Everyone around the world is witness to America, United Kingdom and the European Union countries going out-of control, with a rapid speed of social and financial disintegration. Europe and USA always look at the history of the Roman Empire for their values and political principles, while England has these values woven into its genetics since in ancient times this country was ruled over by Rome. What they carefully ignore is the total collapse of the Roman Empire, almost overnight. The Roman Empire was rich, prosperous and had a unique military strength, and nobody in those days would have imagined that its collapse was possible. “It cannot happen here (a total collapse of society)” is a common refrain among the so-called advanced nations, and yet the crumbling of society is happening all around in every country of the West.
According to Karin Kneissel, the former Foreign Minister of Austria; ‘European countries are growing ever weaker on the international stage and their places are being taken by Asian countries’. Further, she states that “European leaders, through ignorance and arrogance, are neglecting the existing geopolitical realities and basic principles of diplomacy and this has created a dangerous situation”.
This attitude is connected to Eurocentrism. Europeans believe that they are so powerful and superior to others that the world cannot function without them. This has led to the situation that most European politicians treat Russia as an enemy, a thought process that now includes China and India. In reality, the European people are increasingly desperate and disillusioned with their political leadership and that is leading to increased mass disorder and anti-government violence. Europe might have been the center of power to the world before 1914, which in itself is debatable; but now it is a political province at the best.
“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” is a proverb that finds its origins in the King James Bible. In a predominantly Christian Europe, this spiritual fall precedes the fall of the Nation. Europe is afflicted with self-justification syndrome as it commits slow suicide, while refusing to admit its own degradation. On the contrary, it believes that only it’s defined ‘values’ of ‘freedom, democracy and human rights’ are correct and therefore European leaders are desperate to spread these ‘values’ throughout the world. All those who do not accept these values as defined by the European leadership; which includes the political, religious and business leadership; have to be mocked, slandered, and if necessary subjugated through large scale violence. Recent examples are Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, and Lebanon.
The leader of this cabal is as always the United States of America which is today turning into an authoritarian state where federal agencies of law-enforcement and taxation have been weaponized to instill fear into their citizens, stifle freedom of speech and expression for political supremacy, and utilize state resources to denigrate family values, religious activity (except that which is approved by those in power), the traditional education system and to promote a ‘cancel’ culture that attempts to not only re-write history but in many cases erase it completely.
Party partisanship, political compromise, furtherance of personal agendas, arrogance, willful ignorance of their own Constitution and contempt for the Law have turned the majority of American political leaders into dangerous demagogues who facilitate destruction of own country and other countries for personal gain.
Western culture has been based on Christianity, which defines the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman, property rights, freedom of speech and values of democracy, while it evolved due to gradual changes in its ethical standards. Equality has reached all areas of life in Europe and UK and is still a ‘work-in-progress’ in USA; yet activism demand more radical changes, which are undermining their respective cultures. Included in these demands is the view that past events should be seen through the prism of modern morality, and individuals from historical past should be judged by today’s standards. A perpetual demand by various groups; ethnic, religious, regional have undermined and to a great extent destroyed its foundation of traditions. Multiculturalism and mass immigration has rapidly altered ethnic balances in the UK and Europe and traditional values destroyed by refusal of many immigrant groups towards assimilation.
The ‘woke’ generation exaggerates the scale and severity of maltreatment of certain ethnicities by the Whites, while ignoring reverse maltreatment on account of religious ideology and cultural hatred. Western countries celebrate the abolition of slavery after profiting from it, but willfully ignore the fact that most Asian countries did not have the concept of slavery till the advent of Islam and Jihadi values of Islamic men’s supremacy over women and apostates. In recent times, movements like Black Lives Matter [BLM] created social instability that resulted in loss of many black-skin lives and their properties. Recent investigations show that the leaders of BLM used millions of dollars of financial aid received, to purchase palatial properties, high value vehicles and live a luxury lifestyle. The Marxist organizations promoting this agenda admit that the downfall of capitalist societies is its ultimate aim, and accusations of racism are its method.
As an aside, “woke” people are ‘politically liberal (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme’ and is synonymous with internet political activism. A ‘woke’ person is someone who only does performative activism. This usually means they will just post relevant hashtags on social media but won’t actually go out to protest. All in all, it’s someone who will talk about helping fight racial and social injustice. However, they won’t actually do anything meaningful to stop the injustice from occurring.
The western world is today hostage to this woke activism, which propagates the ideas of equity, diversity, and inclusion, while using its agenda to prohibit any views it disapproves of. The increasing alphabet of sexual diversity creates ever smaller groups of confusing sexual definitions which hysterically demand priority over the majority heterosexuals. Dissent is countered with character assassination, debates are avoided; and the Law and those who enforce it are increasingly subjected to physical and emotional abuse.
Asian countries that are steeped in rock solid tradition have been scarcely affected by this minority activism and have been able to stop its movement even before it started. Conservative westerners have noticed this strength of Asia and are now trying to use the basics of Asian conservative values to disengage from and defeat minority activism.
It’s the falling power of the U.S. dollar has created a host of factors that are destroying the myth of the United States of America being a super-power. The U.S. dollar’s status as the premier reserve currency is tied to the petrodollar system where major energy producing countries were trading in U.S. dollars. The Ukraine–Russia conflict and the ‘sanctions’ imposed by USA and Europe on Russia boomeranged badly. Russia forced many countries affiliated to NATO and many that are part of the EU to pay for Russian energy supplies in Rubles; a strategy that increased the international value of the Ruble while the US dollar dropped in value against major European currencies.
Being victorious in WWII and possessing the overwhelmingly largest gold reserves in the world (around 20,000 tons) allowed the U.S. to reconstruct the global monetary system with the dollar at its center in what was known as the Bretton Woods international monetary system. Simply put, the Bretton Woods system was an arrangement whereby a country’s currency was tied to the U.S. dollar through a fixed exchange rate, and the U.S. dollar itself was tied to gold at a fixed exchange rate. Countries accumulated dollars in their reserves to engage in internationaltrade or to exchange them with the U.S. government at the official rate for gold.
By the late 1960s, the excessive social welfare and warfare spending of USA affected this system and resulted in a serious drain in the gold supply held by the USA. To halt this outflow, the then U.S. President Richard Nixon officially ended convertibility of the dollar for gold to halt the gold outflow. The U.S. defaulting on its promise to back the dollar with gold ended the Bretton Woods system.
To allow the dollar to sustain its status as the world’s reserve currency the U.S. government entered into agreements with Saudi Arabia to create the ‘petro-dollar’ system. Saudi Arabia was chosen because of its vast petroleum reserves, its dominant influence in OPEC, and the (correct) perception that the House of Saud aka the Saudi royal family was consistently corrupt whose influence could be easily purchased. Essentially, the petrodollar system ensured that in exchange for the U.S. guarantee for the survival of the House of Saud regime through political and military support; Saudi Arabia would use its dominant influence in OPEC to ensure that all oil transactions would be conducted only in U.S. dollars, while guaranteeing that the price of oil was within limits acceptable to the U.S.
This entire arrangement collapsed with the advent of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman attaining real power in his country. MBS (as he is called by the West) has a reputation of being a token social reformer while in actuality being a brutal and merciless dictator who has used his political power to remove all threats, real and perceived, against his position as Crown Prince, Prime Minister and future King of Saudi Arabia. Being a non-conformist to Western influences, his recent decisions to ignore the OPEC oil caps requested by the current U.S. President Biden, his increasing friendship with current Russian President Putin, which is at odds with its official position of Saudi opposition to referendums in areas controlled by Moscow on becoming part of Russia. Saudi Arabia has further stated that it was committed “to the respect of state sovereignty and the principles of good neighborliness and resolving conflicts by peaceful means.” Recently, Saudi Arabia has tentatively agreed to trade oil and natural gas in Rubles with Russia and in Renminbi with China. (Note: Renminbi is the general name for the Chinese currency, while yuan is the name of a unit of that currency). This will severely undercut the power of the petrodollar, with potential for creating long-term financial crisis within the USA.
The other issue that has reduced the global U.S. and European influence is the strong emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) bloc. The BRICS countries are fast-growing economies that would collectively dominate the global economy by 2050. These five countries have a combined nominal GDP of US$26.6 trillion (about 26.2% of the gross world product), a total GDP (PPP) of around US$51.99 trillion (32.1% of global GDP PPP), and an estimated US$4.46 trillion in combined foreign reserves (as of 2018). BRICS are considered the foremost rival to the G7 bloc of leading advanced economies, announcing competing initiatives such as the New Development Bank, Contingent Reserve Arrangement, BRICS payment system, and BRICS basket reserve currency. Since 2022, the group has sought to expand membership, with several developing countries expressing interest in joining.
The BRICS payment system is the process of setting up payment systems and moving on to settlements in national currencies, a global multilateral payment system that would provide greater independence, would create a definite guarantee for BRICS. This payment system is fast becoming a rival to the western controlled SWIFT [Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication] based out of Belgium, the capital of the European Union. In this context it’s necessary to note that China has developed their own payment system called CIPS [Cross-border Inter-bank Payment system], India has developed and deployed its SFMS [Structured Financial Messaging System] and Russia has its SPFS [System for Transfer of Financial Messages].
BRICS can be considered to be the new emerging World Order with more countries applying for membership. Iran and Argentina have formally applied for membership with Chinese support; and Egypt, Turkey and most importantly Saudi Arabia are in the process of joining. BRICS have been catapulted into a position of being the only combination of forces that challenges the global economic dominance of the G7 developed countries bloc.
BRICS has also grown in influence as a geopolitical hedge. Most countries of Asia, Africa, Middle East and South Americas (Latin America) who are outside the influence of the USA and its western allies have ignored calls to isolate Russia and refused to support NATO’s agenda, which is a very clearly to fight a proxy war with Russia using Ukraine as its dummy. NATO perceives any opposition to its goals as ‘coercive policies challenge their interests, security and values and states that “such mutually reinforcing attempts (to oppose NATO and G7) undercut the rules-based international order that runs counter to our (NATOs) values and interests.”
The economic danger that the West is afraid of is that if intra-BRICS commodity trade were to be settled in a commodity-linked basket of currencies among members as well as willing non-members, it would constitute an effective end to the petrodollar, a key pillar of the G7-led global financial system. For developing countries critically dependent on imports of the 3Fs – fuels, food and fertilizers — membership of the BRICS group may well turn out to be the best geopolitical hedge in a world forever changed by the US-led financial sanctions on Russia.
We can expect the USA, UK, China and Russia to use every tactic they know; legal, illegal, immoral or even inhuman to ensure that they remain globally relevant. Big-tech companies will be used to spread hatred and misinformation. Electronic payment systems will be under attack from hackers. Military aid will be provided to fringe groups to destabilize vulnerable democracies. The USA has already weaponized information, food and energy. It will use every opportunity and every organization under its influence (UN, World Bank, ADB, other institutions) to carry out its insidious activities. Since the 196 odd countries of the world can never be expected to unite all the time on one platform; multi-polar areas of influence that overlap across political, economic and cultural areas can be expected.
References:
1. kkneissl.com/en
2. Historians.org
3. urbandictionary.com/define
4. nypost.com
5. washingtonpost.com
6. investopedia.com
7. infobrics.org
8. Tilak Joshi – Oil & gas sector economist.
9. Forbes online
10. Cips.com.cn/en
11. unescwa.org/structured-financial-messaging-system
12. cbr.ru/psystem.fin
13. moderndiplomacy.eu
