Harare (New Ziana) – Much to its surprise, shock even, the United States is facing titanic geopolitical shifts arrayed against it in all domains.
Shock as Washington had become, or assigned itself the role of, sole master of geopolitics of the world since the end of the Cold War.
It proclaimed for itself what it called Full Spectrum Dominance, in short over-lordship of the world’s political, social, economic and military affairs.
Politically, any regime anywhere had to have Washington’s seal of approval, socially it had to accept gay and lesbian sexual preferences, economically submit to western looting, and militarily never challenge US global supremacy.
Anyone or state unwilling to give in to the United States’ oversight on any of the aspects of the spectrum was, at best, labelled undemocratic and just sanctioned, at worst, invaded and the governing regime toppled under Washington’s self-assigned ‘right to protect’ privilege.
Zimbabwe, Iran, Venezuela and dozens of other nations fell in the ‘fortunate’ basket of ‘undemocratic’ and sanctioned states, and spared the calamity of military-led regime change.
On the other hand, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yugoslavia, among others, were assigned into the ‘unfortunate’ basket of forcible regime change by military means, with devastating consequences.
Until now, Washington had its way more or less unopposed in its over-lordship of the world, which wetted its appetite for a bigger geopolitical bite.
Come Ukraine, or Russia to be specific.
Driven by a desire to arrest Russia’s geopolitical rise after the fall of the Soviet Union, Washington trained its eyes on its old rival since the dawn of the millennium – first by sanctioning its most promising economic growth nodes under false pretences, and later lighting fires in its underbelly to keep Moscow’s hands full with neighbourhood policing duties.
First, in 2008, Georgia was lured by Washington to attack its Russia-leaning provinces, sparking a short war between the two neighbouring countries which ended in Moscow’s favour. Although the conflict ended quickly, its underlying territorial causes remain unresolved.
In 2014, the US was at it again in Russia’s neighbourhood. It sponsored regime change of a Moscow-leaning government in Ukraine, again sparking an internal conflict which has now escalated to a direct war between the two neighbours.
For Washington, which has come in heavily in support of Kiev both militarily and financially, the Ukraine-Russia war is the ultimate geopolitical play intended to keep its rival permanently down, and out of the table of global hegemony.
Through promises of ‘imminent’ NATO membership – real or fake – and arming Ukraine to the teeth, the US goaded Russia to attack Ukraine to bog down and drain Moscow economically, and more importantly provide Washington the long-sought cover to sanction the country to the stone age.
Either reason, in Washington’s calculation, served its geopolitical interests cheaply, and avoided the use of military force, an unacceptable existential danger given Russia’s nuclear armed status.
But it turns out this was a monumental geopolitical miscalculation by the United States as the Ukraine-Russia war has boomeranged on Washington in all domains it used to exercise power and over-lordship of the globe.
Not only has the war exposed the military and economic fragility and impotence of the US and its western vassals, it is also driving the collective West into ruin politically.
To the disbelief of much of the world, the West is failing to sustain military supplies to Ukraine, and has been vastly outmatched by the Russians in this regard, a factor now reflecting on the battleground.
Politically, there are growing signs of ‘wear and tear’ in the West by the public and governments alike over the war, which threatens club cohesion in both NATO and the European Union.
But the biggest danger to western hegemony, in particular that of the US, are speedy moves underway by the rest of the long-suffering world to free itself from the trade clutches of the West’s reserve currencies, through which hegemonic dominance was exercised.
This is after the West cut off Russia from global payment systems, seized over US$300 billion of its foreign currency reserves kept in western banks, and banned virtually all trade with the country under its so-called sanctions from ‘hell’ imposed at the start of the war in Ukraine.
The West’s calculation in imposing the most punishing sanctions in history, over 10 000 in total, was to quickly take down Russia, and intimidate the rest of the world geopolitically until the end of time.
But Russia has miraculously withstood the unprecedented onslaught, and politically, economically and militarily is punching back, inspiringly to the glee of the world.
British defence secretary, Ben Wallance: “There is not going to be a single magic-wand moment when Russia collapses.”
The world took immediate note of the West’s unprecedented onslaught on Moscow, and started taking bilateral and multilateral precautions centred on dropping the US dollar and EU euro in trade, and as reserve currencies.
Control of global reserve currencies gave the West unlimited manipulative economic and political power over the rest of the world, but this grip is now loosening fast, to the shock of Washington and its western vassals in Europe.
China and Brazil have just freshly agreed to discard the greenback and anchor their US$150 billion annual trade in their national currencies; the Saudis, whose oil trade is the bedrock of the US dollar global reserve status, will now accept Chinese Yuan payment for part of its oil exports to China, and a huge chunk of the US$200 billion year-on-year China-Russia trade is settled in national currencies.
In Africa too, the winds of trading change are blowing – Ghana and Kenya have just announced plans to pay for oil imports in gold and local currency respectively, while South Africa, host later this year of the summit of BRICS nations, says it will put creation of an alternative international reserve currency, top of the agenda of the August meeting.
The blow-back of these moves to the economies and hegemonic power of the West is massive, and existentially threatening.
Worriedly admits US Treasury chief, Janet Yellen: “There is a risk when we use financial sanctions that are linked to the role of the dollar that overtime it could undermine the hegemony of the dollar. It does create the desire on the part of China, of Russia (and) of Iran to find an alternative.”
If alternative payment systems bypassing western control, coupled with introduction of a new global currency or currencies successfully take root, the resultant redundancy of the US dollar and EU’s euro will be devastating on the economies of the West.
At a glance, the West would no longer be able to import goods and services cheaply by just printing money, and also lose access to cheap financing through control of global reserves, the basis of the mirage of their prosperity and economic stability.
For the US in particular, with an unsustainable US$31 trillion debt mountain, a US$1 trillion annual military budget, trillion-dollar year-on-year hegemonic budget for coups and assassinations, democracy, gay and lesbian rights promotion etc, the fast-changing geopolitical realities are deeply troubling.
There is growing realisation of this in western capitals now, but unfortunately, the horses appear to have bolted en masse for the West, in as far as the search by the remainder of the globe for true economic and political freedom – outside western clutches – is concerned.
Desperate western attempts now to bring back the horses, through shuttle diplomacy around the globe anchored on flowery language of partnership and shared prosperity, are not only unconvincing, but also coming way too late.
New Ziana
