Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Will The US Succeed in Breaking Russia to Maintain Dollar Hegemony?...

Politics / GeoPolitics Aug 26, 2014 - 12:41 PM GMT

By: Clive_Maund

Politics

In Why they are making an enemy of Russia? we looked at two of the key reasons why the US is making an enemy of Russia, namely the promotion of conflict by the powerful Defense industry lobby in order to keep its order books full, and the value of conjuring up an external enemy as a hate figure for the masses, in order to take the heat off the government. In this article we are going to look at what is arguably an even bigger reason, that was largely omitted in the earlier article, which is that Russia, in alliance with China, is threatening to bring an end to the dollar as the global reserve currency, which would mean the end of the American empire.


We are witness to the greatest struggle of our age - the battle to maintain global dollar hegemony, and with it US economic, military and political dominance of the entire planet - and this struggle is now coming to a head.

Notwithstanding its undeniably great accomplishments of the past hundred years, the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world is parasitic. This is because it creates money and debt instruments out of nothing, requiring virtually no effort, which it then swaps for goods and services with other countries. Because the US dollar is the global reserve currency, it is able to rack up astronomic deficits that would be untenable for any other country. US debts are now at such levels that if the US dollar loses its reserve currency status, the United States economy will implode and it will quickly be reduced to the status of a banana republic - hence the sense of urgency in the face of growing threats.

Any state that moves to opt out of using the dollar as a medium of exchange is dealt with, forcibly if deemed necessary. The tactics are threefold - economic blockade (sanctions), the funding of an internal revolution, perhaps assisted by US special forces, and an outright military invasion, or perhaps a combination of the three. This is what happened in Iraq and Libya, both of which planned to trade their oil in currencies other than the dollar. Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that the world's savings, via the Treasury market, are used to fund the vast US military machine with its hundreds of bases spread across the world which forcibly makes sure they stay yoked to this system.

Enter Russia (and China), the biggest threat yet to dollar dominance. These large powerful neighbors have entered into various major currency and trade agreements in the recent past that do not involve the dollar, and therefore pose a serious threat to the dollar's reserve currency status that left unchallenged would bring it to an end. Once you understand that you understand the reason for the recent propaganda blitz against Russia. In addition China has been busy mopping up the global gold supply for several years, as early preparation for the eventual backing of its currency by gold, which will put the final nail in the US' coffin, as the unbacked dollar will collapse completely when this happens.

Map of Asia

A sad irony for the American people is that even though the US has the ability to swap unlimited intrinsically worthless paper for goods and services from the the rest of the world, the infrastructure of the country is crumbling and many Americans already live in poverty on "food stamps", and even the great US middle class is being squeezed. This is because the elites don't care about the country or the masses - all they care about is power and the amassing of personal fortunes.

US Welfare

If you are any good at playing chess you should find it very easy to understand the power game as it now stands. The US wants to "deal with Russia" which has made substantial moves to operate outside the confines of the dollar based trading system. If it could attack it militarily and bomb it into submission, as it has done with various smaller states, it would, but because Russia is a big powerful country with a sizeable military of its own, and nukes, that is not an option. Efforts to subvert the Russian government from within and foment revolution probably wouldn't work, because the Russian secret services are good at rooting out subversives, and probably as ruthless as the US black ops. That only leaves the option of an economic blockade - sanctions, in an effort to isolate and mortally weaken the Russia economy, and as we know, these sanctions are already in place. But what excuse do you use to impose sanctions? - after all, it doesn't sound too good to go on BBC World News and say "Russia has decided to implement trade agreements that don't involve the US dollar, so we are going to blockade it economically" - enter the Ukraine.

The US searched for a geographic doorway through which to attack Russia - the North and east routes don't work because they are either ocean or China, countries like Poland in Europe wouldn't do either, because they are firmly in the Western camp now, but the Ukraine was perfect for the job because of its being a large country on the SW flank of Russia that is torn in two directions, having old loyalties and blood ties to Russia, and aspirations to a closer union with Europe - the perfect place to foment a pro-Western revolution and perhaps a civil war that would draw Russia in and could then be used as an excuse to implement sanctions. That is exactly what has happened.

So now we have sanctions, but the problem for the US is this - they probably won't work. They will cause damage, especially to the fools in Europe who have slavishly followed their orders from Washington to implement them, but they probably won't destroy the Russian economy as the US is hoping. This is because the Russian economy is very big and can if necessary operate on a self-sufficient basis, especially as it has its own oil and gas, and an important supportive factor is that it has a big powerful neighbor in the form of China which knows it will be "in the firing line" after Russia, and is thus quite happy to enter into a mutually supportive relationship with Russia. China and Russia look set to form a "dollar free" axis and tough it out with Washington. The Chinese have worked all this out in advance, as has Putin, which is why, in addition to mopping up all the gold available on the market in recent times to later back its currency, it has been beefing up its military in readiness to counter future threats from the US military, which is already making moves to reopen bases in the Philippines, and engaging in other expansionary measures in the west Pacific.

Meanwhile, in the Mid-East, we have the Islamic State movement, which appears to have arisen spontaneously to fill the power vacuum that was created when US forces quit Iraq. We should not forget that although Iraq has existed for many decades, the country in an artificial creation of the British after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in order to control the region and its oil reserves. The US is trying to stop them with air power, but without "boots on the ground" they are unlikely to succeed. Although Israel is looking on with satisfaction as Arab kills Arab, it had better hope that the dollar doesn't lose its reserve currency status, or they could be in big trouble as the conveyor belt of money and arms across the Atlantic from the US could grind to a halt.

Islamic State Plans

The situation between the US and Russia (and in the future China) is potentially very dangerous - is already very dangerous. Are they (the US elites and NATO) crazy enough to start a World War? - World War III? Sure they are and you can see the potential for it in the continual provocation and brinksmanship that is already going on, a fine example of which being the rabid and almost hysterical reaction to the Russian aid convey that just went across the border into eastern Ukraine. What they could have said to Russia, if they were reasonable, is "Thank you for going to the trouble and expense of organizing a big relief convoy for the besieged people of the cities of eastern Ukraine, who have no electricity, food or water." Instead their reaction was one of sanctimonious outrage - "How dare you cross the border of this sovereign state without the permission of their government? - This is a grave escalation." etc and are using it as an excuse to crank up sanctions even more.

The situation in eastern Ukraine and involving the Russian aid convey is a classic example of how propaganda can be used to turn white into black. The way it worked is this; the humanitarian situation for countless thousands of people holed up in big cities in eastern Ukraine, like Donetsk and Luhansk, is dire. They have been relentlessly shelled and have little or no electricity, food or water. Many are these people are either Russian speaking or of Russian descent, so it is natural for Russia to want to go to their aid. So Russia went to the trouble and expense of organizing a big relief convoy. The controlled Western media have downplayed this crisis which affects countless thousands, hardly reporting on it at all, but they have had plenty of airtime - much more - for one American reporter gruesomely executed by a British Jihadist. They have done this because they don't want people to be aware of the attacks being carried by the Ukraine government against its own people, which they back, and they don't want people to understand the reason for the Russian aid convoy, so that they can then misrepresent the reasons for the aid convoy. The allegations by the Western media that the aid convoy has military objectives is absurd - you don't need to be a truck driver to know that it's very difficult to squeeze a tank or an armored troop carrier into an average sized truck. The protest that Russia is "violating Ukraine's territorial integrity" by driving the trucks on through without permission is hypocritical cant and humbug, especially coming from a country that invaded Iraq on false pretenses, the mythical "weapons of mass destruction". If Kiev wasn't massacring its own citizens in eastern Ukraine, the aid convoy wouldn't be necessary, and the reason that the trucks pressed on into Ukraine is that they were being deliberately messed about for a week at the border, when vetting the trucks should have taken 2 days maximum. So there you see a fine example of propaganda by omission, the purpose being to misrepresent the objectives of the Russian aid convoy, in order to present it as an act of aggression by Russia and therefore as a justification for a further tightening of sanctions.

Let's go back to first principles for a moment and ask ourselves why the US is so concerned about what happens in the Ukraine, which is a country on the other side of the world from the US and therefore none of its business, unless that is it fancies itself as the new Roman Empire - perhaps Barack Obama believes himself to be a latter day Julius Caesar, which conjures up the vision of him entering Congress as if it was the Coliseum, dressed in a white robe and sandals, with a laurel wreath on his head. The US does in fact command an empire, and uses the dollar reserve currency system and its massive military to control its dominions, punishing severely any that try to break out of it. However, its dominions do not include China and Russia, which cannot be subjugated due to their big economies and their ability to physically defend themselves with nukes, if need be, and they are destined to dethrone the dollar and collapse the empire, which is completely rotted out internally, stricken as it is with massive debts and hopelessly corrupt government, as evidenced by the recent train of deplorable leaders.

It is hard to overstate the stupidity of Europe in toadying to the US and imposing sanctions on Russia (in other words starting a trade war). Russia is not some Third World banana republic, it is an important world power, and the act of imposing sanctions on it by Europe and the US is a gross insult and extreme provocation that will have disastrous consequences, particularly since it is now allied with China, with which it will now work assiduously to completely bypass the dollar. China knows that if the US succeeds in destroying Russia economically and subjugating it, then it's next, so we can expect China and Russia to forge a very powerful alliance. Europe's economy is already extremely fragile, and it stands to lose far more over the short to medium-term than the US by picking a fight it can't win with its huge neighbor. Europe now faces a plunging currency and disintegration with the rise of far right political parties leading eventually to tribal wars - European countries have a long tradition of idiotic destructive attritional wars. Russia will probably get along alright, with its big internal economy and new trade agreements with China.

The rabid propaganda now being bandied about in Western media, especially with respect to Russia, is so crude and primitive that it would have even made the Nazi propaganda maestro, Dr Goebbels, blush with embarrassment, and you couldn't accuse him of underestimating the stupidity of the masses. We haven't seen this sort of thing since before the 2nd World War. What does it mean? - it means that the Western elites are DESPERATE, desperate in the face of a looming collapse of the dollar caused by its losing its reserve currency status - so desperate that you can practically see the perspiration running down their faces. It's true that the dollar is rallying now temporarily because of the gathering collapse of Europe, and may continue to benefit from this for a while, and possibly soon from stockmarket liquidation too, but they are looking beyond that. Once the dollar goes their empire is finished - it will no longer be possible to maintain careening astronomic deficits, there will be no more limitless funds for the military machine many of whose bases could end up looking like the town of Pripyat near Chernobyl, no more imposing their will by force anywhere in the world, no more imposing fines on foreign banks and institutions for not doing things their way, no more money and arms for Israel, no more massive bonuses on Wall St etc. The rapid spread of destitution and poverty amongst the masses in the US means that a state of anarchy could well erupt that sees the mansions and citadels of the elites ransacked by the mob, and they are well aware of this possibility, which is the reason for the militarization of police forces across the country, as recently demonstrated in Ferguson, Missouri, and the stockpiling of vast quantities of ammo.

The biggest danger arising out of all this is that desperate people do desperate things, and the recent crude "gloves off" propaganda blitz is certainly a sign of desperation. It's been a long time since a really big war and you can see from their increasingly reckless words and actions that they are lusting for it. It is one of the supreme ironies of this time that amidst all the maudlin sentimentality over the start of the 1st World War exactly 100 years ago, they are bringing us to the brink of another. Could it cross the line and go nuclear? - given the reckless aggression and brinksmanship already being displayed, that is certainly a possibility.

They can mass all the arms and missile batteries along Russia's western border they like, perhaps promoting the paranoid notion that Russia wants to take back Eastern Europe, which it doesn't, but it will never amount to anything more than a costly bluff, because if they ever dared attack Russia, then European cities would disappear under mushroom clouds. The underlying reason for such operations would probably be more lucrative contracts for the defense industry.

Remember, it wasn't the elites who got killed in the 1st World War, it was the hapless young fools who thought they were doing the honorable thing going off to fight for their countries. So you'd better get good at seeing through the thick smog of propaganda in order that you understand what's really going on and can take the necessary steps to protect yourself - if you don't it could cost you and your loved ones more than just your property and investments, it could cost you your lives.

Many people suffer from vague uncertainties - they know something is wrong, but can't put their finger on it. This is because they are not privy to "The Grand Plan" and believe the lies and misinformation carefully and skillfully served up to them by the compliant media, whose masters views the masses as sheep and treat them like mushrooms - "Feed them shit and keep them in the dark". But once you become aware of the game plan, it is liberating, and spotting the lies and misinformation in the media becomes a kind of sport. Knowledge is power, and if you figure out that the dollar is going to collapse after its current rally - which could have quite a way to go incidentally - then you know to position yourself to escape the catastrophic effects of its eventual collapse and even profit handsomely from it - that is when gold and silver will do their moonshot of course, and it could coincide with the Chinese backing their currency with gold.

In conclusion, the answer to the question posed by this article "Will the US succeed in breaking Russia to maintain dollar hegemony?" is: "No, it won't", which means that the dollar is going to collapse, probably right after its swansong "death of Europe" rally, which is currently in progress.

By Clive Maund
CliveMaund.com

For billing & subscription questions: subscriptions@clivemaund.com

© 2014 Clive Maund - The above represents the opinion and analysis of Mr. Maund, based on data available to him, at the time of writing. Mr. Maunds opinions are his own, and are not a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell securities. No responsibility can be accepted for losses that may result as a consequence of trading on the basis of this analysis.

Mr. Maund is an independent analyst who receives no compensation of any kind from any groups, individuals or corporations mentioned in his reports. As trading and investing in any financial markets may involve serious risk of loss, Mr. Maund recommends that you consult with a qualified investment advisor, one licensed by appropriate regulatory agencies in your legal jurisdiction and do your own due diligence and research when making any kind of a transaction with financial ramifications.

Clive Maund Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in