The main enemy is at home - today
by Paul Murphy
We live in a dangerous world that is sinking deeper and deeper into barbarism. This is clear to anyone who opens their eyes. It's incredible to think that we had almost two years of open genocide in Gaza, and despite the ‘ceasefire’, the war against Palestine continues.
We all know that this genocide is armed, funded and enabled by Western imperialism. Moreover, the horrors of Gaza and the defence of those horrors by the powers of Western imperialism are accelerating authoritarianism throughout the Global North. This is epitomised by the arrests of thousands of people in Britain and the North simply for the crime of wearing T-shirts or holding placards saying, "We support Palestine Action."
The war in Ukraine is heading towards its fourth year after Trump got a deal with Zelenskyy to rob the Ukrainian people of their natural resources. For now, it looks set to continue, with all the atrocities that accompany war: displacement, deprivation, death and destruction.
The war in Ukraine has driven a new arms race. Even though the world was already spending almost $3 trillion a year on arms, up from about $1 trillion a year in 2004, this is going to be accelerated in the face of ecological catastrophe. NATO has adopted a new spending target of 5% of GDP. Within the European Union, this takes the form of the so-called ReArm Europe project, giving the illusion that Europe was in some way previously disarmed.
The EU is now planning for an additional €800 billion of expenditure, including a SAFE (Security Action for Europe) programme of €150 billion worth of loans, which Ireland is going to participate in. Governments get these loans at a low interest rate as long as they spend the money buying from European weapons dealers to rebuild the European “defence” industry.
The direction of travel is clear. Our world is going to get more dangerous, more murderous and more genocidal.
The main enemy (and the other enemies)
All of this fits into a picture of a world becoming divided into two major camps - one led by the US and the other by China. Of course, it's not just that every state on the Western side follows the US and every state in the Chinese-led bloc follows China without any autonomy. Israel in the Western camp and Russia in the Chinese-led camp are good examples of states with some degree of independence.
But broadly speaking, we have a world divided into two major camps that are in conflict with each other. And what starts as a trade war can become open military conflict. The partial shift in approach of Trump towards Ukraine, talking about peace talks and preparing the ground for negotiations, only makes sense in the context of a shift from US imperialism to say, "We need to focus primarily on China. We need to not waste so many resources in terms of dealing with Russia. China is the main enemy.”
““‘The main enemy is at home’ implies that there are still other enemies, and your main enemy’s enemy isn’t necessarily your friend.””
How do we orient ourselves as revolutionary socialists in that world? The slogan ‘The Main Enemy is at Home’ comes from a leaflet [1] written by Karl Liebknecht, the famous German revolutionary, almost a year into World War I. But, actually, the whole leaflet is worth reading. He reminds us to, "Learn everything, don’t forget anything!" In other words, don't forget the fact that your own capitalist class is the one that has been attacking your living standards and rights. This concept is an important guiding light for us in a world that is divided into inter-imperialist camps. What does it mean for revolutionary socialists?
Firstly, it doesn't mean there aren't other enemies. “The main enemy is at home” implies that there are still other enemies, and your main enemy's enemy isn't necessarily your friend. They could still be your enemy. But, your focus of opposition, the thrust of your propaganda, your material, your campaigning should all be oriented against your own imperialism.
That doesn't mean prettifying the actions of your main enemy’s enemy. Many socialists have been recently asking the questions: Is China imperialist? Is Russia imperialist? They are important questions for us to discuss. In my opinion, the answer is yes.
We're facing inter-imperialist conflict, and our main enemy is Western imperialism, the camp within which we are operating and where we must direct our main fire. But we don't have to pretend or suggest or have an analysis that says that China doesn't have imperialist, extractive, exploitive relations with countries in the Global South or that Russia isn't a regional imperialist power.
In the context of everything that's happening in Ukraine, in a war that has a dominant feature of being a proxy conflict between the different imperialist camps, what does it mean to say the main enemy is at home for us in the West? It means we acknowledge that the Ukrainian people's legitimate democratic national rights are being trampled upon by Russian imperialism, that they have a legitimate right to resist, and that those democratic rights include the rights of minorities within Ukraine to self-determination.
But it also means opening our eyes to the reality that their rights and aspirations are also being trampled on by Western imperialism. Western imperialism has no interest in affirming those rights, but is simply spilling the blood of the Ukrainian people to weaken Russian imperialism and to weaken the Chinese-led bloc. Therefore, we oppose the use of Ukraine to drive an agenda for militarisation in Europe. We oppose sending weapons to Ukraine. We oppose sending troops to Ukraine, and we oppose this inter-imperialist conflict.
European militarisation
A crucial part of saying ‘the main enemy is at home’ is going to be to puncture any illusion that the European project of militarisation offers a more progressive, more democratic, more humane version of imperialism. There's a deep irony in Europe's leaders using the horror of Trump to try and further accelerate militarism within the European Union, supposedly independent of Trump, even though it's taking place in the context of the EU being subordinated to US imperialism through NATO.
It's vital that we're absolutely clear that European militarisation is no alternative whatsoever to Trump, and we oppose it just as much. Despite the real tensions that exist between Trump and European capitalist classes, the truth is that European militarism is primarily complementary to the NATO process of militarisation. It’s not in competition with it.
That's a process that has been consolidated by the invasion and war in Ukraine. To quote from a joint declaration on EU-NATO cooperation from two years ago: "NATO remains the foundation of collective defence for its Allies and essential for Euro Atlantic security. We recognise the value of a stronger and more capable European defence that contributes positively to global and transatlantic security and is complementary to, and interoperable with NATO.” [2] This is what European militarisation is about.
Secondly, what does this European Union actually look like? What do its more humane policies look like? Who was first on the ground in Israel in October 2023 to give the green light for the genocide? It was Ursula von der Leyen. Who has exported 30% of the weapons that Israel has received? Germany, the number one power within the European Union.
““Despite the real tensions that exist between Trump and European capitalist classes, the truth is that European militarism is primarily complementary to the NATO process of militarisation.””
What's the reality of Fortress Europe, which condemns thousands of people to death in the Mediterranean Sea every single year? It’s the new European Migration Pact will mean detention camps for children at airports. It’s the Rwanda plan, which the Tories were forced to shelve in Britain, but is being resurrected by the European Union to export vulnerable people driven by climate change, war, and Western imperialism to seek a better life. They'll be exported to countries like Rwanda and effectively kept there in open prison camps.
Thirdly, many people say, "But Trump is a fascist or far-right, and the European Union is not fascist, so surely we need to build an alternative force." But, what do you think Georgia Meloni is? What do you think the AfD, which is the second largest party in Germany, is? What do you think Le Pen is? The far right is knocking on the door of power in country after country in the European Union. So, we should have zero illusions in the EU as a progressive alternative and more humane imperialism.
Ireland
The front line of struggle against militarism and war in Ireland is the struggle to defend what is left of neutrality and to defend the Triple Lock. The political establishment is absolutely opposed to what is left of neutrality. They are opposed to the positive aspiration that exists for the majority of people in favour of neutrality, and they have used the war in Ukraine to accelerate that process; to send Irish troops to train Ukrainian troops in a conflict and to send military aid to Ukraine. Ireland is participating in the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, a NATO alliance which meets in NATO headquarters, which is just an extra arm of NATO in reality. They're accelerating cooperation in all sorts of ways with NATO.
On the one hand, they are creating facts on the ground. Irish troops participating in NATO war exercises and militarily assisting one side in a war. On the other hand, they’re proposing to get rid of the Triple Lock, something Fine Gael in particular has wanted to shed for the last 20 years. They called it a “political straitjacket” that they wanted to be rid of. It's precisely because it's a political straitjacket that we on the Left want to keep it. It's not perfect, but we want to limit their ability to send troops and spend resources on war.
In a way, the political establishment and the government share our analysis of a world that is being divided into two imperialist blocs, and that's why they want to get rid of the Triple Lock. They know they have a side. They are on the side of US imperialism, and they want to be free to send troops wherever they want to.
At the Oireachtas Committee, which discussed the Triple Lock, a top civil servant admitted that if it wasn't for the Triple Lock, the Irish government could have sent Irish troops to fight and die for oil, for power, for US and Western imperialism in the invasion of Iraq. Because of the Triple Lock, they were limited to permitting millions of troops to go through Shannon Airport. So, it's vital that we fight to defend it.
The Irish government are in the tradition of John Redmond, who argued that Irish people, who had been invaded and occupied by British imperialism, should go and support British imperialism in World War I, and we would get a payback afterwards. In opposition to that, revolutionary socialist James Connolly famously argued what was inscribed on a big banner: "We serve neither King nor Kaiser." That’s a reference point for us. Today we would say, "Neither Washington nor Moscow, neither Brussels nor Beijing."
How do we do that? It’s not easy to stop them dismantling the Triple Lock. They have a majority in the Dáil. We haven't managed to mobilise significant numbers on the issue of neutrality on the streets. The challenge is to mobilise the energy of the Palestine solidarity movement into a movement in defence of neutrality.
Catherine Connolly’s campaign for president made neutrality a central issue . Her landslide victory was in many ways a referendum on neutrality. So, we should take the momentum forward from the campaign to keep the Triple Lock.
I think we should also help build a movement to establish a European anti-militarist alliance, with joint coordination. The drive towards militarisation and strengthening NATO is happening at a European level. We should act in coordination with socialist and peace activists across Europe.
Ultimately, we need to link our campaigns to the struggle to overthrow capitalism because war and militarisation are not an accidental occurrence. Imperialism is the outgrowth of capitalist development. It's inevitable that a system based on competition for profit by capitalists, utilising the power of nation states, leads to worsening conflict and war that threatens all of humanity. As James Connolly suggested, the only way to free us from this barbarism is to throw the barbaric ruling class internationally from power.
We have to build a working-class, socialist, anti-militarist force that ultimately puts us in a position where we can achieve that.
This is a lightly edited and updated speech given by Paul Murphy (People Before Profit TD and RISE member) on 10 August 2025 at the eco-socialist summer camp organised by RISE and Rupture.
Notes
1. Karl Liebknecht, ‘The Main Enemy Is At Home!’ May 1915 https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-k/works/1915/05/main-enemy-home.htm
2. Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation, 10 January 2023 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_210549.htm