You don’t have to scroll far on Facebook before someone on the left starts singing the praises of Jeffrey Sachs. To some, he’s become a kind of secular prophet, an American economist who’s seen the light, who denounces U.S. empire, who talks sense about Ukraine. But scratch the surface of his “The Geopolitics of Peace” and you find something less radical than it first appears. Sachs offers a world freed from U.S. dominance, only to replace it with a fantasy of multipolar harmony. That’s not anti-imperialism, it’s just campism in a liberal suit.
His main refrain is about how Europe needs an “independent foreign policy.” But independent from what, exactly? The EU isn’t some helpless pawn of Washington. It’s an imperialist bloc in its own right. French and German capital don’t take orders from Washington out of loyalty; they do so when it serves their own class interests. Sachs’ framing makes European imperialism sound like an unwilling accomplice rather than an active participant in global exploitation. His claim that Europe has “no voice, no unity, no clarity, no European interests, only American loyalty” erases the fact that European powers have their own imperialist calculations, sometimes overlapping with the U.S., but never subordinate to it.
Sachs appeals to a certain strand of left disillusionment, those critical of Western foreign policy but unwilling to challenge capitalism itself. His background as an economist and former political adviser lends him an air of pragmatic realism: he seems to offer a sober alternative to U.S. hegemony. But his framework remains trapped in the logic of statecraft. It treats ruling elites as the only actors in history, ignoring the working-class movements whose struggles are systematically written out. Diplomacy between imperial blocs doesn’t end war, it just rearranges the battlefield. Anti-imperialism without class struggle only ends up justifying the world as it is.
Then there’s the multipolar illusion. Sachs thinks we’d all be better off if U.S. hegemony collapsed and power was spread more evenly. But what does that actually achieve? It doesn’t stop imperialist wars, it just means more imperialist players. Russia and China aren’t alternatives to U.S. dominance; they’re competing dominant classes with their own expansionist ambitions. Sachs says the U.S. wants “a piece on every part of the board.” But what does he call Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? That’s imperialism too. This isn’t a fight between good and evil, it’s inter-imperialist rivalry, full stop.
The argument that Russian imperialism is merely a reaction to NATO doesn’t hold up. Russia’s geopolitical ambitions go far beyond Ukraine: its interventions in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Syria, and Africa all show that it’s not just defending itself, it’s projecting power like any imperialist state. Sachs conveniently ignores that Russia has long used energy dependence as a geopolitical weapon, particularly in Europe. This isn’t just a defensive war, it’s part of a broader imperialist strategy. Multipolarity doesn’t end imperialism, it just spreads it around.
But the biggest thing Sachs ignores? The working class. He talks about nations, diplomats, and strategic interests, but where are the people actually fighting and dying in these wars? Where’s the Ukrainian working class, caught between a Russian invasion and their own corrupt, neoliberal government? Where’s the European proletariat, forced to bankroll military budgets while their wages stagnate? And where are the Russian anti-war activists,those resisting despite mass arrests, exile, and even death? Unlike their Western counterparts, Russian anti-war activists face total censorship and state terror, yet Sachs has nothing to say about them. He reduces their struggle to geopolitics, ignoring the fact that in Russia, opposing the war could mean imprisonment,or worse.
Despite his contradictions, Sachs gets picked up as a way to justify denying Ukrainian self-determination. His narrative, where NATO is the only aggressor and Russia is just reacting, feeds into arguments that Ukraine should surrender on Russia’s terms. That’s the problem with reducing everything to great power rivalry: it erases the agency of smaller nations and their right to resist imperialist domination from any quarter.
Real anti-imperialism doesn’t just bash the U.S. while giving other imperialists a free pass. It supports the self-determination of oppressed nations without siding with their oppressors. It rejects NATO expansion and denounces Russia’s war on Ukraine. It demands an end to all capitalist military blocs, not just a reshuffling of who’s in charge. It also acknowledges that European imperialism isn’t just an extension of Washington’s policies,it has its own class interests, which align with the U.S. when convenient but diverge when necessary.
Most importantly, an anti-imperialist position puts working-class struggles at the centre, not the chess moves of ruling elites. It means solidarity with the Ukrainian left, trade unions, and grassroots resistance, not uncritical support for Kyiv’s neoliberal government. It means amplifying the voices of Russian anti-war activists, who continue to resist under brutal repression. And it means opposing all imperialist alliances, not just NATO, but also Russia’s CSTO and China’s growing military partnerships.
Sachs’ analysis might sound radical to some, but it’s ultimately just another plea for a softer, better-managed capitalism. Real anti-imperialism doesn’t want a more balanced world order, it wants the whole system gone. No U.S. imperialism, no Russian, no Chinese, no European. No shifting empires, just working-class power.
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