In the modern world capitalist system, with its center in the Atlantic powers, war has been an inherent and permanent phenomenon related to the dynamics of interstate competition, the "endless" accumulation of capital, colonial expansion, the struggle for the control of natural resources or the disputes between central and peripheral countries, in particular during the great transitions of world power.

The concept of imperialism is key to the study of these questions and has given rise to important debates that are now being renewed, in the heat of the rise of new powers from the periphery and the mutations affecting neoliberal globalization: are we witnessing the crisis of North American hegemony and the unipolar order? The emergence of a multipolar world or a new bipolarity? The shift of power to the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean? The accentuation of contradictions between the old dominant powers, grouped in the G7, and the emerging powers expressed in the BRICS and other spaces?

The escalation of the war in Ukraine from February 2022, when Russia's direct incursion into Ukrainian territory modified the war that began in 2014, once again highlighted the centrality of Eurasia and certain key spaces in the global power struggle. At the same time, it expressed a profound conflict that began in 1997 between the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization expansion and Russia, giving rise to fundamental reflections on this structural antagonism and its implications for global geopolitics.

Since the wars in Afghanistan (2001-2021) and Iraq (2003-2011), there have been major debates and theoretical elaborations on imperialism, war and geopolitics. The same happened in 2014 when concepts such as the New Cold War, World War III and/or Hybrid World War began to be discussed in order to analyze the development of specific conflicts in relation to the global power dispute, the new escalation of war and the sharpening of tensions between power poles.

The suggested themes are:

Global geopolitical transition: crisis of US hegemony, crisis of the "unipolar" order and war(s).

Rise of emerging powers and the development of a multipolar world. Tensions between the Global North and the Global South. The question of imperialism.

NATO expansion, the relative decline of the West, Russia and the dispute for control of Eurasia.

The war in Ukraine and its global impacts.

Imperialism as a central category for the study and analysis of power dynamics in the modern world system and in center-peripheral relations today.

Imperialism in the stage of "neoliberal globalization" and its crisis?

Economic wars, cyber wars, technological wars, information wars and hybrid wars.

Submission of papers: until July 2, 2023
Publication: November 2023

Gabriel Merino (National University of La Plata)
Roberto Goulart Menezes (IREL/UnB)