The author starts out from the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and states that this is only part of the general push of the left in the background. The essential cause of that in his view, is the failure of the left to give a progressive response to the process of transnationalisation and that it remained within the national framework and became conservative. He separately deals with the topical dilemmas of the EC, the strategy of "deepening" and "broadening" which has a sensitive impact on Eastern and Central Europe. He outlines the duties of the left wing and stresses the dangers of sticking to "ouvrierism" (mystification of the workers) and at the same time, he terms as a prime goal, the search for the methods of an offensive against the extreme right.

Amin describes the past few decades as the period of capitalist offensive. From among the causes of the Gulf War, he stresses the interests in oil and notes about the monarchies in the Gulf region, that they are more like oil concessions than nation-states. Amin emphasises that in the present conflict, the North is unified, while the South is divided. In his opinion, the North-South difference can no longer be described by the differences between their levels of industrial developments, but rather by the differences in their financial systems, technologies and communication systems. When discussing the possibilities of opposition to the capitalist offensive, he raises the need for a United Nations Organisation which would take charge of the interests of the Third World, stating that the present UN is rather far from that.

Frank interprets the Gulf war mainly as a reaction to the recession in America. He loo, stresses the role of oil Going through the history of American interventions, he proves that starting the war in the Gulf was based on a pretext and that the American superpower has not intervened in defence of "democracy" but it has done so at different spots of the world only there and then when ft served its own interests. He quotes as another cause the need to create a new enemy image after the downfall of communism.