Why all these wars and what can we do about them?

by Brendan Devlin

Thanks to Peace Alliance Winnipeg for bringing us together today. It is amazing to see so many groups united by an understanding that intensifying wars are an existential threat to the world – to the millions whose lives are taken or ruined in conflict zones, and the to the work that we all do.

2026 has seen an astounding escalation of wars of aggression and lawlessness by the US and its allies. We have watched in horror as the US has brought military warfare back to the Western hemisphere by bombing civilian boats in Caribbean waters, bombing the capital of Venezuela and kidnapping President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and incarcerating them in New York. We have watched in horror as the US escalated its economic warfare against Cuba, tightening its already lethal blockade and imposing a total blockade of oil, preventing Cubans from accessing life sustaining services like electricity and transportation. We have watched in horror as the US and Israel ramped up their genocidal war of aggression across West Asia, continuing the industrial scale slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza while boasting that it is applying the “Gaza model” to Lebanon, and launching its second war of aggression against Iran by bombing an elementary school and killing more than 200 children.

To these crimes, the Canadian government responded with procedural complaints and substantive support. Even if he expressed some regret around how the US attacked Iran, the Prime Minister supported the US attack even while noting it seemed inconsistent with international law. When the US bombed Venezuela, Carney welcomed it as an opportunity to bring democracy to Venezuela. Carney doesn’t object to what the US is doing or the crimes that it is committing, he objects to the US excluding Canada and allies from the process of waging war and planning illegal aggression.

We can run down the list of brutal crimes and atrocities of our government and its allies all day, but I want to use my time here to talk about why these escalations are taking place, how they’re connected, and what we can do to resist it.

Many popular explanations for these wars serve to confuse us about what is happening and why.

We are also told that these wars are being waged to distract from politicians’ from scandals at home. But Cuba has been blockaded for decades. The US and Canada have been working to overthrow the Venezuelan government for more than two decades. Palestine has been under attack for a century. Iran has been targeted and aggressed upon since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This all predates Epstein and his many associates’ crimes.

The causes of these conflicts are much deeper than an attempt to cover up the sordid crimes of our politicians.

Fundamentally, these wars are waged to protect the economic interests of the ruling classes of the West. The US has never forgiven Venezuela, Iran or Cuba for their anti-imperialist revolutions, which saw their people stand up and overthrow leaders that ran their countries in Washington’s interest.

And it isn’t only the US with economic interests at stake. Canada’s largest corporations – the same ones raking in massive profits while the rest of us suffer a cost of living crisis – have expanding economic interests on every continent in the world. These companies need military power to protect their claims to other countries’ resources. So when Venezuela or Mali or Burkina Faso or China nationalize mines controlled by Canadian corporations, this is a threat to profits. When Iran refuses to bow down to Israel and the US – and supports resistance movements from Palestine, to Lebanon, to Yemen to Iraq – this is a threat to Western control of resources in the region, and ultimately a threat to profits.

But why the escalation of war right now?

Fundamentally, these escalations are an product of the declining power of US imperialism and its allies. We are living through a historic transition in world affairs, and US decline may well be the nail in the coffin of collective western domination of the planet built over 500 years of colonialism and imperialism. Formerly colonized countries around the world have grown too strong to be permanently subjugated, and regional powers like China, Russia and Iran are posing increasingly serious challenges US and Western domination. Trump can boast all he likes, but he no longer has the power to set the terms of how the Strait of Hormuz will be opened (and his allies clearly don’t think he does either). Like cornered animals, the imperialist countries that have benefited from these centuries of colonial plunder are becoming more and more volatile, violent and dangerous in their desperate attempts to cling to their power.

As a result, we are living through a historic drive to world threatening war that is unprecedented in human history in its destructive potential. The world’s richest and most aggressive countries are coordinating through NATO to collectively commit 5% of their GDP – or 5% of the total size of their economy – to “defence” spending – meaning war industries.

These are the same countries that have perpetrated genocide in Palestine since 2023. Through their material support, their arms shipments and continued cooperation with the genocidal Israeli regime, the US, Canada, Britain and many allies are active sponsors of the genocide. They are not merely complicit or supportive; they are enabling the genocide – they are making it possible. This is not a rogue regime; this is a genocide axis.

The Canadian government recently voted down a Bill proposing to close all remaining legislative loopholes permitting Canadian weapons to go to Israel. Carney’s defence industrial strategy amounts to a transformation of the Canadian economy in service of world threatening war. It proposes to make militarism the foundation of Canadian economic growth and weave militarism into the fabric of Canadian economic life in service of a US-led military alliance, NATO. Despite procedural criticism of Trump’s leadership, this government has made clear its commitment to the genocide axis.

I’m not mincing words about the challenges we’re up against, but we aren’t gathered here today to despair. We are gathered here today to work to bring an end to the mass killing that is only accelerating. This drive to war aims to embolden and empower the genocide axis while redirecting more and more wealth in Canada toward war industries and away from life sustaining services like healthcare, housing, food or education. This drive to war threatens every movement represented today. The drive to war will severely undermine movements for economic justice, Indigenous rights, housing justice, climate justice and more – all of which will only be worse in the event of an actual war.

What can we do together to resist the world threatening drive to war, which the Canadian government has so enthusiastically embraced?

The first step is to support Indigenous sovereignty movements defending their land from extraction that will serve the war industries of the genocide axis. Canada is aiming to contribute to the drive to war by becoming an energy superpower and a critical mineral supplier to war industries – this can only be accomplished by accelerating the theft and destruction of Indigenous land. The government’s extractive offensive and the rollback of Indigenous rights – the many hard won gains by Indigenous movements over decades – are a critical pillar of the drive to war. Indigenous land stewardship is not only an ecological imperative for the survival of humanity, it is a front-line struggle to stop war economy in its tracks.

Second, the war industry is here in Canada and in Winnipeg. The Canadian government is currently working hard to make Toronto the host of a new international “Defense, Security and Resilience Bank – which would finance a drastic acceleration in military production. This is a proposal to make Toronto the financial headquarters of military production for the genocide axis. Canada is a major arms exporter. Here in Winnipeg, Magellan Aerospace produces parts for F-35 fighter jets that are used in Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Boeing also produces weapons that are sent to the US war machine. Both of these billionaire owned mega corporations have received generous public support from the governments of Manitoba and Canada – this must be stopped. We must push for a real arms embargo on Israel.

Third, we need to learn to see through the war propaganda against so-called enemy countries. We must support all peoples rights to self-determination, but living up to this means understanding when a situation is being opportunistically twisted in service of the drive to war. When the US and Israel support protestors in Iran – who are responding to economic hardship caused mainly by US economic warfare – and calls on protestors the same Iranian government now defending the region from Israeli military aggression, they are not doing this for democracy or human rights, they are doing this for Israel and imperialism. US support for Iran’s protests less than a month before launching a war of aggression is textbook, and we must resist being co-opted into supporting these war propaganda offensives.

We need to start thinking less like enlightened individuals and more like a movement. This means asking what can we control, where do we have leverage? The answer is our own government, and Canada’s alliances. Do not get distracted by calls to condemn countries we cannot control – a movement needs to be laser focused on where we can build power.

Given the growing challenges US power across the world, we need to prepare for heightened military and economic warfare in this hemisphere.

This means we must build a movement to defend Cuba. Cuba stands as a beacon of hope and a testament to the possibilities of a society that puts people over profit. Just 90 miles off the US coast, here is a country that provides free, comprehensive medical care to its citizens, where most people own their homes and rents are tied to income, that sent its armed forces to support the support the liberation of southern Africa from the apartheid regimes backed by the West, a country that responds to economic crises not with tax cuts or incentives for the rich, but by making sure everyone has enough to survive. Despite being a poor country suffering an illegal blockade, Cuba at one point had achieved a longer life expectancy than the US, until the US tightened the blockade and rolled back some of these gains. If the US were to succeed in defeating the Cuban revolution, it would be a blow to progressive forces across the entire hemisphere, including movements demanding progressive change in Canada.

We must ensure Cuba’s survival, and push for the Canadian government to send all materials needed, including oil.

We must build a movement capable of pressuring the US to return Nicolas Maduro as the rightful President of Venezuela. It is up to the people of Venezuela to decide their leader, and Nicolas Maduro being removed by the US does not advance democracy, it advances US and Canadian corporate interests at the expense of sovereignty of peoples across the hemisphere.

We are building a movement to confront an existential threat to humanity.

Feel the power of being gathered here today. The question can no longer be “what can I do?” – the question is “what can we do?” Talk to someone you don’t know today, think about what you can build together. What matters is not just what happens at rallies like today, but the work that happens in between rallies like today.

Join the antiwar movement, recognize humanity’s stake in Indigenous struggles for sovereignty and land defence, and bring the urgency of the anti-war message into all struggles and organizations you are involved with.