Contemporary fascism has evolved into a globalized system of authoritarian domination led by the US and its allies, combining military aggression, economic coercion, media manipulation, and institutional capture against resistance movements and sovereign states across the Global South.
The first four months of 2026 will be recorded in the memory of the peoples of the Global South as the period in which contemporary fascism abandoned the last vestiges of hypocrisy. Far from being a mere historical replica of the interwar regimes, this phenomenon has evolved into a transnational architecture of domination led by the elites of the United States and their strategic partners —a hybrid, financialized, algorithmic, and transnational authoritarianism that feeds on digital polarization, institutional capture from within, the commodification of security, and the tacit alliance between military-industrial complexes, technological oligarchies, and reactionary governments — where the threat and coercive use of force have progressively replaced any operative vestige of international law.
The UN and international laws are not ignored out of carelessness or institutional incompetence; they are subjected to a systematic emptying, selectively instrumentalized, and neutralized when they collide with the strategic interests of the hegemonic center. De facto, the law of the strongest prevails, but it is masked in narratives of national security, financial stability, protection of human rights, and other fallacies that function as juridical smokescreens. What until recently was presented as "diplomatic pressure" or "selective sanctions" has been transformed, in an accelerated and structural manner, into massive and arbitrary economic sanctions, direct or covert military intervention, de facto territorial occupation, and planned humanitarian asphyxiation.
From the rupture of the Venezuelan government on January 3 —with the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, within the framework of "Operation Absolute Resolve" — to the unjustified and treacherous aggression by the United States and "Israel" against Iran, "Operation Epic Fury", launched on February 28 — which has also reached Lebanon as an object of aggression — the US empire has synchronized its blows with a precision that seeks to eliminate all poles of resistance in a single movement.
However, at the beginning of May, the balance is not what Washington expected. It is true: some progressive States in Latin America have fallen or have been neutralized. Argentina has become a laboratory of the far right. Venezuela is under intervention. To them have been added other countries that have subordinated their foreign policies to Washington: Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, all of which participated in the "Shield of the Americas" summit convened by Trump on March 7, sealing their alignment with the empire's hemispheric strategy within an updated Monroe Doctrine. The dream of a powerful autonomous regional bloc, of ALBA, of UNASUR, has been dismantled, for the moment. An even greater threat now hangs over the region: Cuba and Nicaragua are in the direct line of fire.
But the peoples — that category which desk analysts often confuse with their governments — have not been defeated. On the contrary, in the most extreme adversity, they are discovering new forms of organization and new transnational alliances. Underlying them is a consciousness and a historical memory that fascism will never manage to erase. However, it is decisive that the revolutionary movements be capable of orienting and mobilizing them.
This article aims to provide a diagnosis and a strategic analysis of the situation, identifying the weaknesses that have cost dearly, the threats that are pending, but also the strengths that sustain the resistance and the opportunities that, if well leveraged, can change the course of history. It upholds a fundamental thesis that must be clear from the outset: the most progressive States themselves — even while being capitalist, as well as those that are part of the long-awaited phenomenon of multi-polarization — have the historical obligation to confront this rapidly evolving process of fascistization. Taking a passive, supposedly neutral, stance of "exclusively" national interest — if this were even possible in a globalized world — becomes a boomerang for everyone. Fascism prospers, intends to swallow the weakest and most helpless, but in the end will try to devour the entire planet. This happened with Hitler: he was allowed to advance until, far too late, a limit was imposed on him. Tens of millions of human beings died. History cannot repeat that grave error. (more...)
Stopping contemporary fascism: What is to be done?
