The enormous success of the Stop the War Coalition in Britain, following in the footsteps of the anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements, has brought large numbers of people into political activity, many of them becoming activists for the first time. The crisis of Blair’s government, made more severe because of the continued opposition to the war and to the occupation in Iraq, has put political debate at the centre of many peoples’ lives. Socialist Outlook, new as a political journal, is a response to this situation.

Socialist Outlook is launched by the International Socialist Group, which is also a participant in SociaIist Resistance, a monthly activist newspaper. This new, journal version of Socialist Outlook will express the views of the ISG on the politics and debates of the day, but as a quarterly it will be more analytical, looking at events in greater depth than a monthly paper is able to do. It will also play an educational role, looking at historical precedents for the battles we face today, and it will be theoretical, explaining how Marxist theory, as developed by Lenin, Trotsky, Kollontai and other revolutionaries, is necessary for an understanding our world.

As this issue sets out to show, the world in the twenty-first century is a dangerous place. The United States, with total economic and military power at present, faces inter-imperialist competition and the rapid growth of China, set to overtake the US as the biggest world economy. Ever more sophisticated weapons of mass destruction are being developed, not in nations of the impoverished neo-colonial world, but in the dominant capitalist countries. The environment is being devastated; client nations are being reduced to destitution and early death faces the vast majority of their populations. All of this makes it essential to try and understand the role of capitalism and the New Imperialism in these processes.

We need to do this not simply for the sake of understanding, but in order to develop strategies so that when the working classes and their allies move into battle against such barbarism, revolutionary Marxists will be able to support and develop these battles. Many are the examples of working class uprisings going down to defeat for lack of strategic understanding. Allende in Chile defeated partly because he refused to arm the masses; the recent uprisings in Argentina a failure for lack of revolutionary leadership. Revolutionary Marxists need to arm themselves intellectually, politically and organisationally. We hope that Socialist Outlook will play a small part in that process.

The journal will have three sections: Politics, Theory and History, and Reviews, and each issue will have a theme which the majority of the articles will follow. In the light of the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq and the continuing occupatiori of Iraq the theme of the first issue is: Capitalism Means War: Politics by Other Means.

The contents of this issue are united by the need to analyse the political situation world wide after the launch of Bush’s ‘War on Terror’, initiated after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. These events transformed his position from an inept and faltering leader to a war leader with widespread support in the US. While this is not replicated anywhere else in the world, as the mass anti-war across the globe attest, public opinion opposes the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, his position at home was greatly strengthened by his military drive.

In the Politics section Alan Thornett in ‘US imperialism and the new American century’, examines what lies behind this Imperialist offensive and argues that while the US-led coalition is sinking deeper into the quagmire in Iraq, its power in the region has been greatly strengthened. However, along with a weak economy, it faces a great mass of world-wide opposition organised into international anti-war movements. Sam Feeney in ‘The Attack on our Rights’, looks at the ways in which civil liberties both here and in the US are being trampled on after 9/11. Roland Rance in ’The End of Zionism?’ explains why a two-state solution in Palestine is doomed to failure.

In the Theory and History section, David Coen, in ‘Why Individual Terrorism is Not the Answer’, uses the example of the Irish war of liberation to show how individual terrorism is rarely a strategic way forward for national liberation struggles. Dave Packer examines the horrifying history of capitalist wars and explains why in the words of Clausewitz, ‘War is politics by other means’. Jane Kelly in ‘Peaceful Women and Warring Men?’ looks at the contradictory ways in which women experience war and violence.

In the Reviews section Alan Thornett critically assesses the call by Workers Power for the formation of the Fifth International in ’Workers Power: a new road to nowhere’. Andrew Kennedy in ‘Fear and Loathing on Airstrip One,’ reviews Orwell’s book 1984 in the light of current media speak. Terry Conway, in ‘The Immigration Myth Exposed’, reviews Thinking the Unthinkable, a book by Nigel Harris on migration and capitalism’s need for labour, and exposes the book’s limitations in understanding the problems faced by asylum seekers today.

We hope you will enjoy reading this first issue and we welcome any letters.