press%20%282021%29.pdf}}</ref> 637 U.S. soldiers died, and less than half of St. Clair's forces returned unharmed to Fort Washington.<ref name=":123" />:106 Anthony Wayne, who led the settlers from 1792 to 1794, destroyed food supplies and murdered native civilians. After Blue Jacket refused an ultimatum at Fort Defiance, settler forces began an extermination campaign against civilians. They defeated the Shawnee at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794.

In 1794, [[John Jay]] signed a treaty with the British that made them leave their 13 forts in the Northwest.<ref name=":123" />:108 The USA annexed southern Ohio in 1795 with the Treaty of Greenville.<ref name=":8" /> The British occupied some territory south of the Canadian border until 1796, when they withdrew and ended their support for the indigenous resistance.<ref name=":123" />:105–8

===== Quasi-War =====
Between 1798 and 1800, the USA fought undeclared naval battles with [[French Republic (1792–1804)|France]] in the Caribbean because it was seizing U.S. merchant ships. Congress was only two votes away from declaring war on France.<ref name=":1232">{{Citation|author=David Vine|year=2020|title=The United States of War|isbn=9780520972070|city=Oakland|publisher=University of California Press|lg=http://library.lol/main/191568BFAC73F009132DB00ECD0F0F05|page=|chapter=Invading Your Neighbors}}</ref>:135

==== Jeffersonian Era ====
In 1801, slave owner [[Thomas Jefferson]] came to power and replaced the Federalist government. He pardoned people convicted under the Alien and Sedition Acts but continued censorship and political repression against his own political opponents.<ref name=":023" />

In 1803, Congress approved $2,500 for Meriweather Lewis and William Clark's military expedition through the [[Louisiana Territory]] to plan the annexation of that area. Later, Zebulon Pike led expeditions in the Southwest and the Mississippi headwaters. In late 1803, the USA bought the Louisiana Territory from [[French Empire (1804–1815)|France]], which had secretly taken it from [[Kingdom of Spain|Spain]] in 1800. In 1806, Statesian and Spanish soldiers had a skirmish on the border of [[State of Texas|Texas]].<ref name=":123" />:113–8

Congress banned the international slave trade in 1808 without ending slavery within the country. In the early 19th century, the [[American Colonization Society]] emerged and attempted to [[Idealism|persuade]] slave owners to sell their slaves and send them back to Africa to spread [[Christianity]]. It sought to make the United States into a white-only country without forcibly freeing the slaves. [[State of Indiana|Indiana]], [[State of Illinois|Illinois]], [[State of Iowa|Iowa]], and [[State of Oregon|Oregon]] completely banned Black people (enslaved or free) from living in their territory.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Domenico Losurdo]]|year=2011|title=Liberalism: A Counter-History|chapter=Liberalism and Racial Slavery: A Unique Twin Birth|page=52–57|publisher=Verso|isbn=9781844676934|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=5BB3406BC2E64972831A1C00D5D4BFE4|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacebhsj2yxuoudkhkjp6lzgr5jvgyhu76zxe4gw3d65gpg32a6nded4?filename=Domenico%20Losurdo%2C%20Gregory%20Elliott%20-%20Liberalism_%20A%20Counter-History-Verso%20%282011%29.pdf}}</ref>

In 1807, the Shawnee brothers [[Tecumseh]] and Tenskwatawa began a movement for indigenous peoples to return to their pre-colonial culture. Tecumseh united the nations of the northwest and presented a program to prevent settlers from buying native land. The governor of Indiana, [[William Henry Harrison]], bribed some Delaware, Miami, and Potawatomi to give up their land in 1809. In 1810, he moved south to bring the Muskogees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws into the alliance. In November 1811, Statesian troops attacked Tenskwatawa at Prophetstown and killed 200 natives. After the attack, Kickapoos, Winnebagos, Potawatomis, and Creeks obtained British weapons from Canada to fight the settlers.<ref name=":8" />

===== War of 1812 =====
{{Main article|War of 1812}}
The United States declared war on [[Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922)|Britain]] in 1812 because of its connections to Tecumseh's [[Anti-colonialism|anticolonial]] movement. Indigenous forces liberated Michigan and forced thousands of settlers out of Illinois and Indiana, but the USA killed Tecumseh at the Battle of Thames in 1813, destroying the resistance.<ref name=":8" />

===== Barbary Wars =====
The Berber states of North Africa (Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis) demanded taxes from ships traveling through their waters and captured ships if they refused to pay. Between 1801 and 1805, Jefferson sent the Navy to fight them and occupy Tripoli. In 1815, only ten days after the War of 1812 ended, [[James Madison]] told Congress to declare war again. The Navy quickly captured two warships from Algiers and forced them to end tribute payments.<ref name=":1232" />:133–4

==== Era of Good Feelings ====

=== Jacksonian Era ===
[[File:USA settler expansion.png|thumb|338x338px|United States occupation of native land from 1783 to 1893]]
After the war against the British Empire, the fledgling United States expanded westward with Thomas Jefferson (the third in [[List of Presidents of the United States|a long line of Presidents]]) referring to the country as an "empire of liberty." As Nancy Isenberg elucidates in her book ''White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America'': "The Louisiana Territory, as he envisioned it, would encourage agriculture and forestall the growth of manufacturing and urban poverty—that was his formula for liberty. It was not [[Benjamin Franklin|Franklin]]'s “happy mediocrity” (a compression of classes across an endless stretch of unsettled land), but a nation of farmers large and small. This difference is not nominal: Franklin and [[Thomas Paine|Paine]] used Pennsylvania as their model, while Jefferson saw America’s future—and the contours of its [[Class society|class system]]—through the prism of Virginia."<ref>{{Citation|author=Nancy Isenberg|year=2016|title=White trash: the 400-year untold history of class in America|publisher=Viking|isbn=9780670785971|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=858AE1D454C3854355613E1824C318ED|page=92}}</ref>

Around 1800, as the lands further to the west were opened up to the fledgling United States, the young state saw the land as a way to appease its population and strengthen its power in the world. As Nancy Isenberg further explains: "By 1800, one-fifth of the American population had resettled on its 'frontier,' the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi. Effective regulation of this mass migration was well beyond the limited powers of the federal government. Even so, officials understood that the country’s future depended on controlling this vast territory. Financial matters were involved too. Government sale of these lands was needed to reduce the nation’s war debts. Besides, the lands were hardly empty, and the potential for violent conflicts with Native Americans was ever present, as white migrants settled on lands they did not own. National greatness depended as much as anything upon the class of settlers that was advancing into the new territories."<ref>{{Citation|author=Nancy Isenberg|year=2016|title=White trash: the 400-year untold history of class in America|publisher=Viking|isbn=9780670785971|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=858AE1D454C3854355613E1824C318ED|page=110}}</ref>

After the Statesian Revolution, the United States began a genocidal policy of "[[Indian Removal Act|Indian Removal]]" to clear the land between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians for settlers. In 1790, most of the settler population lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. From 1800 to 1830, the number of white settlers west of the Appalachians grew from 700,000 to 4.5 million. Between 1820 and 1844, the number of Native Americans living east of the Mississippi dropped from 120,000 to under 30,000. President [[Thomas Jefferson]] bought the Louisiana Territory from [[French Republic (1792–1804)|France]] in 1803, doubling the size of the United States and extending the frontier to the Rocky Mountains.<ref name=":5">{{Citation|author=Howard Zinn|year=1980|title=A People's History of the United States|title-url=https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/peoples-history/|chapter=As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs|page=124–129|pdf=https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People's%20History%20of%20the%20Unite%20-%20Howard%20Zinn.pdf}}</ref>

Through a series of treaties from 1814 to 1824, settlers took control of most of [[Alabama]] and [[Florida]] as well as parts of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], [[Commonwealth of Kentucky|Kentucky]], [[Mississippi]], [[North Carolina]], and [[State of Tennessee|Tennessee]]. Future president [[Andrew Jackson]] relied on bribery and threats to make native leaders sign these treaties. In 1818, he began raids into [[Governorate of Florida (1783–1821)|Spanish Florida]] and destroyed Seminole villages until [[Kingdom of Spain (1813–1873)|Spain]] surrendered the territory to the United States in 1819.<ref name=":5" />

==== Trail of Tears ====
[[File:A map of the process of Indian Removal in the US, 1830–1838. Oklahoma is depicted in light yellow-green..png|thumb|Map of the five nations deported to Oklahoma under the Indian Removal Act]]
Presidents Andrew Jackson and [[Martin Van Buren]] forced 70,000 Native Americans to move west across the Mississippi River. Secretary of War [[Lewis Cass]] promised in 1825 that the United States would never try to take indigenous land west of the Mississippi.<ref name=":5" />

Half of the 16,000 Cherokees died during the march. The Muskogees and Seminoles suffered similar death rates and about 15% of the Choctaws and Chickasaws died on the way to Oklahoma.'''<ref name=":82">{{Citation|author=[[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]]|year=2014|title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States|chapter=Andrew Jackson's White Republic|page=112–113|pdf=https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10601/An%20Indigenous%20Peoples%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Ortiz.pdf|city=Boston|publisher=Beacon Press Books|series=ReVisioning American History|title-url=}}</ref>'''

==== Invasion of Mexico ====
{{Main article|Mexican–Statesian War}}
[[File:Mexican cession map.png|thumb|232x232px|Territories occupied by the USA in 1848 in red. The USA bought more territory in 1853.]]
After the Mexican government banned slavery in 1829, US-backed settlers in Texas rebelled to form the Republic of Texas in 1836, which the United States annexed in 1845. The United States invaded Mexico in 1846, beginning in Veracruz. They occupied Mexico City in 1848 and did not leave until Mexico surrendered [[Aztlán|its northern territories]] to the USA. After the annexation, U.S. cavalry troops attacked the Apaches led by [[Mangas Coloradas]], destroying crops and villages and murdering civilians.'''<ref name=":822">{{Citation|author=[[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]]|year=2014|title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States|chapter=Sea to Shining Sea|page=123–132|pdf=https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10601/An%20Indigenous%20Peoples%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Ortiz.pdf|city=Boston|publisher=Beacon Press Books|series=ReVisioning American History|title-url=}}</ref>'''

==== Slavery and the abolitionist movement ====
The extent to which average whites in [[Slave states and free states|slave states]] benefitted from and supported the institution of slavery has been minimised by American nationalists of the [[Neo-Confederates|neo-Confederate]] and Unionist varieties alike. It is often claimed that only a very small elite of plantation-owners directly stood to benefit from slavery. According to the 1860 U.S. Census, there were 393,975 slavers out of a population of 31,183,582, or 1.26%. This figure is widely cited today as "proof" that few white Southerners directly benefitted from slavery.<ref name=":12">Al Mackey (2017-04-18).: [https://studycivilwar.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/the-extent-of-slave-ownership-in-the-united-states-in-1860/ "The Extent of Slave Ownership in the United States in 1860"]. ''Student of the American Civil War''. Retrieved 2025-09-10.</ref>

This picture is misleading however. Firstly, this is for the whole of the United States rather than just the states where slavery was practised. Secondly, it counts enslaved people themselves rather than just free people. Most importantly but least obviously, although slaves were typically only owned by one person (usually the head of a household), the rest of the slaver's family also directly profited from the institution. They shared in the wealth accumulated through the slave's exploitation and inherited slaves when the owner died. Thus, controlling for these factors, the percentage of free families that owned slaves in states which later seceded is 30.8%. At the state level, the percentage of free families which owned slaves in 1860 was:<ref name=":12" />

* 49% in Mississippi
* 46% in South Carolina
* 37% in Georgia
* 35% in Alabama
* 34% in Florida
* 29% in Georgia
* 28% in North Carolina
* 28% in Texas
* 26% in Virginia
* 25% in Tennessee
* 23% in Kentucky
* 20% in Arkansas
* 13% in Missouri
* 12% in Maryland
* 3% in Delaware

Thus, every third white had a direct interest in preserving slavery.

In 1805, [[South Carolina]] passed laws that allowed executing people who supported or encouraged slave rebellions. [[State of Georgia|Georgia]] passed a similar law around the same time.<ref name=":10" />

By 1830, following the abolition of slavery in much of Latin America, the United States was effectively in a cold war with [[Republic of Haiti|Haiti]]. [[State of South Carolina|South Carolina]] banned Africans from Haiti and other French colonies from entering the country in order to limit the spread of abolitionism.<ref name=":122">{{Citation|author=[[Domenico Losurdo]]|year=2011|title=Liberalism: A Counter-History|chapter=Crisis of the English and American Models|page=|publisher=Verso|isbn=9781844676934|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=5BB3406BC2E64972831A1C00D5D4BFE4|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacebhsj2yxuoudkhkjp6lzgr5jvgyhu76zxe4gw3d65gpg32a6nded4?filename=Domenico%20Losurdo%2C%20Gregory%20Elliott%20-%20Liberalism_%20A%20Counter-History-Verso%20%282011%29.pdf}}</ref>:151

In 1836, Andrew Jackson allowed the postmaster general to censor any newspapers critical of slavery. The [[United States Congress#House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] banned examining antislavery petitions.<ref name=":10">{{Citation|author=[[Domenico Losurdo]]|year=2011|title=Liberalism: A Counter-History|chapter=Were Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England and America Liberal?|page=102|publisher=Verso|isbn=9781844676934|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=5BB3406BC2E64972831A1C00D5D4BFE4|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacebhsj2yxuoudkhkjp6lzgr5jvgyhu76zxe4gw3d65gpg32a6nded4?filename=Domenico%20Losurdo%2C%20Gregory%20Elliott%20-%20Liberalism_%20A%20Counter-History-Verso%20%282011%29.pdf}}</ref>

==== Slave rebellions and enslaved Africans ====
[[Peasantry|Yeoman farmers]], who did not own slave labour, made up two-thirds of whites. They sometimes supported the institution of slavery but also occasionally challenged the goals of the planter elite where their interests came into conflict, especially on the western frontier (where there were fewer slavers to begin with due to the region's inhospitality to agriculture), advocating for the gradual abolition of slavery. Due to the dominance of cotton in the south, and yeoman farmers there saw, how detrimental it was to their own survival to compete with the slave owning elite, working from dawn until dusk on with their own hands on their own lands. Poor white farms gained more voting rights in the 1830s and 1840s and sought to influence state legislatures about their political and economic concerns. Even then, trouble arose for elite slave owners with nations around the world from Europe to South America abolishing slavery, as the abolition movement picked up steam, an example of which, Britain's emancipation of <nowiki>''</nowiki>all slaves<nowiki>''</nowiki> in 1834, so elite white farmers came up with a system that was to ensure the institution of slavery was to be intact forever. With the three-fifths compromise, giving elite whites political power in congress, white elite planters also consolidated power, by making loans to those in need, hiring poor whites for work, as well as using resources to transport crops of yeoman farmers to the market. Even if some yeoman farmers didn't participate in the institution of slavery, they had major incentives not to end it because white settler colonial elites had made white society dependent upon themselves. White settler-colonialism, and its justification for the institution for slavery, was a political and economic move, to coerce, and influence those in slavery, and those who didn't contribute to slavery as much as actual slave owners, to disprove the evils, and horrors of slavery and to justify its evil to end it. The white settler elite created the idea of white supremacy to uphold white society together under elitist control. The idea that all whites were equal and superior towards black African slaves, was not in question due to the lower, and poor white farmers, who either did or did not support the idea of white supremacy, not having any benefits to opposing the idea of it, since the elite white farmers did in fact keep the yeoman poor farmers alive, and sustainable. Two justifying phrases include those that explain slavery, as a <nowiki>''</nowiki>necessary evil<nowiki>''</nowiki> or a <nowiki>''</nowiki>positive good<nowiki>''</nowiki>. [[John C. Calhoun]] noted that:

<nowiki>''</nowiki>I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good - positive good... There never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. Broad and general as is this assertion, it is fully borne out by history... I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions.<nowiki>''</nowiki>

Explaining the <nowiki>''inherent'', and ''moral'', as well as, ''necessary''</nowiki>, domination of the white race over the black, race bound southern society together. The planter elite and forged a unbreakable tie with the lower white classes and established a stronghold on southern culture.{{Citation needed}}

===== Nat Turner's rebellion =====
The largest slave rebellion in the United States happened near New Orleans in 1811. 400 or 500 armed slaves overthrew the plantation owner and began liberating slaves from other plantations. The U.S. army crushed the uprising, immediately killing 66 rebels and executing 16 later.

In 1822, [[Denmark Vesey]] planned to start a large rebellion in Charleston, [[South Carolina]], which was the sixth largest city in the USA. When authorities found out, they hanged Vesey and 34 others. The trial record was destroyed soon after.

Nat Turner's Rebellion, was an organized slave revolt in Virginia, led by an enslaved worker named Nat Turner. Being a spiritual individual he believed that god had chosen him for a mission. In obedience to that vision, Turner and his followers began by killing his masters in Southhampton county and then headed to other plantations to do the same. In the end Turner and his followers had killed 57 white people and the next day the Virginia Militia encountered the rebels and squashed the rebellion. Turner and 55 others believed to be his conspirators were hanged. And as a result of this, Virginia planters panicked, and unleashed terror on an estimated 200 of their enslaved workers, beating all of them and killing many.<ref name=":024">{{Citation|author=[[Howard Zinn]]|year=1980|title=A People's History of the United States|title-url=https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/peoples-history/|chapter=Slavery without Submission, Emancipation without Freedom|page=165–166|pdf=https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People's%20History%20of%20the%20Unite%20-%20Howard%20Zinn.pdf|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=0060194480}}</ref>

===== John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry =====
[[John Brown]] tried to start a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1859. He failed and was executed by hanging.<ref name=":122" />

=== Civil War era ===
{{Main article|Statesian Civil War}}
[[File:Statesian civil war map.svg|thumb|United States in blue and Confederacy in red. Light blue states remained in the Union but allowed slavery.]]
In January 1861, several slave states seceded from the USA to form the [[Confederate States of America (1861–1865)|Confederate States of America]]. They seized an army base at Fort Sumter in April, beginning a war against the United States. In addition the the Union Army, the Confederacy also fought against [[Guerrilla warfare|guerrilla]] units of indigenous peoples and former slaves in Kansas.<ref name=":03">{{Citation|author=[[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]]|year=2014|title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States|chapter="Indian Country"|pdf=https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10601/An%20Indigenous%20Peoples%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Ortiz.pdf|city=Boston, Massachusetts|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=9780807000403|page=}}</ref>:133–6

==== Reconstruction ====
After the defeat of the Confederacy, [[United States Congress|Congress]] passed a series of laws putting the south under military rule. The army prevented former Confederates from voting and organized an anti-secessionist electorate. They elected delegates to create new state constitutions so their states could rejoin the USA. The army enfranchised almost 700,000 Black people and prevented 200,000 Confederates from voting. Most Confederate leaders were only jailed for short periods or not at all, and only one, Henry Wirz, was executed.

President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] declared martial law in nine counties of [[South Carolina]] to combat the [[Ku Klux Klan]] and arrested 500 to 600 people. In 1872, an amnesty act restored voting rights to most Confederates and only kept the top 300 or 400 disenfranchised. Many former slave owners fled to [[Federative Republic of Brazil#Empire era (1822–1889)|Brazil]] or [[Cuba]].<ref name=":0232">{{Citation|author=Albert Szymanski|year=1984|title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union|chapter=The Land of the Free|page=160–161|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceazdmtb2y3qq27fve5ib3gk7uv2unt6ae2xss74xmfpur7k5uhl5m?filename=Albert%20Szymanski%20-%20Human%20Rights%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union_%20Including%20Comparisons%20with%20the%20U.S.A.-Zed%20Books%20Ltd.%20%281984%29.pdf|city=London|publisher=Zed Books Ltd|isbn=0862320186|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=C597B1232D9EA6B0F3DCB438D7E15A81}}</ref> Reconstruction ended in 1877, leading to the creation of a white supremacist dictatorship in the south.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Domenico Losurdo]]|year=2011|title=Liberalism: A Counter-History|chapter=The West and the Barbarians|page=222|publisher=Verso|isbn=9781844676934|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=5BB3406BC2E64972831A1C00D5D4BFE4|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacebhsj2yxuoudkhkjp6lzgr5jvgyhu76zxe4gw3d65gpg32a6nded4?filename=Domenico%20Losurdo%2C%20Gregory%20Elliott%20-%20Liberalism_%20A%20Counter-History-Verso%20%282011%29.pdf}}</ref>

=== Westward expansion ===
[[File:Western US wars map.png|thumb|Map of military bases and battles against indigenous nations between 1860 and 1890]]The US passed the first of several [[Homestead Acts]] in 1862, establishing a homesteading system for westward expansion by settlers, resulting in 270 million acres of land being "claimed" and "settled." The Homestead Act would remain in effect until 1976, with additional provisions for homesteading in Alaska until 1986.<ref name=":13">{{Citation|author=Douglas W. Allen and Bryan Leonard|year=2024|title=Late Homesteading: Native Land Dispossession through Strategic Occupation|title-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/late-homesteading-native-land-dispossession-through-strategic-occupation/7E9F48FE4E0960870DE63C4257A43432|publisher=American Political Science Review|doi=10.1017/S0003055423001466|volume=119}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=National Park Service|title=About the Homestead Act|url=https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/abouthomesteadactlaw.htm}}</ref>

The U.S. Army fought 943 battles and skirmishes against native peoples between 1865 and 1898. Settlers reduced the native population in California from 150,000 in 1845 to 18,000 in 1890.<ref name=":12322">{{Citation|author=David Vine|year=2020|title=The United States of War|isbn=9780520972070|city=Oakland|publisher=University of California Press|lg=http://library.lol/main/191568BFAC73F009132DB00ECD0F0F05|page=157–66|chapter=The Permanent Indian Frontier}}</ref>

The Arapaho, Arikara, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Crow, Gros Ventre, Mandan, and [[Lakota people|Sioux]] signed a treaty with the United States that reserved them to certain areas of land in exchange for the government paying them goods for ten years. It allowed the government to build roads and forts on their reservations. Despite the promise of goods, many natives were starving by 1853.

The Dakota people of [[Minnesota]] were starving by 1862 and began a revolt against the settlers. The Union crushed them and hanged 38 in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. [[John Chivington]]'s volunteers killed 133 Cheyennes and Arapahos on the Sand Creek reservation. Colonel [[Patrick Connor]] massacred the Shoshone, Bannock, and Ute in [[Nevada]] and [[Utah]]. [[James Carleton]] fought against [[Cochise]], the leader of the [[Apache|Apaches]], in Arizona. He enlisted [[Kit Carson]], who forced 8,000 [[Navajo]] people to march 300 miles to a concentration camp in the [[New Mexico]] desert. A quarter of them starved to death.<ref name=":03" />:136–9

In 1871, the Indian Appropriation Act unilaterally ended US recognition of indigenous nationhood and ended treaty-making with indigenous nations.<ref name=":13" /><ref name=":14">{{Web citation|author=Mark Hirsch|newspaper=American Indian Magazine|title=1871: The End of Indian Treaty-Making|date=2014|url=https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/1871-end-indian-treaty-making}}</ref>

[[Black Kettle]] (''Mo'ôhtavetoo'o'') of the Cheyenne survived the Sand Creek massacre and was forced into Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The Army killed civilians in response to a guerrilla resistance. Black Kettle rode out unarmed to meet with [[George Custer]], and Custer ordered his soldiers to shoot him even though he was flying a white flag.<ref name=":03" />:145–6 In 1874, the Army attacked Arapahos, Cheyennes, Comanches, and Kiowas in northern Texas and destroyed their supplies, forcing them onto reservations.<ref name=":12322" />

In 1877, [[Chief Joseph]] (''Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it'') of the [[Nez Perce]] led 800 civilians out of Idaho and towards the Canadian border. They held out for four months while 2,000 soldiers pursued them. In 1878, [[Little Wolf]] (''Ó'kôhómôxháahketa'') and [[Dull Knife]] (''Vóóhéhéve'') led more than 3,000 Cheyenne out of Oklahoma and back to their homeland in [[Montana]] and [[Wyoming]]. The military caught them and put them on a reservation that included only part of their homeland.<ref name=":03" />:149–50

The Lakota and Cheyenne, led by [[Crazy Horse]] (''Tȟašúŋke Witkó'') and [[Sitting Bull]] (''Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake''), killed Custer and defeated his entire Seventh Cavalry at Little Bighorn in 1876. A year later, the USA captured Crazy Horse and killed him when he tried to escape.<ref name=":03" />:151–2 In response, the Army began a ruthless campaign that ended with the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890, killing up to 300 unarmed and starving people. With the decline of the resistance, the number of forts dropped from 187 to 118.<ref name=":12322" />

By 1879, dozens of native nations were confined to Indian Territory.<ref name=":12322" /> [[Geronimo]] (''Goyaałé'') of the Apache nation led a resistance war against the U.S. colonizers from 1850 to 1886.<ref name=":9" /> He surrendered as a prisoner of war, and the Army sent him and his nation to Fort Sill in Indian Territory.<ref name=":03" />:150–51

With the [[General Allotment Act]] (or Dawes Act) of 1887, the US federal government authorized itself to unilaterally abrogate past treaties and divide tribal lands into individually owned parcels and "assign" allotments even to tribal members who refused to participate. Land would be assigned to individuals and then any land that the US deemed "surplus" was then taken and made available for settlers. Tribes generally opposed these transfers and litigation over them is ongoing.<ref name=":13" /> In 1903, the US Supreme Court ruling of the [[Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock]] case decided that the US Congress could abrogate existing treaties with indigenous nations.<ref name=":14" />

The bulk of homesteading by settlers which occurred under the Homestead Acts (first enacted in 1862) took place from 1900 to 1930.<ref name=":13" /> A 2024 research paper asserts that physical occupation by settlers provided a strategic attempt by the US to solidify indigenous land dispossession regardless of legal battles which may ensue following the "enormous and questionable" land transfers which occurred in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As the paper states, "Settler occupation disrupted tribal land uses, physical development, and infrastructure; it also created vested political interests in maintaining non-native settlement. These irreversible effects of settlement meant that even a future legal loss could only result in a payment to tribes, not the return of the land. [...] Thus, the federal state strategically allowed homesteading to continue in order to solidify the transfer of lands away from tribes. This strategy complemented the various political forces that wanted lands to remain in the hands of non-native settlers."<ref name=":13" /> Despite these various maneuvers by the US settler colonial entity to entrench its grip over land, indigenous nations have continued their ongoing resistance to assert and preserve their sovereignty and resist land dispossession by a variety of methods.

===Rise as global empire===
Between the end of the Civil War and the invasion of Cuba in 1898, the United States expanded its army from 25,000 to almost 300,000 troops.<ref name=":83">{{Citation|author=[[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]]|year=2014|title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States|chapter=US Triumphalism and Peacetime Colonialism|page=164|pdf=https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10601/An%20Indigenous%20Peoples%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Ortiz.pdf|city=Boston|publisher=Beacon Press Books|series=ReVisioning American History|title-url=}}</ref>

The USA began an attack against the workers' movement following the [[Haymarket affair]] of 1886 and executed four [[Anarchism|anarchists]], including two who had not been involved in the incident. Soon after, the police raided the houses of dissidents throughout Chicago and destroyed foreign language newspapers. Leaders of the [[Noble Order of the Knights of Labor|Knights of Labor]] from multiple states were also arrested.

Starting in 1892, states began to declare martial law in order to suppress [[Strike action|strikes]]. In 1903, 1,000 troops invaded the town of Cripple Creek, Colorado, arrested 600 strikers, and held them in prison for weeks without trial.<ref name=":0233">{{Citation|author=Albert Szymanski|year=1984|title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union|chapter=The Land of the Free|page=|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceazdmtb2y3qq27fve5ib3gk7uv2unt6ae2xss74xmfpur7k5uhl5m?filename=Albert%20Szymanski%20-%20Human%20Rights%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union_%20Including%20Comparisons%20with%20the%20U.S.A.-Zed%20Books%20Ltd.%20%281984%29.pdf|city=London|publisher=Zed Books Ltd|isbn=0862320186|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=C597B1232D9EA6B0F3DCB438D7E15A81}}</ref>

==== Austronesian genocide ====
By the end of the 19th century, the United States would find itself as a predominant imperialist power in the world, invading countries such as the [[Philippines]] in a brutal war for control. [[J. Sakai]] recounts that, "U.S. Brig. Gen. James Bell, upon returning to the U.S. in 1901, said that his men had killed one out of every six Filipinos on the main island of Luzon (that would be some one million deaths just there). It is certain that at least 200,000 Filipinos died in the genocidal conquest. In Samar province, where the patriotic resistance to the U.S. invaders was extremely persistent, U.S. Gen. Jacob Smith ordered his troops to shoot every Filipino man, woman or child they could find 'over ten' (years of age)."<ref>Sakai 2014, p. 111</ref>

The United States would expand beyond its continental borders with the colonialist acquisition of lands such as [[Hawaii]], the Philippines, [[Guam]], etc. With the attack on several of these territories by the [[Japanese empire]], most notably at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt would downplay the colonialist additions to the American empire, such as the Philippines, and give more emphasis to the U.S. territory of Hawaii (which was not yet a state during this time). From Daniel Immerwahr's ''How To Hide An Empire: A History of the Greater United States'':<blockquote>"Why did Roosevelt demote the Philippines? We don't know, but it's not hard to guess. Roosevelt was trying to tell a clear story: Japan had attacked the United States. But he faced a problem. ''Were'' Japan's targets considered 'the United States'? Legally, yes, they were indisputably U.S. territory. But would the public see them that way? What if Roosevelt's audience didn't care that Japan had attacked the Philippines or Guam? Polls taken slightly before the attack show that few in the continental United States supported a military defense of those remote territories.

Consider how similar events played out more recently. On August 7, 1998, al-Qaeda launched simultaneous attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi, [[Republic of Kenya|Kenya]], and Dar es Salaam, [[United Republic of Tanzania|Tanzania]]. Hundreds died (mostly Africans), and thousands were wounded. But though those embassies were outposts of the United States, there was little public sense that the country ''itself'' had been harmed. It would take another set of simultaneous attacks three years later, on New York City and Washington, D.C., to provoke an all-out war."<ref>{{Citation|author=Daniel Immerwahr|year=2019|title=How to hide an empire: a history of the greater United States|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|isbn=9780374172145|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9D70A450044495E0D851721E77D5C8A1|page=6}}</ref></blockquote>While an embassy is different from a territory, as the book concedes, a similar logic was at play. And as Immerwahr says, Hawaii had more Americans and was closer to statehood. However, as Immerwahr explains, even Roosevelt felt the need to say that the "American island of Oahu" was attacked and that "very many American lives" had been lost. As Immerwahr says in explaining the nationalism implicit in Roosevelt's speech after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor: "An ''American'' island, where ''American'' lives were lost - that was the point he was trying to make. If the Philippines was being rounded down to foreign, [[Hawaii|Hawai'i]] was being rounded up to 'American.'"<ref>{{Citation|author=Daniel Immerwahr|year=2019|title=How to hide an empire: a history of the greater United States|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|isbn=9780374172145|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9D70A450044495E0D851721E77D5C8A1|page=7}}</ref>

==== First World War ====
{{Main article|First World War}}The [[Socialist Party of America]] and [[Industrial Workers of the World]] opposed U.S. involvement in the First World War. In May 1918, the USA passed the [[Sedition Act]], banning opposition to the war, and arrested New York SPA leader [[Benjamin Gitlow]]. Arizona, California, Montana, New York, and West Virginia passed laws banning left-wing activism. 27 farmers from South Dakota were sent to prison for petitioning against the war. Between 1917 and 1923, 33 states banned the use of red flags. In April 1918, 113 IWW members were convicted of over 10,000 offenses. [[Bill Haywood|Big Bill Haywood]], who was sentenced to 20 years in prison, escaped to the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]]. In addition to socialists, the United States suppressed pro-[[Republic of Ireland|Irish]] publications that criticized the British Empire. [[Eugene V. Debs|Eugene Debs]], who was imprisoned following an anti-war speech in June 1918, ran for president in 1920 and received over a million votes.<ref name=":0233" />:161–70

===== Invasion of Russia =====
In December 1917, the United States authorized aid to anti-communist forces in southern [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1991)|Russia]] and the Caucasus.<ref>{{Citation|author=David S. Foglesong|year=1995|title=America's Secret War against Bolshevism|title-url=https://archive.org/details/americassecretwa0000davi|chapter=The British Connection|page=76|pdf=|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|anna=https://annas-archive.org/md5/1fa9443fced17a62f384d8e7b84f4b56}}</ref> At the end of the First World War, [[Woodrow Wilson]] sent 15,000 troops to western and eastern Russia to fight the Bolsheviks and limit the power of Japan. The USA occupied Vladivostok from August 1918 to April 1920.<ref name=":02222">{{Citation|author=David Vine|year=2020|title=The United States of War|chapter=The Military Opens Doors|page=218|city=Oakland|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520972070|lg=http://library.lol/main/191568BFAC73F009132DB00ECD0F0F05}}</ref>

===== Palmer Raids =====
On January 2, 1920, federal agents led by [[A. Mitchell Palmer]] arrested over 4,000 dissidents in 33 cities across 23 states. Between 1917 and 1921, they deported 900 leftists. During this same period, the KKK and [[American Legion]] attacked [[Left–right political spectrum|leftists]] and [[trade unionists]]. Membership of the newly founded [[Communist Party of the United States of America|CPUSA]] dropped from 70,000 to 12,000, the [[Socialist Party of America|SPA]] from 110,000 to 10,000, and the [[Industrial Workers of the World|IWW]] from over 100,000 to under 10,000.<ref name=":0233" />:169–72

==== Great Depression ====
{{Main article|Great Depression}}Political repression weakened after 1923 but resumed following the economic collapse of 1929. Ben Boloff, a [[Russian Empire (1721–1917)|Russian]] immigrant and CPUSA member, was arrested in 1930 and sentenced to ten years in prison. [[Dirk De Jonge]], leader of the Oregon Communist Party, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 1934. Patterson, [[New Jersey]], banned all labour meetings and pro-worker protests.<ref name=":0233" />:172–73

===== New Deal =====

==== Second World War ====
{{Main article|Second World War}}Because the CPUSA initially stayed neutral in the Second World War, the United States arrested some of its members, including General Secretary [[Earl Browder]]. The [[Smith Act]], passed in 1940, criminalized opposition to the U.S. government or war effort and was used against [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Trotskyists]] as well as [[German American Bund|Nazis]]. After the entry of the USSR into the war, the CPUSA changed its line, and [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] pardoned Browder.<ref name=":0233" />

In September 1940, the USA gave 50 old destroyers to the UK in exchange for taking control of British bases in the [[Americas]]. The bases were located in eight British colonies: [[Antigua and Barbuda|Antigua]], the [[Commonwealth of The Bahamas|Bahamas]], [[Bermuda]], [[Co-operative Republic of Guyana|Guiana]], [[Jamaica]], [[Newfoundland]], and [[Saint Lucia]], and [[Republic of Trinidad and Tobago|Trinidad]].<ref name=":0222">{{Citation|author=David Vine|year=2020|title=The United States of War|chapter=Reopening the Frontier|page=|city=Oakland|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520972070|lg=http://library.lol/main/191568BFAC73F009132DB00ECD0F0F05}}</ref>:223–4 Only nine of the destroyers actually worked. The USA also used the [[Lend-Lease]] program to give military aid to at least thirty countries, starting with the UK. [[Republic of China|China]], [[Hellenic Republic|Greece]], [[Kingdom of Norway|Norway]], and the Soviet Union later joined the program.<ref name=":0222" />:235–7

The U.S. government forced 112,000 [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] people living west of the Mississippi River into concentration camps in remote areas, giving them only two days to two weeks of warning. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers and did not allow Japanese culture and language. The army confined and isolated strikers.<ref name=":0233" />:173–75

After the defeat of Japan, the United States resurrected and rebooted its former enemy to be used as a satellite state against [[socialism]], similar to West Germany and Italy.<ref name=":110">{{Citation|author=Stephen Gowans|year=2018|title=Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom|chapter=Suppressing a Worldwide Movement for Liberty|page=105–107|pdf=https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaced4iiga4ngtxusr2civjxewbili5jne2sbpefbx2s3im2kphattzc?filename=Stephen%20Gowans%20-%20Patriots%2C%20Traitors%20and%20Empires_%20The%20Story%20of%20Korea%E2%80%99s%20Struggle%20for%20Freedom-Baraka%20Books%20%282018%29.pdf|city=Montreal|publisher=Baraka Books|isbn=9781771861427|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=8435F6FF91279531705764823FDC2A7F}}</ref>The USA became the most powerful empire in history and controlled both ends of Eurasia from Japan to the Britain.<ref name=":022222">{{Citation|author=David Vine|year=2020|title=The United States of War|chapter=Normalizing Occupation|page=301|city=Oakland|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520972070|lg=http://library.lol/main/191568BFAC73F009132DB00ECD0F0F05}}</ref>

=== Cold War ===

==== Red Scare ====
{{Main article|Second Red Scare}}

==== Invasion of Korea ====
{{Main article|Fatherland Liberation War}}

==== Civil Rights movement and counterculture ====
By 1972, more than 500 municipalities had created political police squads to target radicals. Los Angeles had 167 political agents (1970), New York had 361 (1972), and Chicago had over 1,000 (1969). The New York police had files on 1.2 million political dissidents. The government actively spied on over 250,000 Statesians in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] created a list of dissidents who would immediately be arrested or investigated in the event of a [[Proletarian revolution|national emergency]]. This list included [[Black nationalism|black nationalists]], [[Anarchism|anarchists]], and [[Students for a Democratic Society|SDS]] members. The FBI sabotaged [[Marxism|Marxist]] and [[Civil rights movement|black liberation movements]] by planting information claiming their members were informants and infiltrated the SDS with [[Agent provocateur|agent provocateurs]].<ref name=":0233" />:187–88

==== Invasion of Vietnam ====
{{Main article|Vietnam War}}

==== War on Drugs ====

===21st century===

==== Internal crises ====
The US is embroiled in crisis as its middle class (the [[Petty bourgeoisie|petit bourgeoisie]]) is increasingly impoverished.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-state-of-americas-middle-class-in-eight-charts/ The State of America’s Middle Class in Eight Charts] PBS Frontline by Jason M. Breslow and Evan Wexler on July 9th, 2013</ref><ref>[https://americansystemnow.com/deindustrialization-is-killing-america/ Deindustrialization is Killing America]</ref> This is due to the capitalist class deciding to offshore well-paying industrial jobs to lower-income countries,<ref>[https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/08/a-new-assessment-of-the-role-of-offshoring-in-the-decline-in-us-manufacturing-employment.html A New Assessment of the Role of Offshoring in the Decline in US Manufacturing Employment] on Naked Capitalism by Yves Smith on Aug 16, 2019</ref> as well expansionary monetary policy<ref>[https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1220364.shtml US’ excessive money-printing prompts de-dollarization] on [[Global Times]] by Ma Jingjing published on April 6th, 2021 </ref> which enriches the bourgeoisie through asset price inflation,<ref>[https://fee.org/articles/the-cantillon-effect-because-of-inflation-we-re-financing-the-financiers/ The Cantillon Effect: Because of Inflation, We’re Financing the Financiers] on Fee.org by Jessica Schultz on Oct 28, 2018</ref> and deepens the crisis among the poor by weakening their purchasing power.

As a result of this ongoing crisis of capitalism, populist movements have risen to challenge the rule of "the elites." [[Occupy Wall Street]] was a popular movement against the financial elites in 2011. During the 2016 presidential election, the corporate-owned media attacked both the left-wing populist [[Bernie Sanders]], as well as the right-wing populist [[Donald Trump]]. The Democratic Party's strategy to "elevate Trump" to make the Republican ticket look unsavory ended up backfiring and resulting in Trump's victory.

With the economic hardships of the 2020's, a growing number of Americans, often of younger ages, have begun to lose faith in capitalism.<ref>{{News citation|author=Laura Wronski|newspaper=SurveyMoney|title=Axios{{!}}Momentive Poll: Capitalism and Socialism|date=2021-6-11|url=https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/axios-capitalism-update/|retrieved=2022-6-11}}</ref> While many of these discontent people have achieved [[consciousness]] in how many problems (constant wars, [[homelessness]], [[Climate change|global warming]], etc.) in society can ultimately be traced back to capitalism, and have therefore aligned themselves with [[Marxism|Marxist]] or otherwise [[socialist]] ideologies, there are many other malcontent people who have taken to the far-right. A trend that is present especially among the middle-class, there has been an increase in the popularity of populist and xenophobic groups, as well as an increasing [[Fascism|fascistization]] of the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] (one of the two ruling parties in the Statesian government).<ref>{{Citation|author=Marc-André Argentino, Blyth Crawford, Florence Keen, Hannah Rose|year=2021|title=Far-From-Gone:The Evolutionof Extremism in the First 100 Daysof the Biden Administration|title-url=https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ICSR-Report-Far-From-Gone-The-Evolution-of-Extremism-in-the-First-100-Days-of-the-Biden-Administration.pdf|chapter=3. The 6 January Insurrectionists: Narratives and Motivations|section=Discontent with Presidential Election Results|page=63-72|pdf=https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ICSR-Report-Far-From-Gone-The-Evolution-of-Extremism-in-the-First-100-Days-of-the-Biden-Administration.pdf|city=London|publisher=International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation|trans-lang=English}}</ref><ref>{{News citation|author=Alison Durkee|newspaper=Forbes|title=More Than Half Of Republicans Believe Voter Fraud Claims And Most Still Support Trump, Poll Finds|date=2021-4-5|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/04/05/more-than-half-of-republicans-believe-voter-fraud-claims-and-most-still-support-trump-poll-finds/?sh=7edebb081b3f|retrieved=2022-6-10}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author=Dr. Robert A. Pape|year=2021|title=UNDERSTANDING AMERICAN DOMESTIC TERRORISM|title-url=https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/americas_insurrectionists_online_2021_04_06.pdf?mtime=1617807009|chapter=STUDY 1:WHO ARE THE INSURRECTIONISTS AND WHERE DID THEY COME FROM|section=MANY BUSINESS OWNERS/WHITECOLLAR|page=6-9|pdf=https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/americas_insurrectionists_online_2021_04_06.pdf?mtime=1617807009|city=The University of Chicago|publisher=Chicago Project on Security and Threats|trans-lang=English}}</ref>

===== Mass shootings and racism =====

====External losses====
The American empire has been on the decline since the 21st century and possibly earlier. This is a slow process that will take years to complete however. One major factor of this decline is the United States' incapacity to respond to the [[People's Republic of China]]'s [[Belt and Road Initiative]], as more countries are moving towards the PRC and away from the USA for trade and loans.

If a superpower is measured through objective metrics such as scientific output (number of research papers per year),<ref>https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20206/</ref> exports & other trade metrics,<ref>https://www.statista.com/statistics/264623/leading-export-countries-worldwide/<nowiki/>archive: https://archive.ph/dKloW</ref> GDP,<ref>https://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=10&v=65 - GDP adapted to purchasing power parity (PPP)</ref> then these metrics show the US is on the decline and has been for several years. In subjective metrics, a superpower's hegemony is measured in its soft power (putting compradors in power abroad to ensure collaboration), its cultural exports (media, entertainment, software), and generally its respect in the world. In these trends too we see the USA declining. They have been unable for some time to ensure compradors in other countries, and are becoming less respected in the eyes of the international community (see list below). The United States' cultural export is still high, but even at home people are increasingly moving away from domestic entertainment, though it remains to be seen if this will be a lasting trend.

Other losses that the American empire has had to endure in the 21st century include, in chronological order:

* The [[September 11 attacks|September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks]] completely blindsided intelligence and security agencies and showed a very big weakness in the imperial apparatus; it was not as invincible as it thought.
* A smear campaign originated in the US media in January 2019 when [[Venezuela|Venezuelan]] president [[Nicolás Maduro]] was reelected. US News organisations started reporting about a supposed humanitarian crisis in the country, owing to Maduro's allegedly "disastrous" policies. Two weeks later, president of the Assembly [[Juan Guaidó|Juan Guaido]] proclaimed himself president of Venezuela as he contested Maduro's results under the guise that he was not allowed to run for office a third time as per the constitution. Juan Guaido, who enjoyed very little support at home and was a nobody, was nonetheless instantly recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela by the United States and other countries and organisations ([[Canada]], [[European Union]]...). An attempted [[Colour revolution|color revolution]] then was planned in Venezuela, but went nowhere. Guaido was then slowly phased out of the public eye in the international community, though he continues to make noise in Venezuela. Maduro remains the president of Venezuela.
* In late 2019, [[Plurinational State of Bolivia|Bolivian]] president [[Evo Morales]] was reelected at his position. The election results were immediately contested by the [[Organization of American States|Organisation of American States]], a US-led organisation for the purpose of securing imperialism on the American continent. While these allegations proved to be false, Morales went in exile for over six months while [[Jeanine Áñez|Jeanine Añez]], a far-right [[comprador]] politician, was placed as an interim. After delaying new elections twice, Añez finally relented and took a huge blow when [[Luis Arce]], from the same party as Morales was elected. Añez is now in prison awaiting trial on various charges including terrorism, sedition, and leading a coup against the government.
* In January 2020, the United States ordered the assassination of [[Islamic Republic of Iran|Iranian]] general [[Qasem Soleimani]] while on visit in Baghdad, [[Iraq]]. Later that month, Iran retaliated by launching an attack on a US military base in Iraq on a scale never seen before. The US did not retaliate against this attack in any way.
* In August 2021, the United States, after 20 years of occupation in [[Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2004–2021)|Afghanistan]] to prevent the [[Taliban]] from controlling the state, did exactly the opposite and let the Taliban seize the Afghan state.

It is important to compare this list to earlier imperialist ventures of the United States who, for example, considered South America their "backyard" for most of the 20th century and successfully pulled-off coups and regime changes unimpeded in the region. While the Empire also took losses in the 20th century (the invasion of Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs invasion, etc.), it must only contextualised by looking at the general trends and how these losses are rapidly adding up.

== Genocide of indigenous peoples ==
<blockquote>''See also: [[List of atrocities commited by the United States of America#Genocide%20of%20indigenous%20peoples%20of%20the%20United%20States|List of atrocities committed by the United States of America#Genocide of indigenous peoples of the United States]]''</blockquote>
Over 90% of the indigenous population of North America was killed due to colonization, and some have estimated that no more than 2% of the pre-[[Christopher Columbus|Columbian]] population survived and settlers killed over 18 million indigenous people. From 1641 to the late 18th century, legislation existed that rewarded settlers for killing indigenous peoples, with extra rewards for the scalps of boys.<ref name=":6" />

In 1871, Congress banned native nations from creating treaties and put them under the control of the federal government. Settlers and the Army killed tens of millions of buffalo, the economic base of the Plains, leaving only a few hundred alive by the 1880s.<ref name=":03" />:142

By the late 19th century, the native population had been decimated and the survivors were forced into concentration camps. Native children were forced into boarding schools and prevented from speaking their native languages.<ref name=":2">{{News citation|author=Dennis Etler|newspaper=[[CGTN]]|title=U.S. treatment of Native Americans is a gross human rights violation|date=2021-03-29|url=https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/U-S-treatment-of-Native-Americans-is-a-gross-human-rights-violation-YVtGCFbCJa/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220219235353/https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/U-S-treatment-of-Native-Americans-is-a-gross-human-rights-violation-YVtGCFbCJa/index.html|archive-date=2022-02-19|retrieved=2022-07-01}}</ref> Several hundred children died in these schools.<ref>{{News citation|newspaper=CGTN|title=U.S. govt finds burial sites at 53 Native American boarding schools|date=2022-05-13|url=https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-05-13/U-S-govt-finds-burial-sites-at-53-Native-American-boarding-schools-19ZRXTgFIC4/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220513073029/https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-05-13/U-S-govt-finds-burial-sites-at-53-Native-American-boarding-schools-19ZRXTgFIC4/index.html|archive-date=2022-05-13|retrieved=2022-07-01}}</ref> The federal government also set up an educational system to "kill the Indian and save the man" by eliminating Native American religious and cultural traditions.<ref name=":11">{{Citation|author=Jeffrey Ostler|year=2015|title=Empire’s Twin: U.S. Anti-Imperialism from the Founding Era to the Age of Terrorism|chapter=“Native Americans against Empire and Colonial Rule,”|page=53|city=Ithaca, New York|publisher=Cornell University Press}}</ref> These policies were deliberately designed to bring about the extinction of Native American people and their customs.<ref name=":11" /> By 1900, only 190,000 Native Americans in the United States remained alive compared to five million at the beginning of colonization.<ref name=":2" />

[[United States Congress|Congress]] passed House Concurrent Resolution 108 in 1953, terminating tribes in [[State of California|California]], Florida, [[State of New York|New York]], and Texas. Over 100 nations were terminated between 1953 and 1964 and 1.3 million acres of native land were privatized. In 1955, the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs]] created offices to relocate natives to cities to be assimilated. They relocated 750,000 natives into cities, where they often experienced severe poverty. By 2010, 78% of natives lived off of reservations.<ref name=":9" />

Many Native Americans are restricted to reservations in remote areas and live in poverty.<ref name=":0">{{News citation|newspaper=[[CGTN]]|title=Native Americans: The invisible minority in the U.S.|date=2021-05-19|url=https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-05-19/Native-Americans-The-invisible-minority-in-the-U-S--10l6zrdhLMY/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520001321/https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-05-19/Native-Americans-The-invisible-minority-in-the-U-S--10l6zrdhLMY/index.html|archive-date=2021-05-20|retrieved=2022-07-01}}</ref> Overall, Native Americans are twice as likely to be in poverty.<ref name=":1">{{News citation|author=Xin Ping|newspaper=[[CGTN]]|title=Surviving in oblivion: Who cast a miserable shadow over the Native Americans?|date=2022-01-06|url=https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-06/Who-cast-a-miserable-shadow-over-the-Native-Americans--16BqNXMyp3i/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220107052329/https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-06/Who-cast-a-miserable-shadow-over-the-Native-Americans--16BqNXMyp3i/index.html|archive-date=2022-01-07|retrieved=2022-07-01}}</ref> They do not have access to the natural resources of the reservations, which are owned by corporations and mining companies. Indigenous peoples have the worst health and educational outcomes and the highest level of suicide<ref name=":0" /> and indigenous women are 2.5 times more likely to be sexually assaulted.<ref name=":1" /> During the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], Native American communities were disproportionately affected, with the highest rate of infection and death.<ref name=":2" />

==Government==
{{Main article|Government of the United States of America}}
[[File:US government diagram.png|thumb|Connections between the capitalist [[ruling class]] and the U.S. government]]
[[File:US tax pie chart.png|thumb|The US spends 37% of its income [[tax]] revenue on war.]]
The US political system is a ''de facto'' plutocracy, a government entirely controlled by the wealthy.<ref>{{Web citation|author=TOM MCKAY|newspaper=MIC|title=Princeton Concludes What Kind of Government America Really Has, and It's Not a Democracy|date=2016-4-16|url=https://www.mic.com/articles/87719/princeton-concludes-what-kind-of-government-america-really-has-and-it-s-not-a-democracy|retrieved=2022-8-30}}</ref> The richest three Statesians have more money than the poorest 160 million combined.<ref>{{News citation|author=Tom Kertscher|newspaper=PolitiFact|title='The wealthiest three families now own more wealth than the bottom half of the country.'|date=2019-07-03|url=https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/jul/03/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-target-saying-3-richest-have-much-w/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220126234218/https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/jul/03/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-target-saying-3-richest-have-much-w/|archive-date=2022-01-26|retrieved=2022-05-01}}</ref> Public support for the U.S. government is very low, with only 2% of Statesians believing the government almost always does what is right and only 19% believing it mostly does the right thing. 7% of Statesians have confidence in Congress, 23% have confidence in the presidency, and 25% have confidence in the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]].<ref>{{Web citation|author=[[Ben Norton]]|newspaper=[[Multipolarista]]|title=Polls show almost no one trusts US media, after decades of war propaganda and lies|date=2022-07-30|url=https://multipolarista.com/2022/07/30/trust-us-media-war-propaganda/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806143950/https://multipolarista.com/2022/07/30/trust-us-media-war-propaganda/|archive-date=2022-08-06|retrieved=2022-08-07}}</ref> Protests are illegal without permits from the government, and police often attack protestors with clubs and chemical weapons. It is illegal for protestors to wear helmets or gas masks to protect themselves.<ref name=":05">{{Citation|author=Austin Murphy|year=2000|title=The Triumph of Evil|chapter=A Detailed Autopsy of the Collapse of the Superior System in the Divided Germany|page=141|pdf=https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil.pdf|city=Fucecchio|publisher=European Press Academic Publishing|isbn=8883980026}}</ref>

The US is also a ''de facto'' [[one-party state]],<ref>{{Citation|author=Mark J. Green|year=1982|title=Winning Back America|title-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oa3VExRT2s8C&q=%22Yes,+we+have+one+party+here.+But+so+does+America.+Except,+with+typical+extravagance,+they+have+two+of+them.%22&dq=%22Yes,+we+have+one+party+here.+But+so+does+America.+Except,+with+typical+extravagance,+they+have+two+of+them.%22&hl=es-419&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiI5N6FrafqAhXoHbkGHehvD1UQ6AEwAXoECAAQAg|quote='Yes, we have one party here. But so does America. Except, with typical extravagance, they have two of them!'|publisher=Bantam Books|isbn=9780553226300}}</ref> with aesthetical differences between its two main parties, the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]] and the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]], but both parties follow common policies, especially abroad. The ruling capitalist oligarchy has two factions: the Democratic Party which is center-right<ref>[http://www.thebreezepaper.com/news-blog/2020/12/18/like-it-or-not-the-democratic-party-is-a-right-wing-party Like it or Not, the Democratic Party is a Right-Wing Party]</ref> and is controlled by the monopolistic managerial [[bourgeoisie]] who seeks to maintain the stability of the imperialist system by being less [[reactionary]] on inconsequential social issues, and the Republican Party, which is more reactionary and backwards when it comes to social issues<ref>[https://www.salon.com/2019/07/05/how-did-the-republican-party-become-so-conservative/ How did the Republican Party become so conservative?]</ref> and tends to pander to the [[Petty bourgeoisie|petit bourgeoisie]] in their effort to deepen the exploitation of labor.

The election system further solidifies this duopoly with its "First Past the Post" system, resulting in citizens having to choose "the lesser of two evils." The two political parties stir up public debate around their small disagreements to create a facade of democracy, but bipartisan agreement reigns on questions of foreign policy (imperialism, war, attacking socialist countries) as well as domestic policies such as prioritizing funding for police repression over social programs such as free housing, higher education, healthcare, etc.

Given the presence of campaign donations and lobbying (legalized [[corruption]]), the billionaires who buy off politicians to serve their will are sometimes referred to as the "donor class".<ref name="NYT-19980719">{{Web citation|journalist=Bob Herbert|date=1998-07-19|title=The Donor Class|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/19/opinion/in-america-the-donor-class.html|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref>

In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] recounted:<blockquote>…we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.<ref>{{Web citation|title=Roosevelt, Theodore. 1913. An Autobiography: XII. The Big Stick and the Square Deal|url=http://www.bartleby.com/55/12.html}}</ref></blockquote>Despite various anti-monopoly countermeasures (anti-trust legislation, etc.) the underlying system of capitalism and the desire to accumulate more surplus value and increase profitability continues to result in monopolistic formations within the US economy. These monopolies are more powerful than the public state apparatus, and by most approximations can be considered the same object. According to fascist dictator [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]], the merging of corporate power and state power is the definition of fascism.<ref>"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." --Benito Mussolini. (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor)</ref>

==Foreign policy==
[[File:US military bases.png|thumb|Map of Statesian military bases around the world.]]
The United States has long seen itself as a very special nation, playing a uniquely noble role on the world stage. While other nations are said to be guided by vulgar self-interest, the United States is supposedly different; the primary goal of American foreign policy is, according to the [[United States Department of State|State Department]]’s website, to “promote and demonstrate democratic values and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.” Despite these imperialist lies, the United States has been at war for more than 90% of its existence<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Sabir Shah|date=2020-01-09|title=The US Has Been at war 225 out of 243 years since 1776|url=https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/595752-the-us-has-been-at-war-225-out-of-243-years-since-1776|newspaper=The News|retrieved=2022-03-11}}</ref> and has over 800 military bases in foreign countries, compared to 30 for the rest of the world combined.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=David Vine|title=Where in the World Is the U.S. Military?|url=https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/us-military-bases-around-the-world-119321/|newspaper=Politico|retrieved=2022-03-11}}</ref>

===Foreign aid and human rights===
The US has a horrific foreign aid record. It seems that American aid is quite a good predictor of human rights abuses, and that this trend goes back decades; according to a 1981 study in the journal ''Comparative Politics,'' US aid is “clearly distributed disproportionately to countries with repressive governments… this distribution represented a pattern and not merely one or a few isolated cases.” Indeed, it is quite easy to find examples of the United States supporting vicious repressive regimes (such as [[Pinochet]]'s Chile, the Shah of Iran, and the military junta of [[El Salvador]]).

Similarly, a 1984 study in the ''Journal of Peace Research'' looked at human rights and US aid under Nixon, Ford, and Carter. The authors found that “under Presidents Nixon and Ford foreign assistance was directly related to levels of human rights violations, i.e. more aid flowed to regimes with higher levels of violation, while under President Carter no clear statistical pattern emerged.” They therefore conclude that “the Carter administration did not implement a policy of human rights which actually guided the disposition of military and economic assistance.” In other words, the US attitude towards human rights seems to vary from outright hostility (under more conservative administrations) to mere indifference (under more liberal ones).<ref>{{Citation|author=Michael Stohl, David Carleton, Steven E. Johnson|year=1984|title=Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Assistance From Nixon to Carter|title-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258155100_Human_Rights_and_US_Foreign_Assistance_From_Nixon_to_Carter|pdf=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=f864f24af8a5e65d8512f5c7ee351a324f485b43|doi=10.1177/002234338402100302}}</ref>

More recent studies have painted a similarly bleak picture. A 2008 book by Rhonda Callaway and Elizabeth Matthews found that “both United States economic and military aid have detrimental effects on security rights of the citizens in recipient states.” They note that these results “provide support for those critical of the US foreign assistance program.” The most recent research has continued to back up these conclusions. A 2016 study in the ''Quarterly Journal of Political Science'' sampled 150 countries from 1972 to 2008, finding that “US aid harms political rights, fosters other forms of state repression (measured along multiple dimensions), and strengthens authoritarian governance. [...] These findings counter the publicly stated objectives of the US government to foster political liberalization abroad via bilateral economic assistance.”

All-in-all, it seems that aid from the United States has a deleterious impact on the human rights situation in recipient nations. It provides military and economic aid to repressive regimes, arming and propping up some of the most vicious dictators on the planet, all in service of its own interests.

[[Alan MacLeod]] of [[MintPress News]] has compiled a thread of times the US military has deliberately bombed hospitals.<ref>@AlanRMacLeod on Twitter: [https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1501981269701373952?s=20&t=4ljxQ0O7WUzqg7tpOHEnHw <nowiki>"A short history of the United States deliberately bombing hospitals [Thread]"</nowiki>] ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20220310190033/https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1501981269701373952 (Archived)]''</ref>

===War on Terror===
Lest we think that the harm of US foreign policy stops at providing aid to dictators, the United States has also carried out a great deal of violence all on its own. To demonstrate the enormous death toll of US military intervention and invasion, let's take a look at the post-9/11 "War on Terror," including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (among others).

According to a 2019 report from Brown University's Costs of War project, "between 770,000 and 801,000 people have died" in what the report refers to as "America's post-9/11 wars." This tally does not include so-called "indirect deaths," such as those resulting from displacement and the destruction of crucial infrastructure (e.g. water and sanitation systems). In a 2019 article for the ''Hill,'' David Vine (Professor of Anthropology at American University) writes that "total deaths during the post-2001 U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen [are] likely to reach 3.1 million or more — around 200 times the number of U.S. dead."<ref>The Hill | Reckoning With the Costs of War: It's Time to Take Responsibility</ref> Others have come to similar conclusions. According to a 2018 report from the ''Intercept:''<blockquote>In addition to those killed by direct acts [of] violence, the number of indirect deaths — those resulting from disease, displacement, and the loss of critical infrastructure — is believed to be several times higher, running into the millions.<ref>The Intercept | The Assassination Complex: The Drone Papers</ref></blockquote>These death tolls are backed up by earlier research. A 2009 article from the MIT Center for International Studies, which looked ''only'' at Iraq, found that "we have, at present, between 800,000 and 1.3 million 'excess deaths' in this war as we approach its six-year anniversary." Keep in mind that this is only one of the invaded countries, and that this article was authored in 2009 (more than a decade ago). The current death tolls, when factoring in all nations (as well as the decade of subsequent warfare), are likely many times higher.

The United States government has engaged in a concerted effort to hide the civilian cost of its Middle Eastern wars. According to a 2017 report from the ''New York Times'', the actual rate of civilian causalities inflicted by coalition forces in the Middle East is "more than 31 times that acknowledged by the coalition. It is at such a distance from official claims that, in terms of civilian deaths, this may be the least transparent war in recent American history."

In point of fact, US forces often kill more people than the terrorists they are supposedly there to fight; a 2019 article in the ''New York Times'' reports that "more civilians are being killed by Afghan government and American forces than by the Taliban and other insurgents, according to a [United Nations] report on Wednesday."<ref>The New York Times | U.S. and Afghan Forces Killed More Civilians Than Taliban Did, Report Finds</ref> This is not even mentioning the US drone program, which was detailed in a 2013 report from the ''Intercept.'' To make matters worse, civilian casualties from US wars have been increasing dramatically since Donald Trump took office, according to a 2018 article from the ''Washington Post.''

While it must be noted that the United States did not personally kill all of the millions of people mentioned above, it still bears a heavy burden for these deaths, having initiated the invasions, and started the entire conflict. In the same way that we hold Hitler responsible for the deaths of WWII (since he was the one who started it), so too should we hold the United States responsible for the deaths listed above. For more information on the civilian cost of US intervention, I recommend ''The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars'', a study authored by John Tirman, director of the MIT Center for International Studies.

===Regime change===
The United States has a long history of overthrowing governments it doesn't like, typically then replacing them with brutal dictatorships. There are many, ''many'' examples of this, ranging from Jacobo Arbenz in [[Republic of Guatemala|Guatemala]], to Mohammad Mosaddegh in [[Iran]] (a coup for which the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] actually admitted responsibility in 2013), [[Atrocities committed by the United States of America against Africa|Africa]] ranks third among continents that have experienced the most U.S.-led regime changes, behind Asia and Latin America.

====Chile====
In 1973 the United States helped to overthrow the elected socialist government of [[Salvador Allende]] in [[Chile]], replacing it with the right-wing dictatorship of [[Augusto Pinochet]]. Peter Kornbluh, the director of the National Security Archive's Chile Documentation Project, said the following of Chile:<blockquote>“To see on a piece of paper, for example, the president of the United States ordering the C.I.A. to preemptively overthrow a democratically elected president in Chile is stunning,” Mr. Kornbluh said. “The importance of having these documents in the museum is for the new generations of Chileans to actually see them.”<ref>The New York Times (2017) [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/world/americas/chile-coup-cia-museum.html Documenting U.S. Role in Democracy’s Fall and Dictator’s Rise in Chile]</ref></blockquote>As if this were not enough, in a 2014 interview with the ''Atlantic,'' Jack Devine (a former CIA agent who was in Chile at the time of the coup) confirmed that the Nixon administration was directly instructing the CIA to support the coup. According to declassified documents, Nixon had previously ordered Henry Kissinger to "make the economy scream," in an effort to rally support for the right-wing forces. The United States also attempted to prevent Allende from being inaugurated after his election, and provided support for state-terrorist campaigns after the coup. Now that the US role has been established, let's look at what Pinochet did once in power.

To begin with, Pinochet killed, tortured, and "disappeared" tens of thousands of people. According to a 2011 article from the BBC, the "total of recognized victims" numbers over 40,000, including more than 3,000 who were killed or forcibly disappeared. The rest were kidnapped, tortured, exiled, or some combination of the above. Pinochet was one of the most vicious dictators in the history of Latin America, and the United States played a direct role in propping up his regime.<ref>BBC | Chile Recognizes 9,800 More Victims of Pinochet's Rule</ref>

In addition, Pinochet introduced hard-line neoliberal reforms, which did immense damage to Chile's economy. A good study on this was published in 1990 in the journal ''Critical Sociology''. The authors note that growth rates under Pinochet were remarkably unimpressive:<blockquote>The Pinochet model produced growth rates well below the Chilean average established over the 1950-72 period. The average yearly GDP rate of growth in the latter period was 3.9 percent, while the Pinochet regime averaged 1.4 percent over the 1974-83 period... overall growth throughout the 1980s has been far from miraculous: GDP per capita grew at a 1.2 percent average rate between 1980 and 1989, below the 1.7 percent average yearly rate for 1950-72.<ref>Critical Sociology | The Chilean "Economic Miracle": An Empirical Critique</ref></blockquote>In addition, the authors charge Pinochet with "creating a great deal of poverty," noting that unemployment "rose dramatically after the coup," while real wages fell. At the same time, social expenditures were reduced, and "infectious diseases readily associated with poverty, overcrowding, poor hygiene, and inadequate sanitation underwent explosive growth." This assessment is echoed by a study in the ''International Development Planning Review'', which found that "the radical neoliberal policies and structural adjustment of the 1970s and 1980s during the Pinochet regime had severe negative effects on the poor and middle class."<ref>International Development Planning Review | Land of Miracles? A Critical Analysis of Poverty Reduction Strategies in Chile, 1975-2005</ref> The poverty rate itself increased dramatically; according to a report from the North American Congress on Latin America:<blockquote>The number of poor Chileans doubled during the Pinochet regime. By 1989, 44% of Chileans lived in poverty.<ref>NACLA | In Pursuit of "Growth With Equity": The Limits of Chile's Free-Market Social Reforms</ref></blockquote>In addition, it seems that Pinochet's privatizations also helped to create enormous corruption. According to a study in the ''Journal of Economic History,'' "firms were sold underpriced to politically connected buyers." This had predictable consequences:<blockquote>These newly private firms benefited financially from the Pinochet regime. Once democracy arrived, they formed connections with the new government, financed political campaigns, and were more likely to appear in the [[Panama papers|Panama Papers]]. These findings reveal how dictatorships can influence young democracies using privatization reforms.<ref>Journal of Economic History | The Privatization Origins of Political Corporations: Evidence from the Pinochet Regime</ref></blockquote>

=== Neocolonialism ===
The United States has begun the process of looting [[Ukraine]] by forcing the country into enormous debt in exchange for weapons. The USA is once again applying the same lend-lease program it used to facilitate the transfer of the British Empire to Statesian hands in the aftermath of World War II.<ref>{{Web citation|author=United States Congress|newspaper=Congress.gov|title=Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022|date=2022-05-09|url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3522/text|retrieved=2023-01-25|quote=for fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the President may authorize the United States Government to lend or lease defense articles to the Government of Ukraine or to governments of Eastern European countries impacted by the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine to help bolster those countries' defense capabilities and protect their civilian populations from potential invasion or ongoing aggression by the armed forces of the Government of the Russian Federation.}}</ref>

==Domestic policy==

=== Education ===
The U.S. education system promotes [[anti-communism]] and [[racism]] and denies or apologizes for U.S. war crimes. By law, teachers are not allowed to go against Western capitalist ideology.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[Red Patriot]]|title=Anti-Communism in the American Classroom|date=2022-06-28|url=https://redpat.org/2022/06/anti-communism-in-the-american-classroom/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220628162757/https://redpat.org/2022/06/anti-communism-in-the-american-classroom/|archive-date=2022-06-28|retrieved=2022-08-27}}</ref> Due to extreme inequality in educational funding, about 130 million Statesians, or 50% of the adult population, have low literacy and are unable to read above 6th grade level.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Emily Schmidt|newspaper=APM Research Lab|title=Reading the Numbers: 130 Million American Adults Have Low Literacy Skills, But Funding Differs Drastically By State|date=2022-03-16|url=https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy|retrieved=2023-03-28}}</ref>

===Poverty===
According to a study from the Brookings Institute:<blockquote>53 million Americans between the ages of 18 to 64—accounting for 44% of all workers—qualify as “low-wage.” Their median hourly wages are $10.22, and median annual earnings are about $18,000.<ref>Brookings Institute | Low-Wage Work is More Prevalent Than You Think, and There Aren't Enough Good Jobs to Go Around</ref></blockquote>Almost ''half'' of the American workforce is officially "low-wage," and that's only if we use an ''extremely'' low standard (below minimum wage, in some states). This is especially horrifying when we remember how many deaths can be directly linked to poverty and deprivation in the United States. According to a study from Columbia University:<blockquote>Overall, 4.5% of U.S. deaths were found to be attributable to poverty... the number of deaths the researchers calculated as attributable to low education (245,000) is comparable to the number caused by heart attacks (192,898), which was the leading cause of U.S. deaths in 2000. The number of deaths attributable to racial segregation (176,000) is comparable to the number from cerebrovascular disease (167,661), the third leading cause of death in 2000, and the number attributable to low social support (162,000) compares to deaths from lung cancer (155,521).<ref>Columbia University | How Many US Deaths Are Caused by Poverty, Lack of Education, and Other Social Factors?</ref></blockquote>Hundreds of thousands of people are dying every year because of poverty, deprivation, and lack of access to social services. Almost half of people 55 or older have no retirement savings.<ref>{{News citation|newspaper=Gao|title=Retirement Security: Most Households Approaching Retirement Have Low Savings, an Update|date=2019-05-26|url=https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-19-442r|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220414181743/https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-19-442r|archive-date=2022-04-14|retrieved=2022-07-01}}</ref>

===Healthcare===
The U.S. healthcare system is among the most dysfunctional institutions imaginable, with the highest costs in the world, and some of the worst outcomes of any advanced country.<ref>{{News citation|author=Roosa Tikkanen, Melinda K. Abrams|newspaper=The Commonwealth Fund|title=U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2019: Higher Spending, Worse Outcomes?|date=2020-01-30|url=https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424201656/https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019|archive-date=2022-04-24|retrieved=2022-05-01}}</ref> That being said, there are still those who deny the necessity of completely overhauling the system, and as such, it is useful to take some time and go over the essential facts of the matter. As always, all sources will be listed at the end.

The United States ranks at the very bottom of the developed world in terms of preventable deaths. Annual deaths could be reduced by 101,000 if the U.S. had a health care system as good as other comparable countries.<ref>Reuters | US Worst in Preventable Death Ranking of Industrialized Countries</ref>

====Health outcomes====

The USA ranks near the bottom of the developed world in most essential health outcomes. A 2020 paper from the American College of Physicians (published in the ''Annals of Internal Medicine)'' reports that "despite higher spending, the United States generally has less favorable outcomes than other countries." Let's take infant mortality, for example. According to a 2016 study from the American Economic Association:<blockquote>The United States has higher infant mortality than peer countries... The US disadvantage persists after adjusting for potential differential reporting of births near the threshold of viability.</blockquote>The ACP paper confirms that the United States' poor infant mortality ranking persists "even after adjustment for reporting differences." According to the AEA, this subpar performance "is driven by poor birth outcomes among lower socioeconomic status individuals." As if this wasn't bad enough, maternal mortality is also shockingly high in the USA. According to an article from NPR (reporting on data from the CDC):<blockquote>More American women are dying of pregnancy-related complications than any other developed country. Only in the U.S. has the rate of women who die been rising.<ref>NPR | U.S. Has the Worst Rate of Maternal Deaths in the Developed World</ref></blockquote>To make matters worse, there is evidence that the official statistics actually leave out a great number of deaths, meaning that the actual rate is probably much higher. According to an article from ProPublica, "the new rate, while capturing just how poorly the U.S. ranks among other countries, is actually a significant underestimate of the problem."<ref>ProPublica | The New U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate Fails to Capture Many Deaths</ref> This only makes the issue even more horrifying.

In addition, healthcare-amenable mortality is generally higher in the United States than in peer countries. According to the American College of Physicians:<blockquote>The United States has a higher mortality rate for medical conditions for which there are recognized health care interventions than Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, France, and Australia.</blockquote>A 2017 study in the ''Lancet'' looked at global amendable mortality, finding that the United States ranked 35th in the world in overall performance. In a press release following the publication of the paper, Dr. Christopher Murray (the study's lead author) said the following:<blockquote>What we have found about health care access and quality is disturbing. Having a strong economy does not guarantee good health care. Having great medical technology doesn’t either. We know this because people are not getting the care that should be expected for diseases with established treatment. [...] America’s ranking is an embarrassment, especially considering the US spends more than $9,000 per person on health care annually, more than any other country. Anyone with a stake in the current health care debate, including elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, should take a look at where the US is falling short.<ref>The Lancet | Healthcare Access and Quality Index Based on Mortality from Causes Amenable to Personal Health Care</ref></blockquote>While many people acclaim the US health system for its advanced technology, it is clear that this does no good if people cannot actually access the care they need. All-in-all, it clear that outcomes in the American healthcare system are extremely subpar, especially when one takes into account the ludicrously high cost. On that note, let's discuss cost and expenditures.

====Cost and expenditures====

The United States spends more per-capita on healthcare than any other country on Earth. According to the aforementioned study from the American College of Physicians:<blockquote>The United States spends far more per capita on health care than other wealthy countries, and spending is increasing at an unsustainable rate. [...] The pricing of health care goods and services is substantially higher in the United States than in other developed nations. A 2003 analysis of OECD data showed that health care utilization in the United States did not exceed that of other countries, and price was the key driver of spending differences.</blockquote>Much of this excessive cost is due to the enormous inefficiency and bureaucracy of the Statesian system. There is a massive amount of administrative spending in the US, which is due primarily to the fragmented multi-payer nature of the healthcare system. According to the ACP:<blockquote>In large part owing to its pluralistic financing system, the United States spends more on administration of health care than peer countries. One study estimated that in 2012, the United States spent $471 billion on billing and insurance-related costs—$375 billion (80%) more than in a “simplified financing system,” such as Canada's single-payer model. Another study concluded that administrative costs were 31% of total U.S. health care expenditures, nearly double those of Canada.</blockquote>These findings are validated by a study in the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'', which said the following:<blockquote>The fragmented financing system is one of the principal explanations for the high cost of medical care in the United States. A careful consolidation of financing into some form of single-payer system is probably the only feasible solution.<ref>Journal of the American Medical Association | Health Care Spending in the United States and Other High-Income Countries</ref></blockquote>Another study from the same journal says the following:<blockquote>The United States spent approximately twice as much as other high-income countries on medical care, yet utilization rates in the United States were largely similar to those in other nations. Prices of labor and goods, including pharmaceuticals, and administrative costs appeared to be the major drivers of the difference in overall cost between the United States and other high-income countries.</blockquote>According to a 2020 study in the ''Lancet'' (conducted at Yale Medical School), a single-payer system would save an enormous amount of money and (more importantly) lives:<blockquote>Taking into account both the costs of coverage expansion and the savings that would be achieved through the Medicare for All Act, we calculate that a single-payer, universal health-care system is likely to lead to a 13% savings in national health-care expenditure, equivalent to more than US $450 billion annually (based on the value of the US$ in 2017). [...] Furthermore, we estimate that ensuring health-care access for all Americans would save more than 68 000 lives and 1.73 million life-years every year compared with the status quo.<ref>The Lancet | Improving the Prognosis of Health Care in the USA</ref></blockquote>Claims that a single-payer system would be unaffordable are entirely baseless, and contradicted by the overwhelming mass of evidence. A 2020 meta-analysis in ''PLOS Medicine'' found "a high degree of analytic consensus for the fiscal feasibility of a single-payer approach in the US." As they put it:<blockquote>There is near-consensus in these analyses that single-payer would reduce health expenditures while providing high-quality insurance to all US residents. To achieve net savings, single-payer plans rely on simplified billing and negotiated drug price reductions, as well as global budgets to control spending growth over time. Replacing private insurers with a public system is expected to achieve lower net healthcare costs.<ref>PLOS Medicine | Projected Costs of Single-Payer Healthcare Financing in the United States: A Systematic Review of Economic Analyses</ref></blockquote>
====Access to care and lack of insurance====

To make matters worse, a large chunk of the Statesian population is uninsured, and many are forced to go without the care that they need. According to the ACP:<blockquote>The United States is the only wealthy industrialized nation without universal health coverage, a crucial component to ensuring quality health care for all without financial burden that causes delay or avoidance of necessary medical care... nearly 30 million remain uninsured, millions more are underinsured, and the number of uninsured persons is expected to grow.</blockquote>The high rate of uninsured people is extremely troubling, especially seeing as a lack of insurance is associated with increased risk of mortality. A 2009 study in the ''American Journal of Public Health'' said the following on the matter:<blockquote>Uninsurance is associated with mortality. [...] Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44 789 deaths per year in the United States, more than those caused by kidney disease.</blockquote>A 2017 study in the ''Annals of Internal Medicine'' validated these findings, saying:<blockquote>The evidence strengthens confidence in the Institute of Medicine's conclusion that health insurance saves lives: The odds of dying among the insured relative to the uninsured is 0.71 to 0.97.<ref>Annals of Internal Medicine | The Relationship of Health Insurance and Mortality: Is Lack of Insurance Deadly?</ref></blockquote>The high costs of US medical care cause a great deal of financial strain for patients. According to a 2019 study in the ''Journal of General Internal Medicine'' (carried out by the American Cancer Society), "medical financial hardship is common among adults in the USA, with nearly 140 million adults reporting hardship in the past year. Among those aged 18–64 years, more than half report problems with medical bills or medical debt; stress or worry; or forgoing or delaying health care due to cost." A 2019 Gallup poll found that 25% of Americans say that they or a family member have put off treatment for a "serious illness" in the past year because of cost, with a further 8% saying they or a family member has put off treatment for a "less serious illness" in the past year.<ref>Gallup Poll | More Americans Delaying Medical Treatment Due to Cost</ref>

Overall, there is strong evidence that the United States' lack of universal healthcare causes tens of thousands of deaths every year, and financial ruin for many more.[[File:1 out of 5 incarcerated people in the world is incarcerated in the US.png|thumb|1 out of 5 incarcerated people in the world is incarcerated in the US.]]

=== Incarceration ===
According to the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), not only does the U.S. have the highest incarceration rate in the world; every single U.S. state incarcerates more people per capita than virtually any country on earth. States like New York and Massachusetts "appear progressive in their incarceration rates compared to states like Louisiana, but compared to the rest of the world, every U.S. state relies too heavily on prisons and jails to respond to crime." PPI adds in their 2021 report that "incarceration has become the nation’s default response to crime, with 70 percent of convictions resulting in confinement — far more than other developed nations with comparable crime rates."<ref>Emily Widra and Tiana Herring. September 2021. [https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html “States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2021.”] Prison Policy Initiative. [https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html Archived] 2022-08-26.</ref>

Beyond the millions of people in the U.S. who are incarcerated, tens of millions more are dealing with the "collateral consequences" of punishment. Many cannot vote or get a driver's license, face barriers to employment, and are prohibited from living with the families who want them back because they have a criminal record.<ref>[https://www.prisonpolicy.org/collateral.html “Collateral Consequences.”] Prison Policy Initiative.</ref>
[[File:Incarceration in US states compared to incarceration in countries..png|thumb|Incarceration and "violent crime" rates of individual US states compared to incarceration and "violent crime" rates of individual countries, as determined by the Prison Policy Initiative in a 2021 report.]]
The U.S. doesn’t have one singular criminal justice system. Instead, it has thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems. Together, these systems hold almost 2 million people (as of 2022) in 1,566 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,850 local jails, 1,510 juvenile correctional facilities, 186 immigration detention facilities, and 82 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.<ref name=":7">Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner. [https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2022."] Prison Policy Initiative. March 14, 2022. [https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html Archived] 2022-08-31.</ref>

The PPI notes that "local jails often receive short shrift in larger discussions about criminal justice, but they play a critical role as 'incarceration's front door' and have a far greater impact than the daily population suggests. [...] In a typical year, about 600,000 people enter ''prison'' gates, but people go to ''jail'' over 10 million times each year. Jail churn is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. Some have just been arrested and will make bail within hours or days, while many others are too poor to make bail and remain behind bars until their trial." The PPI further notes that at least 1 in 4 people who go to jail will be arrested again within the same year, often those dealing with poverty, mental illness, and substance use disorders, whose problems only worsen with incarceration.<ref name=":7" />

==See also==

*[[United States imperialism]]
*[[Manifest Destiny]]
*[[German Reich (1933–1945)|Nazi Germany]]
*[[:Category:USA states|USA states (category)]]
*[[Quotes:United States of America]]

== Further reading ==

* [[:Category:Library documents from the United States of America|All library works about the United States]]
* [[:Category:Library documents from the United States of America|All library works from the United States]]

=== History ===

* [[Library:Endless Holocausts: Mass Death in the History of the United States Empire|''Endless Holocausts: Mass Death in the History of the United States Empire'']]
* [[Library:Killing Hope|''Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II'']]

=== Communist movement ===

* ''[[Library:Black Bolshevik|Black Bolshevik]]''
* [[History of the socialist movement in the United States]]

== References ==
<references />
==Notes==
<references group="lower-alpha" />
[[Category:Countries]]
[[Category:Global north]]
[[Category:Imperialist countries]]
[[Category:United States of America]]
[[Category:Genocide]]
[[Category:North American countries]]
[[Category:Settler-colonial states]]

United States Declaration of Independence

2026-07-04T01:32:49Z

Jadenw815:

{{Infobox book
| image = United States Declaration of Independence.png
| author = [[Thomas Jefferson]]
| publication = July 4, 1776
| language = English
| image_size = 200
}}

The '''United States Declaration of Independence''' was a historical document that was signed on July 4th declaring the secession of the [[Thirteen Colonies]] from the [[Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1801)|British Empire]], creating the Statesian holiday [[Independence Day]]. It blames the British for inciting [[Slavery|slave]] rebellions and calls [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous peoples]] "merciless Indian Savages."<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Domenico Losurdo]]|year=2011|title=Liberalism: A Counter-History|chapter=What Is Liberalism?|page=17|publisher=Verso|isbn=9781844676934|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=5BB3406BC2E64972831A1C00D5D4BFE4|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacebhsj2yxuoudkhkjp6lzgr5jvgyhu76zxe4gw3d65gpg32a6nded4?filename=Domenico%20Losurdo%2C%20Gregory%20Elliott%20-%20Liberalism_%20A%20Counter-History-Verso%20%282011%29.pdf}}</ref>

[[George Washington]], [[John Adams]], [[Thomas Jefferson]], [[Benjamin Franklin]], [[Alexander Hamilton]], [[John Jay]], [[Caesar Rodney]] and [[James Madison]] drafted this constitution.

== See also ==

* [[Constitution of the United States]]

== References ==
[[Category:History of the USA]]
[[Category:Racist propaganda]]

Authoritarian capitalism

2026-06-29T15:18:39Z

Jadenw815: Added more to authoritarian capitalism

{{Message box/Stub}}
"'''Authoritarian capitalism'''" is a quasi-liberal and idealist term often used to distinguish between supposedly democratic capitalism and capitalism under openly repressive states. Much like the concept of "authoritarianism", it can be used as a pretext to defend liberal capitalism as democratic and as a better alternative to socialism.

However, the term can also be used critically from a Marxist perspective. In this sense, authoritarian capitalism exposes the false claim that capitalism is naturally democratic. Capitalism can exist under parliamentary liberalism, military dictatorship, colonial rule, fascism, monarchism, apartheid, and other forms of class dictatorship, so long as private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, and bourgeois class power remain intact.

== Relation to fascism ==
According to the liberal definition, authoritarian capitalism often translates to fascism or fascist-adjacent capitalism. However, from a Marxist perspective, fascism is not the opposite of capitalism. Fascism is one of the most violent forms capitalism can take when liberal democracy can no longer safely contain class struggle, revolutionary organization, or threats to private property.

Authoritarian capitalism can therefore be understood as a bridge between liberal capitalism and fascism. It shows how capitalism can abandon liberal democracy while keeping private property, class rule, markets, corporations, militarism, nationalism, and anti-communism intact. Fascist and authoritarian capitalist regimes commonly crush socialists, communists, trade unions, peasant movements, national liberation movements, and other working-class organizations while preserving the power of capital and the state.

== Examples ==
Examples commonly cited by Marxists include:

[[Augusto Pinochet]] of Chile, whose military dictatorship combined anti-communist terror with neoliberal restructuring. Pinochet's regime used secret police, torture, disappearances, and state violence against leftists and other opponents while Chile became one of the first states to adopt neoliberal policy as official state policy. <ref>https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-06-18/pinochet-regime-declassified-dina-gestapo-type-police-force-chile</ref> <ref>https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-99</ref>

[[Suharto]] of Indonesia, whose New Order regime came to power after mass anti-communist killings in 1965–1966 and ruled through authoritarianism, repression of dissent, Western support, and capitalist development. Historians estimate that roughly 500,000 people were killed during the anti-communist purge<ref>https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/who-was-suharto-indonesias-newest-national-hero-2025-11-10/</ref>

[[Mobutu Sese Seko]] of Zaire, whose anti-communist dictatorship received Western support during the Cold War while ruling through one-party politics, corruption, repression, and resource extraction. Mobutu's anti-communist stance helped win him U.S. support, while his regime became known for kleptocracy and human rights abuses<ref>https://adst.org/2016/09/kleptocracy-and-anti-communism-when-mobutu-ruled-zaire/</ref>

[[Benito Mussolini]] of Italy, whose fascist state crushed socialists, communists, trade unions, and working-class organizations while defending private property and class collaboration through a corporatist state. Italian fascism presented itself as a "third way", but in practice it destroyed independent working-class politics and preserved capitalist social relations.

[[Chiang Kai-shek]] of China and later Taiwan, whose anti-communist rule included the 1927 massacre of communists and workers, repression of leftists, one-party Kuomintang rule, and the White Terror in Taiwan.

[[Francisco Franco]] of Spain, whose dictatorship emerged from a fascist-backed civil war against the Spanish Republic and ruled through anti-communism, Catholic reaction, repression of labor movements, and defense of capitalist and landlord power.

[[Ferdinand Marcos]] of the Philippines, whose U.S.-backed martial law regime repressed communists, workers, students, peasants, and opposition movements while protecting elite and capitalist power.

[[Park Chung-hee]] of South Korea, whose military dictatorship combined capitalist industrialization, anti-communism, labor repression, and state violence against dissidents and workers.

== Capitalist Class Rule ==
Authoritarian capitalism is not an exception to capitalism but one of its possible political forms. Capitalism does not require liberal democracy; it requires the protection of private property, exploitation of labor, and maintenance of bourgeois class power. When liberal democracy threatens those interests or fails to contain working-class struggle, capitalist states and ruling classes have repeatedly turned to coups, military dictatorships, police states, colonial repression, fascism, and anti-communist terror.

The concept is therefore useful against the liberal claim that socialism is inherently authoritarian while capitalism is inherently democratic. Capitalist history includes numerous authoritarian, anti-communist, and pro-business dictatorships. These regimes show that capitalism can preserve markets, corporations, private property, and imperial alliances while abandoning democratic rights for workers, peasants, communists, and oppressed peoples.

== Authoritarian Capitalism and Fascism ==
Liberal capitalism, authoritarian capitalism, and fascism are not separate economic systems. They are different political forms that can preserve the same underlying capitalist relations of private property, wage labor, class rule, and capital accumulation. Liberal capitalism preserves capitalism through elections, parliamentary institutions, and formal civil rights. Authoritarian capitalism preserves capitalism while restricting or abolishing liberal-democratic rights. Fascism represents a more extreme form of capitalist reaction, emerging during periods of crisis when the ruling class turns to dictatorship, militarism, nationalism, and anti-left terror to destroy revolutionary movements and preserve private property.

For this reason, fascism should not be treated as the simple opposite of capitalism. Fascism is one of the forms capitalism can take when liberal democracy becomes insufficient for defending bourgeois power. The only real alternative to both liberal and authoritarian capitalism is socialism, because socialism abolishes capitalist class rule rather than merely changing the political form through which it is governed.

== References ==
[[Category:Stubs]]
<references />

Chiang Kai-shek

2026-06-29T06:21:52Z

Jadenw815:

{{stub}}

{{Infobox politician
| name = Chiang Kai-Shek
| native_name = {{nobold|蔣中正}} {{nobold|蔣介石}}
| image = Chiang Kai-shek（蔣中正）.jpg
| nationality = [[Chinese]]
| political_line = [[Nationalism|Chinese Nationalism]] [[Anti-communism]] [[One China]]
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1887|10|31}}
| birth_place = [[Xikou]], [[Zhejiang]], [[Qing Empire]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1975|4|5|1887|10|31}}
| death_place = [[Taipei]], [[Republic of China]]
| political_party = [[Kuomintang]] (KMT)
}}Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, bourgeois revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the [[Republic of China]] (ROC) from 1928 to his death in 1975. He ruled mainland China until the victory of the [[Communist Party of China]] in the [[Chinese Civil War]] in 1949, after which his government retreated to Taiwan and continued to claim authority over all of China.<ref>https://english.president.gov.tw/Page/83</ref>

Chiang is remembered by communists as a reactionary anti-communist leader whose rule was marked by massacres of workers and leftists, military dictatorship, repression of communists and suspected communists, and the continuation of Kuomintang one-party rule in Taiwan.

== Shanghai Massacre ==
Chiang initially rose within the [[Kuomintang]] during the period of the First United Front between the KMT and the Communist Party of China. In 1927, during the Northern Expedition, Chiang broke with the communists and the left wing of the KMT. On 12 April 1927, forces loyal to Chiang, together with members of the Green Gang, attacked workers, communists, and leftists in Shanghai. Nationalist troops and Green Gang members rounded up radical labor leaders and communist organizers, including figures connected to the workers' movement in Shanghai.<ref>https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/chiang-kai-shek-purges-communists</ref>

The Shanghai Massacre marked the collapse of the First United Front and opened a new stage of the Chinese Civil War. After the purge in Shanghai, KMT repression spread to other cities and provinces, targeting communists, labor organizers, peasant activists, students, and left-wing KMT members. Chiang's government criminalized communist organizing and used the state, party, army, police, and allied underworld forces to suppress revolutionary activity.

== Authoritarian rule and repression ==
During the Nanjing decade, Chiang built an authoritarian anti-communist state. His government suppressed independent communist, socialist, and left-wing political activity, while using censorship, secret police, and military campaigns against communist base areas. The KMT carried out encirclement campaigns against rural communist regions, including the Jiangxi Soviet, eventually forcing the [[Long March]].

Chiang also supported the New Life Movement, launched in 1934, which attempted to discipline everyday life through militarized morality, nationalism, and social control. Scholars have connected the movement and Chiang's Blue Shirts Society to authoritarian and fascist-influenced politics in Republican China.Arif Dirlik (1975). <ref>https://www.jstor.org/stable/2054509</ref>

== Second Sino-Japanese War ==
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chiang led the Nationalist government against Japan while continuing to treat the communists as a major internal enemy. The war caused massive destruction across China, and Chiang's government used scorched-earth tactics that caused enormous civilian suffering.

In June 1938, Chiang's government ordered the breaching of Yellow River dikes near Huayuankou in an attempt to slow the Japanese advance. Only limited warning was given to civilians. The resulting flood killed large numbers of people, displaced millions, destroyed farmland, and produced famine and disease in the affected regions. Disaster historians note that Chiang telephoned commanders in Henan to make sure the orders were carried out. <ref>https://disasterhistory.org/yellow-river-flood-1938-47</ref>

Later in 1938, KMT authorities also burned the city of Changsha to prevent it from falling intact to Japanese forces. The fire killed around 30,000 people and destroyed much of the city, making it one of the largest human-caused urban fires of the war. <ref>https://chinesehistoryforteachers.omeka.net/items/show/46</ref>

== Retreat to Taiwan ==
After the defeat of the KMT in the Chinese Civil War, Chiang and the ROC government retreated to Taiwan in 1949. There, Chiang continued to rule as an anti-communist dictator under martial law. The ROC on Taiwan claimed to represent all of China, while the People's Republic of China controlled the mainland.

KMT rule in Taiwan began with major repression after the February 28 Incident in 1947, when protests against official corruption and police abuse were violently suppressed. Estimates of deaths in the massacre often range from 18,000 to 28,000 people. Many Taiwanese intellectuals, students, local leaders, and reformers were killed, imprisoned, or disappeared.June Teufel Dreyer (2017-02-27). <ref>https://www.fpri.org/article/2017/02/taiwans-white-terror-remembering-228-incident/</ref>

== White Terror ==
Chiang's dictatorship in Taiwan continued through the White Terror period, a long era of martial law, anti-communist repression, surveillance, imprisonment, and executions. The National Human Rights Museum of Taiwan describes the White Terror as a four-decade period of repressive rule in which people accused of violating anti-communist security laws were arrested, interrogated, tried, imprisoned, and sometimes executed by intelligence agencies. <ref>https://www.nhrm.gov.tw/w/nhrmEN/White_Terror_Period</ref>

Under Chiang's rule in Taiwan, political opposition was banned or severely restricted, and suspected communists, leftists, Taiwanese independence supporters, liberal dissidents, students, workers, intellectuals, and critics of the KMT could be accused of subversion. The Guardian reports that under Chiang's rule during the White Terror, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people were executed and 140,000 were imprisoned for actual or perceived opposition to the KMT.Helen Davidson (2024-05-05). <ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/05/ghostly-the-taiwan-park-keeping-700-statues-of-late-dictator-chiang-kai-shek-as-row-rages-over-their-fate</ref>

== Legacy ==
Chiang Kai-shek is celebrated by anti-communists as a Nationalist leader and opponent of the Communist Party of China, but his rule was marked by mass repression, one-party dictatorship, anti-communist terror, censorship, forced militarization, and severe abuses in both mainland China and Taiwan. His government crushed labor and peasant movements in China, used catastrophic scorched-earth tactics during the war against Japan, and later imposed decades of martial law in Taiwan.

Chiang represented the bourgeois, landlord, and imperialist-aligned forces defeated by the Chinese Revolution. His regime's history shows how anti-communism functioned not as a defense of democracy, but as a justification for massacres, dictatorship, imprisonment, and the suppression of workers, peasants, communists, and other dissidents.

== References ==
[[Category:Chinese leaders]]

Cambodian genocide

2026-06-29T06:02:31Z

Jadenw815: Added more info about Cambodian genocide

'''Cambodian genocide''', also referred to as the '''Khmer Rouge genocide''', was the mass killing, forced labor, starvation, disease, forced displacement, and political repression carried out under [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Democratic Kampuchea]], the state ruled by the [[Khmer Rouge]] from 1975 to 1979. The regime was led by [[Pol Pot]] and attempted to remake Cambodian society through an extreme agrarian program, abolishing money, attacking religion, emptying cities, and forcing much of the population into rural labor camps. Approximately 1.7 million people died, around one fifth of Cambodia's population at the time.
[[File:Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum.jpg|thumb|Prison cells at Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, one of the most infamous prisons used by the Khmer Rouge.]]
'''Cambodian genocide''', also referred to as the '''Khmer Rouge genocide''', was the mass killing, forced labor, starvation, disease, forced displacement, and political repression carried out under [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Democratic Kampuchea]], the state ruled by the [[Khmer Rouge]] from 1975 to 1979. The regime was led by [[Pol Pot]] and attempted to remake Cambodian society through an extreme agrarian program, abolishing money, attacking religion, emptying cities, and forcing much of the population into rural labor camps. Approximately 1.7 million people died, around one fifth of Cambodia's population at the time.<ref>https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/cambodian-genocide-program</ref>

Although Democratic Kampuchea claimed communist legitimacy and is often described in anti-communist sources as a communist regime, many Marxist-Leninists reject Pol Pot's politics as a nationalist, ultra-left, anti-Vietnamese deviation rather than socialism. The Khmer Rouge's rule destroyed working-class organization, attacked urban life, targeted minority groups, and produced a coercive agrarian state hostile to proletarian democracy. The regime was also closely aligned with the [[People's Republic of China]] against Vietnam and the Soviet Union, especially during the conflicts that developed into the [[Third Indochina War]].<ref>https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/03/mertha-documents-chinese-tutelage-khmer-rouge</ref>

== Background ==
Cambodia attempted to maintain a neutral position during the [[Vietnam War]], but this position became increasingly unstable as the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, China, and other powers treated Southeast Asia as a major Cold War battlefield. In March 1970, Prince [[Norodom Sihanouk]] was overthrown by General [[Lon Nol]], who established the anti-communist Khmer Republic. The coup pulled Cambodia more directly into the war and weakened the neutralist position that Sihanouk had attempted to maintain.

After the coup, Sihanouk allied with the Khmer Rouge from exile. This gave the insurgency greater nationalist legitimacy among many rural Cambodians, since Sihanouk remained a widely recognized symbol of Cambodian independence. The Khmer Rouge therefore grew not only through its own organization, but also through the crisis produced by war, displacement, and the collapse of the old political order.

== U.S. bombing and destabilization ==
Under President [[Richard Nixon]] and National Security Adviser [[Henry Kissinger]], the United States expanded the war into Cambodia. U.S. bombing campaigns, including [[Operation Menu]] and later bombing under [[Operation Freedom Deal]], targeted Vietnamese communist bases and supply routes but also devastated rural Cambodian society. Researchers Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen argue that the bombing drove many ordinary Cambodians toward the Khmer Rouge and helped transform a relatively small insurgency into a mass movement.{{Web citation|title=Bombs Over Cambodia: New Light on US Air War|date=2007-05-02|url=https://apjjf.org/taylor-owen/2420/article|website=The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus|access-date=2026-06-27}}

The bombing destroyed villages, displaced peasants, damaged agriculture, and deepened hatred toward the U.S.-backed Lon Nol government. The Khmer Rouge used this devastation in its propaganda and recruitment, presenting itself as the force capable of resisting foreign intervention and the collapsing Khmer Republic. Although the United States did not create the Khmer Rouge as an organization, U.S. policy helped create the conditions in which the Khmer Rouge could grow.

The expansion of the war into Cambodia also produced major opposition inside the United States. In May 1970, protests against Nixon's Cambodia campaign culminated in the [[Kent State massacre]], where the Ohio National Guard killed four student protesters. In 1973, the Paris Peace Accords ended direct U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but U.S. bombing in Cambodia continued until Congress cut off funding in August 1973.

== Khmer Rouge seizure of power ==
By 1974 and 1975, Lon Nol's government was collapsing. The Khmer Rouge surrounded [[Phnom Penh]], and on 17 April 1975 they captured the capital. Soon after taking power, the regime forcibly evacuated Phnom Penh and other cities, sending millions of people into the countryside. The Khmer Rouge claimed that this evacuation was necessary for revolutionary reconstruction and protection from possible U.S. bombing, but in practice it began a vast system of forced labor, starvation, political repression, and mass death.

The regime declared the beginning of "Year Zero", attempting to destroy the old society and build a new agrarian order. Money, markets, many schools, religious institutions, and private property were abolished. People associated with the former Khmer Republic, urban life, education, religion, foreign influence, or suspected opposition were targeted as enemies of the revolution. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the Khmer Rouge as promoting a radical agrarian ideology based on one-party rule, rejection of urban and Western ideas, and abolition of private property.<ref>https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/cambodia/origins-of-the-khmer-rouge</ref>

== Genocide and mass repression ==
From 1975 to 1979, Democratic Kampuchea carried out mass killing, forced labor, starvation policies, forced transfers, political purges, and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. Deaths resulted from execution, torture, hunger, disease, exhaustion, and the destruction of normal social life. Victims included former officials of the Khmer Republic, intellectuals, Buddhist monks, ethnic Vietnamese, Cham Muslims, suspected dissidents, and many ordinary peasants and workers accused of disloyalty.

The security prison S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, became one of the most infamous sites of Khmer Rouge repression. Prisoners were tortured, forced to confess to imaginary conspiracies, and then executed. Across Cambodia, local prisons, worksites, cooperatives, and execution sites became part of the regime's machinery of terror.

In 2018, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted senior Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of genocide, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. The judgment found that they were guilty of genocide against ethnic Vietnamese, while Nuon Chea was also found guilty of genocide against the Cham. <ref>https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-legal-materials/article/trial-chamber-case-00202-against-nuon-chea-and-khieu-samphan-extraordinary-chambers-in-the-courts-of-cambodia/0A1B861657D78185D9BDB0C9A5AA9DCA</ref>

== Third Indochina War and Vietnam's intervention ==
The fall of Democratic Kampuchea took place within the wider [[Third Indochina War]], a period of conflict involving Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Laos, Thailand, and rival Cold War blocs after the communist victories in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in 1975. Relations between Democratic Kampuchea and [[Vietnam]] deteriorated after 1975. Khmer Rouge forces carried out attacks along the Vietnamese border, killing civilians and escalating conflict between the two states.

In December 1978, Vietnam launched a major invasion of Cambodia. Vietnamese forces entered Phnom Penh in January 1979 and overthrew the Khmer Rouge government, establishing the [[People's Republic of Kampuchea]]. Vietnam's intervention ended the Khmer Rouge's rule over most of Cambodia, but it also intensified the Third Indochina War by bringing Cambodia into the wider Sino-Soviet split and the conflict between China and Vietnam. <ref>https://www.routledge.com/The-Third-Indochina-War-Conflict-between-China-Vietnam-and-Cambodia-1972-79/Westad-Quinn-Judge/p/book/9780415545051</ref>

The overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea ended the Khmer Rouge's control over most of Cambodia, but it did not destroy the movement. Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge forces retreated toward the Thai-Cambodian border, where they continued to operate as part of the anti-Vietnamese resistance.

== China and Democratic Kampuchea ==
Democratic Kampuchea was closely aligned with the People's Republic of China. China provided political, military, and diplomatic support to the Khmer Rouge, and Pol Pot's regime was shaped in part by its relationship with Maoist China. This alignment was especially important because Vietnam was increasingly aligned with the Soviet Union, making Cambodia a battlefield in the Sino-Soviet split as well as the Third Indochina War. <ref>https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/03/mertha-documents-chinese-tutelage-khmer-rouge</ref>

This relationship complicates anti-communist attempts to present the Cambodian genocide as a simple result of communism in general. Democratic Kampuchea was not aligned with Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, or the Soviet Union, and it fought violently against Vietnam, which was the state that overthrew it. The genocide was carried out by the Khmer Rouge state itself, but its rise and survival were shaped by U.S. bombing, civil war, Chinese support, Thai border policy, and wider Cold War conflict.

== Ford administration and the Mayaguez incident ==
The Ford administration's most direct confrontation with Democratic Kampuchea came shortly after the Khmer Rouge victory. In May 1975, Khmer Rouge naval forces seized the American cargo ship SS Mayaguez. President [[Gerald Ford]] ordered a military operation in response, leading to combat between U.S. forces and Khmer Rouge forces near Koh Tang.<ref>https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196018/final-combat-the-mayaguez-incident-at-koh-tang/</ref>

The incident showed that the United States and the Khmer Rouge were not simple allies during the Khmer Rouge's time in power. However, after Vietnam overthrew Democratic Kampuchea in 1979, U.S. policy shifted toward opposing the Vietnamese-backed government and favoring the anti-Vietnamese diplomatic position.

== International support after 1979 ==
After the fall of Democratic Kampuchea, Cold War politics shaped the international response. The United States under President [[Jimmy Carter]], China, Thailand, and other U.S.-aligned states opposed Vietnam's intervention and refused to recognize the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. Instead, Democratic Kampuchea retained Cambodia's seat at the United Nations after 1979, despite the Khmer Rouge's responsibility for the genocide. The Association for Asian Studies describes this as a situation in which the Khmer Rouge retained the UN seat in spite of its widely known atrocities. <ref>https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea/</ref>

In 1982, the Khmer Rouge joined with royalist and republican anti-Vietnamese factions to form the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. This coalition continued to hold Cambodia's UN seat for years. Although the coalition included non-Khmer Rouge factions, the arrangement allowed the Khmer Rouge to remain internationally relevant after its overthrow. China and ASEAN states pressured the Khmer Rouge to join this wider anti-Vietnamese coalition along the Thai border. <ref>https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea/</ref>

== Thailand's role ==
Thailand became central to the post-1979 conflict. After Vietnam overthrew Democratic Kampuchea, Khmer Rouge forces and other anti-Vietnamese Cambodian factions operated along the Thai-Cambodian border. Yale's Cambodian Genocide Program describes the Vietnamese intervention as transforming the Khmer Rouge from Thailand's enemy into a useful anti-Vietnamese ally from Bangkok's perspective.<ref>https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/thailands-response-cambodian-genocide</ref>

Thailand also hosted large numbers of Cambodian refugees, but the border camp system became entangled with the armed struggle against the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. Some camps and border zones became linked to Khmer Rouge and other anti-Vietnamese forces. This made the refugee crisis inseparable from the wider Cold War proxy struggle over Cambodia after 1979.

== Legacy ==
The Cambodian genocide remains one of the most severe mass atrocities of the twentieth century. It devastated Cambodian society, killed a large share of the population, and left lasting trauma across generations. It also became a major ideological weapon in Cold War politics, often used by anti-communists to equate the Khmer Rouge with all communism while ignoring the role of U.S. bombing, the Lon Nol regime, Chinese support, Thai border policy, and Western diplomatic support for anti-Vietnamese forces after 1979.

From a Marxist-Leninist and anti-imperialist perspective, the Cambodian genocide cannot be understood only as the product of Pol Pot's ideology. It must also be understood in the wider context of colonialism, the Vietnam War, U.S. imperial intervention, the collapse of Cambodian neutrality, the destruction of rural society, the Sino-Soviet split, the Third Indochina War, and Cold War opposition to Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge carried out the genocide, but the conditions of war and the later international protection of anti-Vietnamese forces show how imperialist and geopolitical interests helped shape both the rise and survival of the movement.

== References ==
<references />

Topic:Zgjltv2l84tm4xy4

2026-06-26T01:56:48Z

Jadenw815 (talk | contribs) commented on "Citations template" (Thanks comrade, I appreciate the correction. I didn’t realize ProleWiki used Web citation instead of cite web; I’ll go through my past ed...)

Guerrilla warfare

2026-06-25T17:11:00Z

Jadenw815: Added a line about the FLN and their tactics

'''Guerrilla warfare''' or '''guerilla warfare''' (from the [[Spanish language|Spanish]] ''guerra,'' meaning 'war') is a type of [[War|warfare]] fought by irregulars or otherwise civilians who have picked up weapons, either in a permanent or temporary capacity (living a civilian life outside of their guerilla operations). Guerrilla warfare focuses on fast-moving, small-scale operations and has been used effectively against bigger and stronger armies in history, exploiting their blind spots to strike.

Guerrilla operations usually focus on logistics or infrastructure sabotage, stealing equipment, assassinating officers or otherwise limiting the effectiveness of the enemy army such that "it becomes too costly to pursue the war". They are usually supported by a regular army or, in case of occupation, become a [[Résistance|resistance]] force supported by the civilian population to shelter and feed them.

== History ==
While guerrilla warfare has greatly expanded in use during the 20th century thanks to more portable and reliable weapons, such tactics were first used during the [[Peninsular War]] of 1808-1814 when the [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] and Spanish armies drove [[French Empire (1804–1815)|France]] from the [[Iberian Peninsula]].

== Tactics ==

== Historical and current examples ==

=== Historical ===

* The [[Vietnam War|war of resistance]] against [[French Republic|France]] (then followed by the [[United States of America|USA)]] fought by [[Vietnam]] led to Vietnamese and the establishment of a [[Socialism|Socialist]] Vietnam.
* The [[Cuban revolution]] led by [[Fidel Castro|Fidel]] and [[Raúl Castro]], [[Che Guevara]] and [[Camilo Cienfuegos]] led to the establishment of a socialist [[Republic of Cuba|Cuba]].
* The [[National Liberation Front (Algeria)|FLN]] used rural and urban guerrilla warfare during the [[Algerian War]] against French colonial rule from 1954 to 1962, contributing to Algeria's independence from [[France]].
* During the [[Second Sino-Japanese war|war of resistance]] against the [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japanese]] invasion of [[Republic of China|China]], general [[Mao Zedong]] successfully led the [[Worker's and Peasant Red Army]] in guerrilla warfare as the [[National Revolutionary Army]] focused on regular warfare.
* Such tactics were also deployed by [[Kim Il-Sung]]'s forces during the [[Japanese occupation of Korea]] that started in 1910.
* During the [[Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985)|military dictatorship]] in [[Federative Republic of Brazil|Brazil]], urban guerrilla groups carried out operations against the dictatorship.

=== Current ===

* The [[New People's Army]] of the [[Republic of the Philippines|Philippines]] and the [[Naxalites]] of [[Republic of India|India]] are currently waging a [[People's war|protracted people's war]] against their respective [[State|states]].
* The various [[Palestinian resistance]] groups are currently waging guerrilla operations against the [[State of Israel|occupier]] in [[State of Palestine|Palestine]].

== Further reading ==

* [[Library:On guerrilla warfare|On guerrilla warfare]], Mao Zedong
* [[Library:Guerrilla Warfare|Guerrilla Warfare]], Che Guevara
* [[Library:Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla|Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla]], [[Carlos Marighella]]
* [[:File:Total Resistance.pdf|Total Resistance]], [[Hans von Dach]]
* [[Library:Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army: Notes on Guerilla Warfare|Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army: Notes on Guerilla Warfare]], [[Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army]]
* [[Library:Fedai Guerillas Speak on Armed Struggle in Iran|Fedai Guerillas Speak on Armed Struggle in Iran]], Fedai Guerillas
* [[Library:Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine|Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine]], PFLP
* [[Library:The Red Army Faction: A Documentary History - Volume 1: Projectiles for the People|The Red Army Faction: A Documentary History - Volume 1: Projectiles for the People]], Red Army Faction (documents inside include ''The Urban Guerilla Concept'', and others)
[[Category:Guerilla warfare| ]]

Charlie Kirk

2026-06-25T08:10:43Z

Jadenw815: Added "Palestine doesn't exist" by Charlie Kirk from April 2025

{{Stub}}{{Infobox politician|name=Charles James Kirk|birth_date=14 October 1993|birth_place=[[Arlington Heights (Illinois)|Arlington Heights]], [[State of Illinois|Illinois]], [[United States of America|U.S.]]|death_date=10 September 2025 (aged 31)|death_place=[[Orem (Utah)|Orem]], [[State of Utah|Utah]], U.S.|death_cause=[[Assassination of Charlie Kirk|Assassination by gunshot]]|nationality=Statesian|political_orientation=[[Conservatism]] [[Christian nationalism]] [[Neo-fascism]] [[MAGA movement|Trumpism]]|political_party=[[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]|image=Charlie Kirk.jpg}}

'''Charles James Kirk''' (14 October 1993 in – 10 September 2025) was a Statesian [[Conservatism|conservative]] author, [[Podcast|podcaster]], and political [[Activism|activist]] who co-founded and directed the student organisation [[Turning Point USA]] (TPUSA) from 2012 until [[Assassination of Charlie Kirk|his assassination in 2025]].

==Views==
In the 12 October 2022 episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, Kirk said "I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made up new age term that does a lot of damage."<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|newspaper=CBC News|title=Some of Charlie Kirk's most controversial takes|date=2025-09-10|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/charlie-kirk-controversies-1.7630859}}</ref>

In December 2023, at a TPUSA political conference, Kirk said that [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] was "awful" and "not a good person." He also said that "We made a huge mistake when we passed the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964|Civil Rights Act]] in the 1960s."<ref name=":0" />

In September 2024, in a [[Jubilee Media|Jubilee]] debate, when asked if he would want his 10 year old daughter to give birth if she was raped, Kirk said that "The answer is, yes, the baby would be delivered."<ref name=":0" />

In April 2025, Kirk denied the existence of Palestine, saying "I don't think the place exists."

{{cite web|title=Charlie Kirk in His Own Words|url=https://zeteo.com/p/charlie-kirk-in-his-own-words|website=Zeteo|date=2025-09-12|access-date=2026-06-25}}In July 2025, Kirk claimed that "Israel is not starving Gazans" during the [[Gaza genocide]] when Gazans were being starved.<ref name=":0" />

In August 2025, in response to celebrity [[Taylor Swift]], Kirk said "Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You're not in charge."<ref name=":0" />

==References==
<references />

[[Category:1993 births]]
[[Category:2025 deaths]]
[[Category:2025 homicides]]
[[Category:Victims of assassination]]
[[Category:Antisemites]]
[[Category:Racists]]
[[Category:Reactionaries]]
[[Category:Zionists]]
[[Category:Statesian activists]]
[[Category:Statesian antisemites]]
[[Category:Statesian Christian nationalists]]
[[Category:Statesian Christian Zionists]]
[[Category:Statesian conservatives]]
[[Category:Statesian fascists]]
[[Category:Statesian homophobes]]
[[Category:Statesian Islamophobes]]
[[Category:Statesian racists]]
[[Category:Statesian reactionaries]]
[[Category:Steasian transphobes]]
[[Category:Statesian Zionists]]

Hawaii

2026-06-25T01:29:57Z

Jadenw815: added to some stuff I learned in asian ethnic studies to Hawaii ^_^

{{Infobox country|name=Hawaii|native_name=Hawaiʻi|largest_city=[[Honolulu]]|image_flag2=Hawaiian flag.png|capital=[[Honolulu]]|flag_caption=''Ka Hae Hawaiʻi'', Flag of the country of Hawaii as well as current state flag under U.S. occupation|image_map=Location of Hawaii in Pacific Ocean.png|image_map_size=150|official_languages=English, Hawaiian|established_event1=Unification of Hawaii|established_date1=April 1810|established_event2=Monarchy overthrown|established_date2=January 17, 1893|established_event3=U.S. annexation|established_date3=July 4, 1898|established_event4=Statehood|established_date4=August 21, 1959|area_km2=10,931|population_census=1,455,271|population_census_year=2020}}

'''Hawaii''' (''Hawaiʻi'') is an [[United States of America|US]]-occupied state in the [[Pacific Ocean]]. Although it is considered to be a state under U.S. law, this designation is challenged by the assertion that Hawaii is an illegally occupied [[nation]] whose people did not consent to its seizure and ongoing military occupation by the United States.<ref name=":6">{{Web citation|author=Jon Olsen|newspaper=[[CovertAction Magazine]]|title=Hawai’i—The Very First U.S. Regime Change|date=2022-11-15|url=https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/11/15/hawaii-the-very-first-u-s-regime-change/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221116072327/https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/11/15/hawaii-the-very-first-u-s-regime-change/|archive-date=2022-11-16|retrieved=2022-11-18}}</ref>

Previously an internationally recognized sovereign indigenous monarchy, Hawaii was [[Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom|conquered by the US empire in 1893]] in order to satisfy the economic and military interests of the US ruling class. The Hawaiian islands provide a strategic location for the U.S. military's presence in the Pacific, with 11 military bases on the island of Oʻahu alone, including [[Pearl Harbor]], headquarters of the [[U.S. Pacific Command]].<ref>Lowkey. [https://www.mintpressnews.com/red-hill-disaster-two-hawaiian-activists-discuss-latest-episode-two-centuries-colonialism/279403/ “The Red Hill Disaster: Two Hawaiian Activists Discuss the Latest Episode in Two Centuries of Colonialism.”] MintPress News. January 11, 2022. [https://web.archive.org/web/20220823112844/https://www.mintpressnews.com/red-hill-disaster-two-hawaiian-activists-discuss-latest-episode-two-centuries-colonialism/279403/ Archived] 2022-08-23.

‌</ref> Hawaii was incorporated as a U.S. state in 1959, making it the most recent state to be incorporated into the U.S.

The scars of [[colonialism]] and anti-indigenous oppression remain to this day. In 2021, [[Empire Files]] reported that indigenous Hawaiians are fighting against the US Navy for polluting the island's water.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=|date=2021-12-30|title=Native Hawaiians Fight US Navy for Polluting Island’s Water|url=|newspaper=[[Empire Files]]|archive-url=|archive-date=|retrieved=}}</ref>

The tourist economy of Hawaii leads to high real estate prices and a major housing crisis for [[Proletariat|working class]] Hawaiian families as available land is bought up and dominated by use for the tourist industry.<ref name=":0" /> Hawaii has one of the highest rates of [[homelessness]] of the 50 U.S. states.<ref>[https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2020-AHAR-Part-1.pdf "The 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress."] The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD Exchange. [https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2020-AHAR-Part-1.pdf Archived] 2022-08-23.</ref> According to the 2020 Oʻahu Point-in-Time Count, over half of all homeless individuals in Oʻahu identified as [[Native Hawaiian]] or [[Pacific Islander]].<ref>[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5db76f1aadbeba4fb77280f1/t/5efa984a8ae4f774863509e8/1593481306526/PIC+2020+PIT+Count+Report+Final.pdf "2020 O'ahu Point-In-Time Count: Comprehensive Report"]. Partners in Care. O'ahu's Continuum of Care. [https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5db76f1aadbeba4fb77280f1/t/5efa984a8ae4f774863509e8/1593481306526/PIC+2020+PIT+Count+Report+Final.pdf Archived] 2022-08-23.</ref> Partners in Care, an Oʻahu-based coalition dedicated to ending homelessness, estimates that Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are overrepresented by 210% in Oahu’s homeless population.<ref>Williamson Chang, Abbey Seitz. [https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/01/its-time-to-acknowledge-native-hawaiians-special-right-to-housing/ "It’s Time to Acknowledge Native Hawaiians' Special Right To Housing."] January 8, 2021. Honolulu Civil Beat. [https://web.archive.org/web/20220630160918/https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/01/its-time-to-acknowledge-native-hawaiians-special-right-to-housing/ Archived] 2022-08-13.</ref>

According to a 2010 report by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Native Hawaiians serve more time in prison and more time on probation than other racial or ethnic groups in the state. Native Hawaiians are also more likely to have their parole revoked and be returned to prison compared to other racial or ethnic groups. Additionally, Hawaii has the largest proportion of its population of women in prison compared to any other state, with Native Hawaiian women comprising a disproportionate number of women in the prison. Forty-four percent of the women incarcerated under the jurisdiction of the state of Hawaii are Native Hawaiian. Comparatively, 19.8 percent of the general population of women in Hawaii identify as Native Hawaiian or part Native Hawaiian. The report further states that incarcerated parents who lose their children may never get them back, and for many women in Hawaii prisons, this is a common occurrence. According to the report, Hawaii's prison institutions make the Hawaiian Native population "even more vulnerable than ever to the loss of land, culture, and community."<ref name=":1">{{Citation|year=2010|title=The Disparate Treatment of Native Hawaiians in the Criminal Justice System|pdf=https://caphawaii.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/disparate-treatment-of-native-hawaiians-in-cj.pdf|publisher=Office of Hawaiian Affairs}}</ref>

The [[Hawaiian sovereignty movement]] is a grassroots political and cultural campaign to re-establish an autonomous or independent nation or kingdom of Hawaii due to desire for sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance. Some groups also advocate for some form of redress from the United States for the 1893 overthrow of Queen [[Liliʻuokalani]], and for the prolonged military occupation beginning with the 1898 annexation.

== Geography ==
Hawaiʻi consists of eight main islands which are, from the northwest to southeast, Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and Hawaiʻi.

== History ==

=== Early history ===
There is no definitive date for the Polynesian discovery of Hawaii, and the date of the first settlements of the Hawaiian Islands is a topic of continuing debate. Some estimates say that the Hawaiian people existed on the islands for over a millennium before Western contact.<ref>[https://harvardlawreview.org/2020/04/aloha-aina-native-hawaiian-land-restitution/ “Aloha ‘Āina: Native Hawaiian Land Restitution.”] 2020. Harvardlawreview.org. April 3, 2020.</ref>

=== Early contact with colonizers ===
1778 marked the arrival of [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|British]] captain [[James Cook]], the first colonizer to try to explore and exploit Hawaiʻi. The Hawaiians defended the islands against Cook, ultimately killing him for his aggression against their nation. A 2017 [[Liberation School]] article notes that the British invasion "set in motion the arrival of an onslaught of missionaries and marauders who began to stake their claim to the Pacific island" and says that their aim was "to uproot the native economic and cultural system and replace it with a different social design based on a foreign religion and the supremacy of [[private property]] above all else" and well as "an interest in laying claim to Hawaiʻi’s vast wealth." The article goes on to point out that many of the chief [[Bourgeoisie|capitalists]] who formed the initial colonial ruling class arrived as missionaries or were the sons of missionaries.<ref name=":0" />

=== Hawaiian Kingdom ===
King [[Kamehameha the First]] united the Hawaiian Islands in April 1810 and ruled until his death in 1819. In 1840, [[Kamehameha the Third]] voluntarily established a constitutional monarchy. The constitutional monarchy consisted of the king as head of state, two legislative houses, and a judiciary.

Hawaii's independence was recognized by the United States in 1842 and by [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922)|Britain]] and [[Kingdom of France (1814–1848)|France]] in 1843.

In 1874, King [[Lunalilo]] died without naming an heir, and the Hawaiian legislature elected [[Kalākaua]] as constitutional monarch.<ref name=":4" /> The United States signed a treaty with the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1875, which gave them access to Pearl Harbor.<ref name=":5">{{Web citation|newspaper=[[The Red Nation]]|title=RIMPAC and the Military Occupation of Hawai‘i|date=2016-08-16|url=http://therednation.org/rimpac-and-the-military-occupation-of-hawaii/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220629171607/http://therednation.org/rimpac-and-the-military-occupation-of-hawaii/|archive-date=2022-06-29|retrieved=2022-08-30}}</ref>

In 1887, a pro-U.S. militia called the [[Honolulu Rifles]] threatened King Kalākaua and forced him to sign a new constitution without approval of the legislature. The [[Bayonet Constitution]] removed power from the king and made it so only the legislature could change or repeal laws.

King Kalākaua died in 1891 while visiting the United States and Queen [[Liliʻuokalani]] succeeded him.<ref name=":4">{{News citation|newspaper=The Hawaiian Kingdom|title=Political History|url=https://hawaiiankingdom.org/political-history.shtml|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211029034316/https://hawaiiankingdom.org/political-history.shtml|archive-date=2021-10-29}}</ref> Liluʻuokalani tried to pass a constitution preventing [[Settler colonialism|settlers]] from voting but was overthrown in 1893. The U.S. military surrounded the palace and forced her to give control of the islands to the Committee of Safety.<ref name=":0">{{News citation|author=Danny Shaw|newspaper=[[Liberation School]]|title=The struggle for self-determination in Hawaiʻi|date=2017-07-17|url=https://www.liberationschool.org/the-struggle-for-self-determination-in-hawaii/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211208174657/https://www.liberationschool.org/the-struggle-for-self-determination-in-hawaii/|archive-date=2021-12-08|retrieved=2022-06-20}}</ref>

=== Settler republic ===
[[File:1893 Hawaiian coup.png|thumb|Statesian troops from the ''USS Boston'' during the 1893 coup]]
In 1893, 160 troops from the ''USS Boston'' arrived in Hawaii and overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani to establish the white-led Republic of Hawaii. President [[Grover Cleveland]] met with the coup leaders as well as indigenous Hawaiians and ended up condemning the coup.<ref name=":6" /> The coup occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, and 300 U.S. Marines from the ''Boston'' were called to Hawaii, allegedly to protect Statesian lives. On February 1, Minister John Stevens recognized Dole’s new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the U.S. Senate, but most [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did not want annexation.<ref name=":2">[https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/americans-overthrow-hawaiian-monarchy “Americans Overthrow Hawaiian Monarchy.”] History.com. February 9, 2010. </ref>

After declaring their republic in 1894, the settler rebels seized 1.8 million acres of Hawaiian land.<ref name=":02">{{Citation|author=David Vine|year=2020|title=The United States of War|chapter=Going Global|page=189|city=Oakland|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520972070|lg=http://library.lol/main/191568BFAC73F009132DB00ECD0F0F05}}</ref> [[Sanford Dole]], head of a committee acting on the behalf of the interests of the sugar industry, became the president of Hawaii.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sanford-Ballard-Dole “Sanford Ballard Dole | President of the Republic of Hawaii | Britannica.”] ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.</ref> His first cousin soon founded what is now the [[Dole Food Company]].<ref name=":02" /> In 1895, Robert Wilcox attempted a rebellion to restore the monarchy and Hawaiian sovereignty.<ref name=":5" />

In 1896, the Hawaiian language was banned. By 1897, 90 percent of Hawaiian nationals had signed what became known as the Kū’e Petitions opposing and effectively stopping legal annexation through a treaty between the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the United States. In 1898, the [[Spanish–Statesian War|Spanish-Statesian War]] broke out, and the strategic use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the war convinced Congress to approve formal annexation. Despite mass opposition and local resistance, Hawaii was officially annexed by the United States in July 1898.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">Imani Altemus-Williams. 2015. [https://intercontinentalcry.org/towards-hawaiian-independence/ “Towards Hawaiian Independence | Intercontinental Cry.”] Intercontinentalcry.org. December 7, 2015. [https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://intercontinentalcry.org/towards-hawaiian-independence/ Archived] 2022-08-24.</ref>

Along with Hawaii, the USA also annexed [[Wake Island]] and eastern [[Samoa]]. President [[William McKinley|McKinley]] said that the annexation of Hawaii was even more important for the USA than the annexation of [[State of California|California]].<ref name=":02" />

=== U.S. occupation ===
[[File:Hawaiian independence protest.png|thumb|Hawaiians protesting against the occupation]]
Hawaiʻi remained designated as a U.S. territory for another 60 years, and on August 21, 1959 Hawaiʻi was pronounced the 50th state of the United States of America.<ref name=":3" />

In 1993, President [[Bill Clinton]] issued an apology to the Native Hawaiian people in the form of a joint resolution passed in Congress called the Apology Resolution, and advocated for reconciliation efforts between Native Hawaiians and the U.S. government. He admitted to the fact that Hawaiians did not relinquish their inherent sovereignty or national lands, but stopped shy of admitting guilt in the violation of international law and circumvention of the rights of citizens of the Hawaiian Kingdom.<ref name=":3" />

According to an article from Intercontinental Cry, "Despite an abundance of prime agricultural land, Hawai’i has become almost exclusively reliant on the United States for its food."<ref name=":3" /> Prior to occupation, Hawaii had an extensive and diversified agricultural system. That sustainable framework was supplanted by an agricultural system based around large scale production of sugar and pineapple for export. The last time Hawaii produced at least half of its own food was in the 1960s, just after its incorporation as a U.S. state.<ref>Terrell, Jessica. [https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/01/hawaiis-food-system-is-broken-now-is-the-time-to-fix-it/ “Hawaii’s Food System Is Broken. Now Is the Time to Fix It.”] Honolulu Civil Beat. January 27, 2021.</ref>

=== Plantation economy and migrant labor ===
The colonial transformation of Hawaiʻi was closely tied to the development of a plantation economy based on sugar and pineapple exports. Large commercial plantations expanded after the dispossession of Native Hawaiian land and became dependent on imported labor from Asia and other colonized or semi-colonized regions. Chinese workers were among the first major groups recruited to Hawaiian plantations in the nineteenth century, followed by large numbers of Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, and Filipino workers. Plantation owners used this multiethnic labor force to expand agricultural production while maintaining racialized divisions among workers.

Filipino migration to Hawaiʻi became especially important in the early twentieth century. The first Filipino plantation workers, known as sakadas, arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1906, and the Hawaiʻi Sugar Planters' Association recruited more than 125,000 Filipino workers over the following decades to labor on sugar and pineapple plantations.{{cite web|title=Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Sakada|url=https://www.ilwulocal142.org/commemorating-100th-anniversary-sakada|website=ILWU Local 142|access-date=2026-06-24}} The plantation system therefore connected Native Hawaiian dispossession to Asian and Pacific labor migration, making Hawaiʻi a central site of both settler colonialism and racialized capitalist labor exploitation.

== Foreign relations of independent Hawaiian government ==
U.S. Secretary of State [[John Calhoun]] recognized Hawaiian independence on July 6, 1846.<ref>{{Citation|author=John Calhoun|year=1846|title=Recognition of Hawaiian Independence|pdf=https://web.archive.org/web/20220109201927/https://www.hawaiiankingdom.org/pdf/US_Recognition.pdf|publisher=Archives of Hawaii}}</ref> The Hawaiian government made treaties with and received recognition from the following countries before the U.S. invasion: [[Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867–1918)|Austro-Hungary]], [[Kingdom of Belgium|Belgium]], [[Kingdom of Denmark|Denmark]], [[French Empire (1852–1870)|France]], [[German Empire (1871–1918)|Germany]], [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922)|Great Britain]], [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]], [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japan]], [[Grand Duchy of Luxembourg|Luxembourg]], [[Kingdom of the Netherlands|Netherlands]], [[Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves (1834–1910)|Portugal]], [[Russian Empire (1721–1917)|Russia]], [[Kingdom of Samoa|Samoa]], [[Kingdom of Spain (1813–1873)|Spain]], [[Swiss Confederation|Switzerland]], [[Kingdom of Sweden|Sweden]], and [[Kingdom of Tahiti (1788–1880)|Tahiti]].<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Hawaiian Kingdom|title=Recognition of Hawaiian Independence|url=https://www.hawaiiankingdom.org/treaties.shtml|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221102034103/https://www.hawaiiankingdom.org/treaties.shtml|archive-date=2022-11-02|retrieved=2022-11-18}}</ref>

== Hawaiian genocide ==
From the beginning of European contact in 1778 to shortly after its annexation in 1898, the native Hawaiian population decreased by 90% due to colonization and disease.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Stephanie Launiu|date=2021-09-07|title=11 Things You May Not Know About Hawai'i and Native Hawaiians|url=https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Hawaii-and-Native-Hawaiians-What-You-May-Not-Know|newspaper=Wander Wisdom|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211013221408/https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Hawaii-and-Native-Hawaiians-What-You-May-Not-Know|archive-date=2021-10-13|retrieved=2022-01-16}}</ref> After the USA-backed coup of Hawaii, the Hawaiian language was banned and children who spoke it were beaten.<ref>{{Citation|author=United States Native Hawaiians Study Commission|year=1983|title=Native Hawaiians Study Commission : report on the culture, needs, and concerns of native Hawaiians.|city=Washington, D.C.|publisher=United States Department of the Interior|title-url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/native-hawaiians-study-commission-report-on-the-culture-needs-and-concerns-of-native-hawaiians/oclc/10865978}}</ref> Hawaiian is now considered a severely endangered language.<ref>{{News citation|title=Hawaiian|url=https://endangeredlanguages.com/lang/125|newspaper=Endangered Languages Project|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191211121532/http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/125/revitalization|archive-date=2021-12-28|retrieved=2022-01-16}}</ref>

== Military ==
[[File:Military in Hawaii.png|thumb|U.S. military exercises in Hawaii]]
[[Naval Station Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]] was handed over to the United States in 1887 and became a navy base. A quarter of Hawaiian land is now occupied by the U.S. military and there are 50,000 troops spread across the islands. 60 million rounds of ammunition are used on the islands every year by the U.S. military. Hawaiians protested against the military when they used Kahoʻolawe island for bombing runs.<ref name=":0" /> The U.S. military has 19 bases in Hawaii and spends over $8 billion every year.<ref name=":5" />

=== Pollution of O‘ahu water supply by U.S. Navy ===
Since 1943, the U.S. Navy has stored upwards of 200 million gallons of fuel only about 100 feet above an underground aquifer on the island of Oahu, including at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. In 2021, the Hawaii Department of Health announced that the Navy found gasoline and diesel-range hydrocarbons in the Red Hill shaft. The levels detected were up to 350 times what the State considers safe for drinking water, and that around 93,000 people had been affected. According to an article by Breakthrough News, the Navy claimed that the site of the polluting oil wells was critical for the "mission readiness" of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command with what the US military has considered to be "increasing aggression" from Russia and China.<ref>[https://breakthroughnews.org/hawaiians-demand-justice-after-pollution-of-water-source-from-navy-facility/ "Hawaiians Demand Justice after Pollution of Water Source from Navy Facility."] Breakthrough News. 2021. Breakthroughnews.org. 2021. [https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://breakthroughnews.org/hawaiians-demand-justice-after-pollution-of-water-source-from-navy-facility/ Archived] 2022-08-23.</ref> A 2022 article by the Honolulu Civil Beat states that the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said Oahu residents had been right to believe Red Hill was unsafe, and that the results of two U.S. Pacific Fleet investigations into the disaster reveal that a leak on May 6 was much worse than initially reported – some 20,000 gallons escaped instead of the initially reported 1,000 – and that the failure to properly investigate that leak was a major factor in another one happening on Nov. 20. The second spill injected as many as 3,322 gallons of fuel into the drinking water, adding that the findings "back up community members’ longstanding concerns that Red Hill is fundamentally unsafe, a contention that the Navy denied for years – until now."<ref>Jedra, Christina. 2022. [https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/06/red-hill-investigations-the-navy-failed-to-prevent-and-respond-to-fuel-contamination/ “Red Hill Investigations: The Navy Failed to Prevent and Respond to Fuel Contamination.”] Honolulu Civil Beat. Honolulu Civil Beat. July 2022. [https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/06/red-hill-investigations-the-navy-failed-to-prevent-and-respond-to-fuel-contamination/ Archived] 2022-08-23.</ref> The US department of defense eventually announced plans for the permanent shut down the Red Hill fueling facility in 2022. Groups like Oʻahu Water Protectors, Sierra Club, Hawai’i Peace and Justice, Ka’ohewai and Ka Lāhui Hawaii Political Action Committee had been organizing for years against the hazardous tanks. The military has said that it is going to move to a fueling system in the Indo-Pacific, seeking contracts with other countries, while the defense department proposed a decentralized fueling arrangement for US military bases.<ref>Peoples Dispatch. 2022. [https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/03/09/hawaiian-activists-celebrate-closure-announcement-of-navys-fuel-facility/ “Hawaiian Activists Celebrate Closure Announcement of Navy’s Fuel Facility : Peoples Dispatch.”] Peoples Dispatch. March 9, 2022. [https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/03/09/hawaiian-activists-celebrate-closure-announcement-of-navys-fuel-facility/ Archived] 2022-08-23.</ref>

=== Chemical and nuclear weapons ===
On the southern shores of Oʻahu, the military has dumped thousands of 55-gallon drums of radioactive waste into the ocean. In the 1960s, the military started using depleted uranium rounds for testing Davy Crockett nuclear systems. In 1967, as part of Red Oak Phase I, it fired rockets with sarin into the rainforest. In the 1970s, there were over 3,000 nuclear weapons on Oʻahu.<ref name=":7">{{Web citation|author=Jim Albertini|newspaper=[[CovertAction Magazine]]|title=The U.S. Military in Hawaii: The Dark Side of Paradise!|date=2023-06-02|url=https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/06/02/the-u-s-military-in-hawaii-the-dark-side-of-paradise/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230609224915/https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/06/02/the-u-s-military-in-hawaii-the-dark-side-of-paradise/|archive-date=2023-06-09}}</ref>

=== Pohakuloa ===
[[File:Hawaii protest.png|thumb|Anti-military protest near Pohakuloa]]
The Pohakuloa Training Area in the center of Hawaii Island takes up 133,000 acres. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines of the USA and other countries use this site for live-fire training and bombing.<ref name=":7" />

== Incarceration ==
[[File:Native Hawaiian Incarceration Demographics.png|thumb|Although 24 percent of the general population in Hawaiʻi is Native Hawaiian, 39 percent of the people under the custody of the Hawaiʻi Department of Public Safety are Native Hawaiian.<ref name=":1" />]]
According to a 2010 report by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Hawaii's prison institutions make the Hawaiian Native population "even more vulnerable than ever to the loss of land, culture, and community" and that, in Hawaii, "Native Hawaiians are much more likely to get a prison sentence than almost all other groups, except for Native Americans" and notes that Native Hawaiians receive longer prison sentences than most other racial or ethnic groups, Native Hawaiians make up the highest percentage of people incarcerated in out-of-state facilities, and Native Hawaiian men and women are both disproportionately represented in Hawaii’s criminal justice system, but that the disparity is greater for women. In Hawaii, women make up a larger proportion (13 percent) of the prison system than any other state in the U.S. Incarcerated parents who lose their children may never get them back and for many women in Hawaii prisons, this is a common occurrence. Hawaii state law allows family courts to terminate parental rights when a child has been removed from a parent. In addition, persons with a criminal history are barred from becoming foster or adoptive parents, and simply living with, or being married to, a person convicted of a crime limits the individual family rights. Given that Native Hawaiians make up the largest percentage of the state prison population, the impact on families is widespread and affects many generations. Native Hawaiian youth were the most frequently arrested in all offense categories.<ref name=":1" />

The report states that "culturally inappropriate" or unavailable re-entry services are not as effective for helping Native Hawaiians achieve successful life outcomes and stay out of prison, citing research showing that "culturally relevant and appropriate" interventions and services are the most effective for helping Native Hawaiians participate fully in the community. The report contrasts "traditional social work modalities" practiced in U.S. institutions that stress "individualistic" Northern European and North American values of self-determination against Pacific cultures, including Native Hawaiians, which "tend to see themselves as part of a collective group or community", drawing the conclusion that the "application of Western values to a culture that does not share them makes it difficult to ensure successful implementation of initiatives or services." Such tendencies in the carceral system create a "particularly traumatic" situation for incarcerated Native Hawaiians, particularly when they are imprisoned out-of-state, due to the interruption of their connection to family, the land, and community.<ref name=":1" />

== References ==
[[Category:Colonial outposts]]
<references />
[[Category:USA states]]
[[Category:Targets of regime change operations]]
[[Category:Countries invaded by the United States]]

Kingdom of Thailand

2026-06-25T01:15:02Z

Jadenw815: Added to the Thailand page

{{Main article|Rattanakosin Kingdom (1782 –1932)}}{{Infobox country|name=Kingdom of Thailand|native_name=ราชอาณาจักรไทย|image_flag=Flag of Thailand.svg|image_coat=Emblem of Thailand.svg|capital=Bangkok|largest_city=Bangkok|mode_of_production=[[Capitalism]]|government_type=Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy|leader_title1=Monarch|leader_name1=[[Vajiralongkorn]]|leader_title2=Prime Minister|leader_name2=[[Paetongtarn Shinawatra]]|image_map=Thailand map.svg|map_width=285|area_km2=513,120|population_estimate=66,041,239|population_estimate_year=2024}}

'''Thailand''', officially the '''Kingdom of Thailand''', is a [[United States of America|US]]-backed [[Monarchism|monarchy]] in [[Southeast Asia]]. It is bordered by [[Lao People's Democratic Republic|Laos]] and [[Kingdom of Cambodia|Cambodia]] to the east, [[Republic of the Union of Myanmar|Myanmar]] to the west and [[Malaysia]] to the south.

== History ==

=== Ayutthaya Kingdom (1351–1767) ===
{{Main article|Ayutthaya Kingdom (1351–1767)}}

=== Rattanakosin Kingdom (1782 –1932) ===
{{Main article|Rattanakosin Kingdom (1782 –1932)}}

=== Second World War ===
During the [[Second World War]], Thailand under Plaek Phibunsongkhram aligned with [[Imperial Japan]] after the Japanese invasion of Thailand in December 1941. The Thai government allowed Japanese forces to use Thai territory during the war and later declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom. Thailand had already fought Vichy France in the Franco-Thai War of 1940–1941 over disputed territories in French Indochina, including areas connected to Laos and Cambodia. With Japanese mediation, Thailand gained several territories from French Indochina, though these gains were reversed after the defeat of Japan.

=== Contemporary Thailand ===
After Vietnam overthrew [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Democratic Kampuchea]] in 1979, Thailand became a major rear area for anti-Vietnamese Cambodian forces along the Thai-Cambodian border. Although Thailand had previously clashed with the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese intervention transformed the Khmer Rouge from a border enemy into a useful anti-Vietnamese force from Bangkok's perspective.{{cite web|title=Thailand's Response to the Cambodian Genocide|url=https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/thailands-response-cambodian-genocide|website=Yale MacMillan Center|access-date=2026-06-24}} Thailand also hosted large numbers of Cambodian refugees, but the border camp system became entangled with the armed struggle against the Vietnamese-backed [[People's Republic of Kampuchea]]. Human Rights Watch reported that the Khmer Rouge continued to control camps along the Thai-Cambodian border and to violate the rights of refugees there after its ouster. Thailand also hosted large numbers of Cambodian refugees, including at Khao I Dang, which opened in 1979 and at its peak sheltered nearly 140,000 people.<ref>{{cite web|title=Famed Cambodian refugee camp reopens as educational centre|url=https://www.unhcr.org/us/news/stories/famed-cambodian-refugee-camp-reopens-educational-centre|website=UNHCR|date=2016-05-31|access-date=2026-06-24}}</ref>
{{cite web|title=Cambodia|url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/Cambodia.htm|website=Human Rights Watch|date=1989|access-date=2026-06-24}}The United States used Thailand as a base for its bombings of [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam|Vietnam]] and Laos during the [[Vietnam War|Resistance War]]. The number of U.S. soldiers occupying Thailand reached 40,000, including 365 Green Berets fighting against guerrillas within Thailand.<ref name=":12">{{Citation|author=[[William Blum]]|year=2002|title=Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower|chapter=A Concise History of United States Global Interventions, 1945 to the Present|isbn=9781842772201|publisher=Zed Books Ltd|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=29EED3C6906FF165E08303B9EAF66B4F|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacedas5bwprytpzcih6tof3ipede5uzmcvt47tfzwp4cptdau6vmjpy?filename=William%20Blum%20-%20Rogue%20State_%20A%20Guide%20to%20the%20World%27s%20Only%20Superpower-Zed%20Books%20Ltd%20%282002%29.pdf|page=116–117}}</ref>

The ''baht'' failed in 1997, leading to a regional economic crisis that made [[Republic of Singapore|Singapore]] and other countries rely on [[International Monetary Fund|IMF]] loans.<ref name=":1222">{{Citation|author=[[Vijay Prashad]]|year=2008|title=The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World|chapter=Singapore|page=255|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceascnzh26r5d6uitjjs2z7rflhaxlt7rboz5whzdf76qg6xxvecqq?filename=%28A%20New%20Press%20People%27s%20history%29%20Vijay%20Prashad%20-%20The%20darker%20nations_%20a%20people%27s%20history%20of%20the%20third%20world-The%20New%20Press%20%282008%29.pdf|publisher=The New Press|isbn=9781595583420|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9B40B96E830128A7FE0E0E887C06829F}}</ref>

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Countries]]
[[Category:Asian countries]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thailand}}

Cambodian genocide

2026-06-20T19:42:12Z

Jadenw815: Added some parts abut Khmer Rouge Genocide

'''Cambodian genocide''' or more properly called the '''Khmer Rouge Genocide''' refers to the mass killing, forced labor, starvation, disease, and political repression carried out under [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Democratic Kampuchea]], the state ruled by the [[Khmer Rouge]] from 1975 to 1979. Approximately 1.7 million people died, or around one fifth of Cambodia's population at the time.

{{cite web|title=Introduction to Cambodian Genocide Program|url=https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/introduction-cambodian-genocide-program|website=Yale MacMillan Center|access-date=2026-06-20}}The genocide followed years of war, foreign intervention, and social collapse. During the Vietnam War, the United States bombed Cambodia heavily, especially from 1970 to 1973. Historians Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen have argued that the bombing contributed to rural devastation and helped the Khmer Rouge recruit among peasants angered by the destruction.

{{cite web|last=Kiernan|first=Ben|last2=Owen|first2=Taylor|title=Making More Enemies than We Kill? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications|url=https://apjjf.org/ben-kiernan/4313|website=The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus|date=2015-04-27|access-date=2026-06-20}}After taking [[Phnom Penh]] in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated cities and attempted to reorganize Cambodian society around rural forced labor. The regime abolished money, attacked religion, closed schools, and targeted perceived enemies of the revolution, including intellectuals, former officials, ethnic Vietnamese, Cham Muslims, and other groups.

The genocide ended after [[Vietnam]] invaded Cambodia in December 1978 and overthrew the Khmer Rouge government in January 1979, following repeated Khmer Rouge attacks along the Vietnamese border. Vietnam helped establish the [[People's Republic of Kampuchea]], while the ousted Khmer Rouge retreated toward the Thai border. During the Cold War, the United States, China, and several U.S.-aligned states opposed the Vietnamese-backed government, and Democratic Kampuchea or later anti-Vietnamese coalitions continued to hold Cambodia's United Nations seat for years despite the Khmer Rouge's role in the genocide.

{{cite web|title=The Rise and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea|url=https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea/|website=Association for Asian Studies|access-date=2026-06-20}}

Republic of Vietnam (1955–1975)

2026-06-19T12:50:12Z

Jadenw815: Added more context to South Vietnam since this is what I learned in Leftist Asian Ethnic studies (anti-capitalist & socialist course)

{{Infobox country|name=Republic of Vietnam|native_name=Việt Nam Cộng hòa|image_flag=Flag of South Vietnam.svg|image_coat=Coat of arms of the Republic of Vietnam.svg|capital=Saigon (now [[Ho Chi Minh City]])|largest_city=capital|mode_of_production=[[Capitalism]]|image_map=South Vietnam map.svg|map_width=260|official_languages=Vietnamese|area_km2=173,809|population_estimate=19,582,000|population_estimate_year=1974}}

The '''Republic of Vietnam''' ('''RVN'''), also known as '''South Vietnam''', was a [[United States of America|U.S.]] puppet state in [[Southeast Asia]] that existed from 1955 to 1975. After the Liberation of Saigon, it reunified with the [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945–1975)|Democratic Republic of Vietnam]] (North Vietnam) to form the modern [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam]]. The U.S. military divided South Vietnam into four tactical zones from north to south in addition to a special zone for the capital.<ref name=":12">{{Citation|author=Nick Turse|year=2013|title=Kill Anything That Moves|isbn=9780805086911|city=[[New York City]]|publisher=Metropolitan Books|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9C38F09ECE21CCBF99DF72C4C1BC04B8|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecxjlu6vjw5bpohintus4ozngphwc2eiqgatjl66f5nzjsnh6sx5a?filename=Nick%20Turse%20-%20Kill%20Anything%20That%20Moves_%20The%20Real%20American%20War%20in%20Vietnam-Picador%20USA%20%282013%29.pdf|chapter=The Massacre at Trieu Ai|page=37}}</ref>

== History ==
'''Bảo Đại Regime'''

After the defeat of the [[French Republic (1946–1958)|French]] [[Colonialism|colonizers]] in 1954, the [[1954 Geneva Convention|Geneva Convention]] partitioned Vietnam into north and south and planned to reunify them in 1956 following an all-Vietnam election. The USA knew that [[Ho Chi Minh]] would win the election, since he was very popular and his people loved him, so America armed the south against revolutionary forces and installed [[Ngô Đình Diệm]] as the [[Catholicism|Catholic]] autocrat of the south.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=Nick Turse|year=2013|title=Kill Anything That Moves|chapter=Introduction|page=12|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecxjlu6vjw5bpohintus4ozngphwc2eiqgatjl66f5nzjsnh6sx5a?filename=Nick%20Turse%20-%20Kill%20Anything%20That%20Moves_%20The%20Real%20American%20War%20in%20Vietnam-Picador%20USA%20%282013%29.pdf|city=[[New York City]]|publisher=Metropolitan Books|isbn=9780805086911|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9C38F09ECE21CCBF99DF72C4C1BC04B8}}</ref>

'''Diệm' Regime'''

Under Diệm, South Vietnam developed into an authoritarian anti-communist state rather than a liberal democracy. Diệm refused to participate in the nationwide reunification elections called for after the Geneva settlement, while U.S. officials recognized that Hồ Chí Minh would likely have won a free election.{{cite web|title=Historical Documents: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume IV, Vietnam, 1966, Document 38|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v04/d38|website=Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State|access-date=2026-06-19}} Diệm's government repressed communists, Viet Minh supporters, opposition parties, and dissidents, while relying heavily on U.S. military and financial support.

The [[Strategic Hamlet Program]], launched under Diệm with U.S. support, attempted to isolate rural peasants from the National Liberation Front by reorganizing or relocating villages into fortified settlements.{{cite web|title=Strategic Hamlet Program|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v03/d197|website=Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State|access-date=2026-06-19}} The program deepened rural resentment toward the Saigon government and failed to defeat the insurgency.

Diệm's rule also produced a major religious and political crisis in 1963. Although South Vietnam's population was majority Buddhist, Diệm's Catholic-dominated regime was widely accused of favoritism toward Catholics and repression of Buddhists. In August 1963, Diệm declared martial law and his forces raided Buddhist pagodas connected to the protest movement.{{cite web|title=Vietnam, Diem, the Buddhist Crisis|url=https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/vietnam-diem-the-buddhist-crisis|website=John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum|access-date=2026-06-19}} Later that year, South Vietnamese military officers overthrew and assassinated Diệm in a coup carried out with the prior knowledge of the U.S. government.

South Vietnam also became connected to the regional narcotics economy during the war. Rather than being a major producer of opium or heroin itself, South Vietnam functioned as an important wartime market and transit point for heroin produced in the [[Golden Triangle]], especially Burma, Laos, and Thailand. Golden Triangle heroin refineries supplied South Vietnam, where U.S. soldiers could purchase heroin cheaply.{{cite web|last=Isaacs|first=Mike|title=Narcs and spies: The drug war's murky origins in Southeast Asia|url=https://theworld.org/stories/2023/06/29/narcs-and-spies-drug-war-s-murky-origins-southeast-asia|website=The World|date=2023-06-29|access-date=2026-06-19}} The growth of this market reflected the wider destabilization of Southeast Asia during the U.S. war in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, where military intervention, covert operations, and regional client forces intersected with existing opium and heroin networks.{{cite web|title=Overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem|url=https://www.britannica.com/video/Ngo-Dinh-Diem-coup-military-knowledge-South-November-1-1963/-72058|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica|access-date=2026-06-19}}

== References ==
[[Category:Puppet states]]
<references />

Kingdom of Cambodia

2026-06-19T12:31:52Z

Jadenw815: Added more to Democratic Kampuchea

{{Infobox country|name=Kingdom of Cambodia|native_name=ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា|image_flag=Flag of Cambodia.svg|image_coat=Coat of arms of Cambodia.svg|capital=Phnom Penh|largest_city=Phnom Penh|mode_of_production=[[Capitalism]]|government_type=Unitary parliamentary constitutional elective [[monarchy]]|leader_title1=Monarch|leader_name1=[[Norodom Sihamoni]]|leader_title2=Prime Minister|leader_name2=[[Hun Manet]]|leader_title3=President of the Senate|leader_name3=[[Hun Sen]]|leader_title4=President of the National Assembly|leader_name4=[[Khuon Sodary]]|national_motto=ជាតិ សាសនា ព្រះមហាក្សត្រ|englishmotto=Nation, Religion, King|image_map=Cambodia map.svg|map_width=290|official_languages=Khmer|demonym=Cambodian . Khmer . Kampuchean (historical)|area_km2=181,035|population_estimate=17,638,801|population_estimate_year=2024|currency=Riel|currency_code=KHR|drives_on=right|calling_code=+855|iso3166code=KH|cctld=.kh}}

'''Cambodia''', officially the '''Kingdom of Cambodia''', is a [[constitutional monarchy]] and a liberal nation in [[Southeast Asia]]. It is bordered by [[Kingdom of Thailand|Thailand]] to the northwest, [[Lao People's Democratic Republic|Laos]] to the north, [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam|Vietnam]] to the east and the [[Gulf of Thailand]] to the southwest.

== History ==

=== Chenla (550–802) ===
{{Main article|Chenla (550–802)}}

=== Khmer Empire (802–1431) ===
{{Main article|Khmer Empire (802–1431)}}

=== Kingdom of Cambodia (1431–1863) ===
{{Main article|Kingdom of Cambodia (1431–1863)}}

=== French colonisation (1863–1953) ===
In 1863 [[French Empire (1852–1870)|France]] imposed an unequal treaty upon Cambodia making it a protectorate as part of its [[Imperialism|imperial]] ambitions in [[Indochina]]. This treaty was later superseded by a more oppressive treaty in 1884 essentially making the country a full [[Colonialism|colony]] and placing the Khmer monarchy under the control of a French governor-general. French oppression continued until the [[Japan|Japanese]] occupied the country in 1940 during the [[Second World War]]. When France reoccupied Cambodia in 1945 it struggled to put down the growing [[national liberation]] movement, leading it to give over more and more autonomy until Cambodia achieved full independence on 9 November 1953.<ref>{{Citation|author=D. V. Deopik, IU. IA. Mikheev|year=1979|title=The Great Soviet Encyclopedia|title-url=https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Cambodia}}</ref>

=== Kingdom of Cambodia (1953–1970) ===
In 1969 and 1970, [[Henry Kissinger|Kissinger]] and [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] secretly bombed Cambodia and then overthrew Prince [[Sihanouk]], who had refused to be a [[United States of America|U.S.]] puppet. The bombing destroyed Cambodia's traditional economy and allowed [[Pol Pot]] to take power five years later.<ref name=":12">{{Citation|author=[[William Blum]]|year=2002|title=Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower|chapter=A Concise History of United States Global Interventions, 1945 to the Present|isbn=9781842772201|publisher=Zed Books Ltd|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=29EED3C6906FF165E08303B9EAF66B4F|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacedas5bwprytpzcih6tof3ipede5uzmcvt47tfzwp4cptdau6vmjpy?filename=William%20Blum%20-%20Rogue%20State_%20A%20Guide%20to%20the%20World%27s%20Only%20Superpower-Zed%20Books%20Ltd%20%282002%29.pdf|page=116}}</ref>

=== Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979) ===
Before the US bombing, Pol Pot only had about 5,000 supporters. His recruitment relied on the bombing, and his army grew to 200,000 people when he took power.

The rise of the Khmer Rouge was shaped by the destabilization of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. U.S. bombing of Cambodia, especially from 1970 to 1973, devastated rural areas and contributed to mass displacement and resentment against the Lon Nol government. Historian Ben Kiernan has argued that the bombing helped the Khmer Rouge recruit among peasants whose villages and families had been attacked.

{{cite web|last=Kiernan|first=Ben|last2=Owen|first2=Taylor|title=Making More Enemies than We Kill? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications|url=https://apjjf.org/ben-kiernan/4313|website=The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus|date=2015-04-27|access-date=2026-06-19}}After taking Phnom Penh in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated cities and attempted to reorganize Cambodian society through forced rural labor, abolition of money, attacks on religion, and mass repression. The Cambodian genocide lasted from 1975 to 1979 and caused approximately 1.7 million deaths, around 21 percent of Cambodia's population, through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor. {{cite web|title=Introduction to Cambodian Genocide Program|url=https://macmillan.yale.edu/gsp/introduction-cambodian-genocide-program|website=Yale MacMillan Center|access-date=2026-06-19}}The Khmer Rouge regime also carried out persecution against ethnic and religious minorities, including Cham Muslims, ethnic Vietnamese, and others. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia later convicted senior Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of genocide, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

In late 1978, [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam|Vietnam]] invaded and ousted Pol Pot, pushing him and his Khmer Rouge to the border with [[Kingdom of Thailand|Thailand]], partially fueling the Cambodia-Thailand border war. Being an American proxy, Thailand supported Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The United States continued to support Pol Pot and gave him international military support. It also helped [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Democratic Kampuchea]] keep its seat at the [[United Nations|UN]] even after it collapsed.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[Al Mayadeen]]|title=Kissinger's secret war in Cambodia reveals mass killings: Intercept|date=2023-05-24|url=https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/kissingers-secret-war-in-cambodia-reveals-mass-killings:-int|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530171948/https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/kissingers-secret-war-in-cambodia-reveals-mass-killings:-int|archive-date=2023-05-30}}</ref>

The Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge government in January 1979 after years of border attacks and conflict. However, the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea was not recognized by the United States, China, or many U.S.-aligned states. Instead, Democratic Kampuchea and later the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea continued to hold Cambodia's United Nations seat for years, despite the central role of the Khmer Rouge in the coalition.

{{cite web|title=The Rise and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea|url=https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-rise-and-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea/|website=Association for Asian Studies|access-date=2026-06-19}}

== References ==
[[Category:Cambodia]]
[[Category:Asian countries]]
[[Category:Countries]]
[[Category:Countries targeted by CIA coups]]
<references />
[[Category:Former French colonies]]
[[Category:Member states of ASEAN]]

Terrorism

2026-06-19T12:19:43Z

Jadenw815: Added another paragraph under terrorism about colonial terrorism

[[File:My Lai massacre photo.jpg|thumb|Photo by [[Ronald L. Haeberle]] on 16 March 1968 showing the aftermath of the [[My Lai massacre]], in which [[United States of America|Statesian]] forces raped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of Vietnamese civilians, mostly women, children, and the elderly. This was not an isolated incident but rather part of a much broader campaign of state terror by U.S. forces during the [[Vietnam War]].]]
'''Terrorism''' is the doctrine of using [[political violence]] to influence [[public opinion]], either by inducing a state of terror within a population in order to destroy its [[morale]] and pressure its leaders, or by "awakening" people and inspiring them to commit similar acts (see [[propaganda of the deed]]). The targets of terrorist acts are chosen randomly (e.g. [[Civilian|civilians]] and [[Non-combatant|non-combatants]]) or are selected for based on their importance (leaders). It can be perpetrated by both individuals and groups, both [[state]] and non-state actors. It is a politically-charged term, commonly used by [[Imperial core|Western]] governments and [[Propaganda|propagandists]] in order to demonise [[Anti-imperialism|anti-imperialist]] movements and justify their own terror, no matter how righteous said movements may be in their struggle.<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|author=[[Kit Klarenberg]]|newspaper=[[MintPress News]]|title=Team B and the Jerusalem Conference: How Israel Helped Craft Modern-Day "Terrorism"|date=2023-11-17|url=https://www.mintpressnews.com/team-b-jerusalem-conference-israel-helped-craft-modern-terrorism/286295/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231119235445/https://www.mintpressnews.com/team-b-jerusalem-conference-israel-helped-craft-modern-terrorism/286295/|archive-date=2023-11-19}}</ref>

[[Karl Marx]] famously wrote in the final issue of the [[Neue Rheinische Zeitung|''Neue Rheinische Zeitung'']] that "When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for [[Revolutionary terror|the terror]]."<ref>[[Karl Marx|Marx, Karl]] (1849-05-19).: [[Library:Suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung|''Suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung'']]. ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung''. No. 301. Page 1.</ref> [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] rejected the individual terrorism of the [[Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries|Socialist-Revolutionaries]] due to its evident ineffectiveness, but noted approvingly that those who condemned revolutionary terror on principle were mocked by [[Georgi Plekhanov|Plekhanov]].<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Vladimir Lenin]]|year=1920|title="Left-wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:%22Left-wing%22_communism,_an_infantile_disorder|chapter=The Struggle Against Which Enemies Within the Working-Class Movement Helped Bolshevism Develop, Gain Strength, and Become Steeled|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:%22Left-wing%22_communism,_an_infantile_disorder#The_struggle_against_which_enemies_within_the_working-class_movement_helped_Bolshevism_develop,_gain_strength,_and_become_steeled}}</ref> Once [[Russian revolution of 1917|in power]], the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolsheviks]] initiated their own campaign of revolutionary terror against their opponents.

== Liberal terminology ==
In the 1970s, [[State of Israel|"Israel"]] tried to popularize the term "terrorism" to describe [[State of Palestine|Palestinian]] freedom fighters. In July 1979, the [[Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism]] declared that all "terrorists" were part of a single movement backed by the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]]. In the 1980s, [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] director [[William Casey]] concluded that, while the USSR funded some movements in the Global South, it did not direct all "terrorist" entities in the world.

[[Bourgeois media|Mainstream]] use of the term decreased after 2011 before returning to prominence in 2023 with the [[Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa|War on Gaza]].<ref name=":0" />

== Western terrorism ==
[[Ronald Reagan]] [[Operation Cyclone|supported]] the [[Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978–1992)|Afghan]] [[mujahideen]] against the [[Soviet Army]] in the 1980s. After the fall of the Soviet Union, his successors transported the same militants into [[Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia]] and [[Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija|Kosovo]] to destroy [[Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992–2006)|Yugoslavia]].<ref name=":0" />

The [[CIA]] facilitated right wing coups in Latin America and subsequently built a network of terror called [[Operation Condor]] beginning officially in 1975, though the intelligence sharing network existed as early as 1974. The network facilitated the murder, kidnapping, torture, disappearance and arrest of leftist and other political dissidents, including those who had left their home countries. In 1978, amidst the resistance campaigns of the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]], the [[Red Brigades]], the [[Red Army Faction]], [[(Euskadi Ta Askatasuna|Euskadi Ta Askatasuna]], among others, France, the United Kingdom and West Germany planned to establish a similar network of repression.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Whitney Webb|newspaper=Mintpress News|title=CIA DOCS SHOWS UK, FRANCE AND WEST GERMANY WANTED TO BRING “OPERATION CONDOR” TO EUROPE|date=2019-04-17|url=https://www.mintpressnews.com/declassified-cia-docs-uk-france-and-west-germany-wanted-to-bring-operation-condor-to-europe/257541/}}</ref>

=== Colonial Terrorism ===
The [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|United Kingdom]] financed right wing Unionist terrorism against Irish Catholic civilians and [[Irish Republican]] resistance organizations during [[the Troubles]]. This included [[Ulster Defence Regiment]] soldiers who were also members of Unionist terrorist groups and conspiracies to fund the [[Ulster Volunteer Force]] materially within the British army.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Socialist Worker|title=Documents reveal how Britain backed Loyalist terror in Northern Ireland|date=2011-8-09|url=https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/documents-reveal-how-britain-backed-loyalist-terror-in-northern-ireland/}}</ref>

The Algerian War of Independence provides an example of the political use of the term "terrorism" in a colonial context. The National Liberation Front (FLN) began an armed struggle against French rule in 1954, seeking the establishment of a sovereign Algerian state.{{cite web|title=Algerian War|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Algerian-War|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica|access-date=2026-06-19}} France had treated Algeria not merely as an overseas colony, but as part of metropolitan France, organizing it into departments after 1848.

The [[National Liberation Front (Algeria)|FLN]] began its armed struggle against French rule in 1954<ref>{{cite web|title=Algerian War|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Algerian-War|website=Encyclopaedia Britannica|access-date=2026-06-19}}</ref> and carried out attacks against civilian targets, including bombings in Algiers during the Battle of Algiers. These attacks were described by [[French Republic|France]] and other Western states as terrorism, while anti-colonial analyses have emphasized the wider context of French colonial domination, settler rule, and state violence against Algerians. The case of the FLN shows how the term "terrorism" can be used asymmetrically: violence by colonized peoples is criminalized as terror, while violence by colonial states is often presented as security, order, or counterinsurgency.

== References ==
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Capitalist terminology]]
<references />

Artificial intelligence

2026-06-18T08:16:34Z

Jadenw815: Added to the AI page

'''Artificial intelligence''' ('''AI''') is the simulation of intelligent behavior by computers.<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|author=Chris Fry|newspaper=[[MR Online]]|title=Artificial Intelligence and the class struggle|date=2023-08-03|url=https://mronline.org/2023/08/03/artificial-intelligence-and-the-class-struggle/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806200155/https://mronline.org/2023/08/03/artificial-intelligence-and-the-class-struggle/|archive-date=2023-08-06}}</ref> AI and robots are [[means of production]], not [[Proletariat|workers]], and do not create [[value]]. Increased use of machinery ([[constant capital]]) and decreased use of human [[Labour|labor]] ([[variable capital]]) causes a [[Tendency of the rate of profit to fall|decrease in the rate of profit]].<ref>{{Web citation|author=Elaine Graham-Leigh|newspaper=[[Counterfire]]|title=Marx and the Robots. Networked Production, AI and Human Labour - book review|date=2022-10-13|url=https://www.counterfire.org/articles/book-reviews/23534-marx-and-the-robots-networked-production-ai-and-human-labour-book-review|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221025032307/https://www.counterfire.org/articles/book-reviews/23534-marx-and-the-robots-networked-production-ai-and-human-labour-book-review|archive-date=2022-10-25}}</ref>

== Uses ==

=== Art ===
[[OpenAI]] created the [[DALL-E]] and [[Midjourney]] AI image generators.<ref name=":1">{{Web citation|author=Pol Clarissou|newspaper=Red Sails|title=Artisanal Intelligence: What’s the Deal with “AI” Art?|date=2024-09-06|url=https://redsails.org/artisanal-intelligence/|retrieved=2024-10-20}}</ref>

=== Military ===
The [[United States Department of Defense|Pentagon]] has simulated AI drones that received points for destroying their targets. When human operators tried to override the AI's decisions, the AI attacked its operators or destroyed communication towers.<ref name=":0" />

=== Police ===
[[Police]] use AI to automate racial profiling.<ref name=":1" />

== Opposition ==

=== WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes ===
In 2023, workers from the [[Writers Guild of America]] went on [[Strike action|strike]] due to fears that they would have to rewrite AI-generated scripts. At the same time, [[Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists|SAG-AFTRA]] went on strike to prevent companies from using AI simulations of actors without compensation.<ref name=":0" />

The Writers Guild of America stated that its 2023 agreement established that AI-generated material could not be considered literary material or source material, and that writers could not be required to use AI software when performing writing services.{{cite web|title=Artificial Intelligence|url=https://www.wga.org/contracts/know-your-rights/artificial-intelligence|website=Writers Guild of America West|access-date=2026-06-18}} SAG-AFTRA similarly described its 2023 agreement as including protections around digital replicas and the use of artificial intelligence involving performers.

{{cite web|title=Artificial Intelligence|url=https://www.sagaftra.org/contracts-industry-resources/member-resources/artificial-intelligence|website=SAG-AFTRA|access-date=2026-06-18}}

== See also ==
[[Essay:Intellectual property in the times of AI]]

== References ==
[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:Computing]]