Neofascism, neoliberalism and counterinsurgency. From Trump and Netanyahu to Milei

Buenos Aires, december 9, 2025 | For the Argentine newspaper Liberación

To find solutions to any type of problem, we must first identify what those problems are, their nature, their main contradictions, and their trends. This methodological approach is valid for everyday life, but it becomes essential when trying to situate ourselves in the global era we are living in on a worldwide scale and in the Latin American and Argentine situation in particular.

Our era is characterized by a long-term structural crisis of the global capitalist system in its twilight phase of imperialism. This crisis does not depend on three bizarre characters: an extravagant, pedophile tycoon who dyes his hair orange; another man who cynically appeals to theological texts to legitimize a modern, neocolonial war of ethnic cleansing; and finally, a South American lumpen, an obedient and submissive employee of the other two.

The crisis of Western capitalist imperialism is structural and multidimensional (overproduction of capital, underconsumption by the working masses, ecological collapse, health, demographic and migration crises, and, fundamentally, the decline of Euro-North American hegemony and its unipolar world).

To argue that such a crisis (much more acute and intense than those of 1929, 1973-74, and 2007-2008) responds to a single, flat, simple, homogeneous contradiction simple, homogeneous contradiction not only reveals an undeniable flaw in the handling of Marxist critical theory (even if it is glossed over with isolated and disconnected quotes from Marx, Lenin, Rosa, etc.). More seriously, it leads to erroneous and egregious political conclusions.

If the world were divided exclusively between “capital” (in general, without names or surnames, social and national determinations) and ‘labor’ (the same: equating the starving people of Haiti or the overexploited masses of Africa with the “labor aristocracy” of England, France, Germany, or the United States), the political conclusion could postulate nonsense such as “the governments of Cuba and Venezuela must be overthrown” or “Maduro is an enemy of the working class” (sic). If there is no enemy intelligence money involved (nothing surprises us anymore!), that is pure and simple ignorance, at best. It’s that simple.
If, on the other hand, we conceive of the global system of capitalist imperialism as a motley bouquet of multiple coexisting contradictions, then not only does the analysis become more complex, but it also allows us to try to build much more effective strategies of struggle and confrontation. Perhaps less “high-sounding,” but with greater power to penetrate our understanding of the forms of domination.

From Trump and Netanyahu to Milei: the hybrid forms of counterrevolution.

Contemporary capitalist forces, the heart of declining imperialism, never resort to a single formula. Comfortable, chic, and widely accepted in Western academia, they appear to solve all the riddles of the sphinx with a stroke of the pen. As if by magic, the entire history of humanity could be explained by a pocket-sized scheme. The materialist and multilinear conception of history, its multiple dominations, its coexisting contradictions that change according to the results of the class struggle and the subjugated peoples, would no longer be useful. No. By sleight of hand, the problems of the popular camp and possible strategies for struggle on a global scale would be reduced to a resurgence of “feudalism” (sic), only accompanied by digital platforms. Another à la carte discourse, now absolutely in vogue, reduces our enemy to… “the male” (sic), thus, once again, without class, national, cultural, or other determinations. Or what is happening is the exhaustion of “modernity” (sic), as if it had had a unique, monotonous, and all-encompassing character.

With such simplistic discourses (generally originating in American or French academia), one can obtain scholarships, academic internships, travel opportunities, and, above all, recognition in the “progressive” entertainment world… In practice, such “theories” (to call them that in a benevolent and non-aggressive way, although they are far from it) often leave us orphaned, without a strategy for confronting powerful enemies. What’s more, many of them receive scholarships and are fed and encouraged by imperialism itself and the dirty money of its counterinsurgency NGOs.

If we manage to take two steps back from these fashionable discourses (which rear their heads, enjoy their moments of fame, and last no more than 10 or 15 years before always ending up on the bargain table), we can see that the new right appeals to a hybrid of neo-fascism in the political, geostrategic, and cultural spheres; Austrian or monetarist economic school and renewed new-generation warfare strategies, updating the old counterinsurgency.

Neither the US Pentagon nor the neocolonial warmongering of Zionism nor the degraded and bizarre continuity of Alsogaray-Martínez de Hoz, Videla, and Massera that underpins Milei’s “experiment” in Argentina respond to a single formula. They combine a certain doctrinarism with no small amount of pragmatism. The old doctrines of fascism (both from imperialist countries [1922-1945] and from dependent and peripheral societies [1964-present]) merge with the old Austrian economic school (1870-2025). Invariably, this is based on a multifaceted strategy that combines the theories of Karl von Clausewitz with Liddell Hart, in the form of asymmetric, cognitive, new generation wars, soft coups, color revolutions, indirect approaches, etc.

To confront this project of global counterrevolution, we need a comprehensive strategy that combines the anti-imperialist struggle with anti-fascism, including the diverse cultures and ways of life that make up the international anti-imperialist camp and the Axis of Resistance.

Buenos Aires, December 9, 2025

Neofascismo, neoliberalismo y contrainsurgencia. De Trump y Netanyahu a Milei. Por Néstor Kohan