According to the United Nations calendar, every year from October 24 to 30 is designated as World Disarmament Week, during which events are held to discuss the damages caused by war. This week was established during a special disarmament session of the UN General Assembly in 1978. The primary goal of the five permanent members of the Security Council, who themselves possess nuclear arsenals, in designating this week and organizing other disarmament initiatives such as the “UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons,” was to prevent other states from acquiring nuclear power. Despite the extensive protests following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States and the widespread anti-nuclear campaigns of the 1950s and 60s, they helped facilitate, against the backdrop of the Cold War, the entrance of Israel, North Korea, India, and Pakistan into the ranks of nuclear-armed countries. Currently, the nuclear-armed states, led by U.S. imperialism, have expanded their nuclear budgets to the point that they can destroy life on Earth five times over.
As the war between Russia and Ukraine continues, Russia and NATO have begun threatening each other with their nuclear capabilities, raising global concerns. Meanwhile, the leaders of countries at UN General Assembly gatherings, including those with veto power and nuclear weapons, have included chemical, incendiary (like white phosphorus), mines, booby traps, and other such tools, as well as blinding lasers, in various disarmament protocols, but they do not adhere to them. U.S. imperialism extensively used incendiary bombs to clear North Vietnamese forests, under the pretext of destroying Viet Cong shelters, resulting in the killing, injuring, or displacement of villagers living in these forests. Chemical weapons have also been widely used in the Iran-Iraq war and by the ruling military in Myanmar against Muslims.
Now, as the Russia-NATO war continues in Ukraine and Israel intensifies its genocide in Gaza, and while rivals in Sudan are igniting the flames of war and massacring defenseless men, women, and children, the UN is powerless to intervene. At the same time, Western imperialists have significant political and economic reasons to perpetuate wars in the Middle East and in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian and Lebanese people. Their giant corporations and weapons manufacturers are making vast profits, while paying large bribes to war-hungry politicians. This is why the world is increasingly on the brink of another major war. Various countries are seeking to bolster their military capabilities, and arms manufacturers are gaining more attention. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, and with the subsequent war in Gaza and the potential for a regional conflict in the Middle East, countries’ demand for various weapons has risen sharply. According to a new report, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, seven major European arms manufacturers, as well as American arms companies, have seen significant profits. The market value of leading military equipment producers in the United States and Europe has skyrocketed over the past two and a half years, following the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Euronews reported that according to a study by the financial and strategic consulting firm Accuracy, the performance of seven major U.S. companies in this industry and their European counterparts has increased by nearly 60% since the beginning of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
No treaty or ceremony organized by the UN is capable of controlling these wars or preventing their spread, as these wars serve the interests of the imperialist and large capitalist countries, which themselves control the fate of the UN. These wars are the result of the structural crisis of the capitalist system, and no genuine or superficial desire by bourgeois politicians and intellectuals for a society free from war and filled with peace can materialize under this system. This will only become possible when the capitalist system, which is intrinsically linked to war, is overthrown and replaced by a socialist government. Only organized workers and socialists, gathered in a clear-sighted, disciplined party based on the theory of scientific socialism, can gain social hegemony through persuasion and, via a social revolution, overthrow the current system and establish a socialist order. In such a society, there would no longer be a need for the empty declaration of a Disarmament Week.
