The mass demonstration in Florence that took place on November 9 during the European Social Forum was one of those memorable events that are liable to become landmarks and exert lasting influence on the development of the international politic situation. The hundreds of thousands of people who pacifically paraded on the streets of the Italian city waving progressist flags of all colors, protesting against the imperialist war, claiming for peace, are the protagonists of a great phenomenon of our time — the struggle of politicized masses that are aware and focused on the main question that encompasses the many contradictions of the contemporary world — war or peace. Since it proclaimed its "permanent war against terrorism" and declared that "who is not with the United States are against the United States", the US administration introduced the threat of war in the current agenda of its foreign policy. Definitely, the military question overcame all others and now concentrates the whole of the US foreign policy and even its economic relations. The US government even decided to release its new strategic and military policy called "International Security Strategy of the United States", a new doctrine that substitutes the previous one, which was effective during the whole of the Cold War. Among the many aspects of this doctrine, the concept of preventive war and the manifested willingness of using nuclear weapons as a primary resource — and not as the last one — is particularly alarming, as well as authorizing the CIA to perpetrate murders outside the borders of the United States is, such as is the case of the recent action that took place in Yemen. Human civilization is facing a grave threat with the growing militarization of the international life. The maneuvers of the US diplomacy are not intended to solve the problem of Iraqi disarmament. On the same day that the Security Council of the UN approved the demands to inspect the Arab country, the US press broadcast a complex plan of action involving 250 thousand soldiers to occupy Iraq. Bush administration is frantically preparing war as its diplomacy fabricates the excuses. On the next days, precisely on November 19 and 20, the European political and social movement will be dealing with a new agenda that may become another great moment in the anti-imperialist struggle for peace in the continent. On these days NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that become the military branch of the United States in Europe — will hold a meeting in Prague, in the Czech Republic. The European progressist forces are calling an alternative meeting of the political and social forces against NATO due to the initiative of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Czech Republic). Mass demonstrations that may repeat the Florentine apotheosis are expected. More than five decades ago, NATO was founded under the justification of building a "defensive alliance" against the "Soviet threat". Would not it be logical to dissolve NATO as well after the division of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact? But no. The exact opposite happened. Lately, this strategic military alliance under the hegemony of the United States has carried out military interventions of aggressive character, particularly during the war against Yugoslavia in 1999 and during the participation of the US-UK war in Afghanistan. The struggle for peace under the conditions of the contemporary world has a revolutionary character. It confronts the essence of the hegemonic and militarist essence of the US imperialism. It is possible to unite different political trends and to constitute a broad front of solidarity to attacked peoples around the peace flag. In Brazil, it is necessary to take advantage of the new political circumstances that are favorable to furthering national, democratic and popular causes — due to the victory of Lula — in order to foster the struggle for peace, which is definitely tied to the defense of national sovereignty and to the true integration of Latin American peoples. * Jose Reinaldo Carvalho, Journalist. Vice-president of the Communist Party of Brazil - PCdoB