- Rojava Zero Hour
- Venezuela in Perspective
- Ghosh: Gangster Imperialism
- Blakeley: Off Comes the Mask
- Klare: Renewed Nuclear Threat
- The Left in the Iran Upsurge
- Review: Socialism Without Tears
- Taking Stock of Gen Z Movements
- Greenlanders and Danes Have an Opinion
- Vietnam’s Communists Congregate
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Rojava Zero Hour
Blade Runner / Freedom (London)
Recent weeks’ clashes between Syrian state forces and Kurdish forces have developed into a multi-front assault on Rojava, threatening open war as a means of forcing it to integrate into an Islamist state structure. Northeast Syria’s ruling Union Party (PYD) has called on “Kurdistani forces to declare a general mobilisation,” warning that “Kurds in Rojava face the threat of extermination.”
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Venezuela in Perspective
• Global Meaning William I. Robinson / NACLA (New York)
• Epitaph for a Revolution? Luís Bonilla-Molina / Links (Sydney)
• After the Bombs Jessica Dos Santos Jardin / Truthout (Santa Monica)
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Ghosh: Gangster Imperialism
Jayati Ghosh / Orissa POST (Rasulgarh, India)
At the core of Trump’s revival of the Monroe Doctrine – the “Donroe Doctrine” – lies the belief that the United States can act with impunity within its self-defined “backyard,” and that other major powers, particularly China, can do the same in theirs. At the same time, the US reserves the right to advance its strategic interests wherever it sees fit, including Greenland.
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Blakeley: Off Comes the Mask
Grace Blakeley / graceblakeley.substack.com (London)
Much fun has been poked at the idea of the liberal rules-based order. Its alleged rules have been flouted so often, and so blatantly, by so many of the states tasked with upholding it that defending it seems fatuous. Nevertheless, this system has been critical to the functioning of global capitalism — and its collapse will have significant consequences.
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Klare: Renewed Nuclear Threat
Michael Klare / TomDispatch (New York)
Beginning on Friday, February 6, 2026, the world’s two major nuclear-weapons powers, Russia and the United States, will not be bound by any arms-control treaties and so will be legally free to cram their nuclear arsenals with as many new warheads as they wish — a step both sides appear poised to take.
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The Left in the Iran Upsurge
• Council of the Left Siyâvash Shahabi / The Fire Next Time (Athens)
• Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company / Socialist Project (Toronto)
• Who are the Opposition? Sarah Shamim / Al Jazeera (Doha)
• Report from the Street / Feminists for Jina
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Review: Socialism Without Tears
Herman Rosenfeld / Canadian Dimension (Winnipeg)
At a time of burgeoning anti-communism from both conservatives and liberals, Red Flags: A Reckoning with Communism for the Future of the Left is an accessible synthesis of the history of communism that draws on the latest research to analyze the contradictions and uneasy truths the left needs to confront if it is to build a genuinely liberatory alternative to capitalism.
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Taking Stock of Gen Z Movements
Subhanjana Das / Waging Nonviolence (Brooklyn)
Indonesia. Madagascar. The Philippines. Morocco. Nepal. Tanzania. Peru. Paraguay. Timor-leste. Maldives. Kenya. Countries with little shared history or political context, yet all were engulfed at different moments this year by the same force: street protests led overwhelmingly by Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012. Youth uprisings are not new, but these mark a distinct shift.
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Greenlanders and Danes Have an Opinion
• One Big FU from the Folks in the Streets Dmytro Hubenko / DW (Berlin)
• Inuits Hit Back Anna Caldwell / The Independent (London)
• Labor Leader Weighs In Michael Sainato / The Guardian (London)
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Vietnam’s Communists Congregate
Nguyen Khac Giang / The Diplomat (Arlington VA)
The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s 14th National Congress may prove the most significant in a generation. Beyond determining who commands Vietnamese politics until 2031, the Congress will reveal whether the country’s single-party system can evolve to meet contemporary demands, or whether it will ossify under a security establishment that has never wielded greater influence.
