In a sense the American war on Russia—intended to preserve the American “Rules-Based Order” by extending it—is about dollar dominance. Without dollar dominance there can be no US military dominance. Further, the point about extending the Rules Based Order is a key concept. Since world geopolitics is not a zero sum game, a game with a finite set of marbles in play, for the American Empire to retain its dominance it must always be expanding the reach of its Rules Based Order. In other words, the American Empire is, by its nature, expansionary. Let’s look at this from the standpoint of the war on the dollar, which threatens to undercut the entire imperial model of America’s Rules Based Order.
Larry Johnson provides a good starting point this morning:
Johnson provides a succinct summary of US geopolitical strategy drawn from a Rand Corp. document. The basic concept outlined in the two quoted paragraphs are straightforward. America has established a network or alliances of subordinate vassal states and international organizations of various sorts that are also subordinate to American interests—while excluding nations and entities that are not subordinate to American interests. America, sidestepping international law norms, has defined its network as The International Rules Based Order. In other words, the international order is defined by American interests which, by their nature, are subject to development in the service of American hegemony and American “values”. Thus, the international order now espouses the Imperial American value of aggressively spreading sexual perversions and the denial of the fundamental male - female duality of human nature. Rand makes it explicitly clear that the expansionary nature of America’s Imperial order rests ultimately on “hard power”—all are welcome to submit voluntarily, but involuntary military measures will ultimately be employed against the recalcitrant. If that reminds you of, say, the Muslim ideology of conquest or that of Genghiz Khan, that isn’t actually coincidental.
Here’s the Rand account, which you can compare to what I just wrote:
Since 1945, the United States has pursued its global interests by building and maintaining various alliances, economic institutions, security organizations, political and liberal norms, and other tools — often collectively referred to as the international order. ...
Building an international order has been a formal program of U.S. foreign policy since at least the 1940s and an aspirational goal since the nation’s founding. According to its post–World War II architects, the international order protects U.S. values by maintaining an environment in which the ideals of a free and democratic society — like that of the United States — can flourish. The United States has used both power and idealistic notions of shared interests to underwrite the rules-based order. In this sense, it employed both hard and soft power to construct the order.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1598.html
As you can see, the “international rules based order” is simply a euphemism for the American Imperial Order’s global ambitions. The rules themselves are not derived from those of the American people, but from the American Empire’s functionaries—the imperial ruling class that we’ve lately become so aware of.
But again. All of this is based on dollar dominance, and dollar dominance is ultimately based on King Dollar maintaining its status as the sole form of payment for the dominant form of world energy—oil and gas. The equation is simplicity itself: No dollars = no energy = no economic activity. If the American Empire enforces dollar based sanctions on a country, that country’s economy can be shut down for practical purposes. The American Empire has not been shy about inflicting such draconian sanctions on recalcitrant subordinate societies, no matter the human hardships. Nor has the American Empire been shy about also resorting to “hard power”, no matter the human hardships. One thinks of Madeline Albright’s testimony that half a million dead Iraqi children was an acceptable price—was “worth it”—for the geopolitical gain that accrued to the Imperial Project.
Now, of course there has always been a gigantic exception to all the above. Russia has never accepted subordination to the American Empire and Russia has always been self sufficient in terms of energy and resources. Iran, too, forms an exception to the above. What has changed in recent decades, especially since the rise of Vladimir Putin in 2000, has been the leverage that Russian energy resources have gained in the world market. Russian pipeline gas is cheap and abundant, and easily supplied to energy hungry EU. Russia has always proven open to flexible terms of payment. All of this undercuts Imperial American dominance over the EU. Further, Russia has found vast new markets for its energy resources in the growing economies of Eurasia—including China and India. This development has undercut American Imperial attempts to bring those two enormous economies into linkage, and thus subordination, with the American Empire. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has been chafing at American demands for continuing subordination when the Saudis can clearly see their future economic benefit lying in closer integration with the Eurasian bloc of nations: Russia, China, and India. Standing in the way of Saudi integration has been its running conflict with Iran.
All of this has been discussed—most recently yesterday—several times in the context of Eurasian integration. However, within the past few days, following the China led rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there was an additional development that plays into two frank discussions—one on CNN and one on Fox—that express trepidation for the future of King Dollar as the world’s sole reserve currency, and thus trepidation for American Imperial dominance. In particular, the talk coming from Saudi Arabia to the effect that the Saudi’s may accept payment in the Chinese Yuan has sounded alarm bells in the West. The fall of King Dollar would spell the effective end of the American Empire as a true global hegemon—the US would simply no longer be able to afford its current military profile. However, it would also lead to economic chaos back home in the USA.
With that in mind, here’s a reprise of the development we noted yesterday:
Permit me to unpack that just a bit. The references to gold? The major Eurasian countries are also the major world holders of gold—Russia, China, India, and others. They are openly discussing a payments arrangement that would be gold based. And that Saudi refinery-in-China deal? That sure looks like a precursor to formally accepting payment in yuan. TL seemed to get it, and here’s the tweet I cited yesterday, suggesting that the refinery project is very much a threat to dollar dominance:
On to CNN and Fareed Zakaria:
And Fox, with Monica Crowley. Ignore the Neoconnish Crowley’s references to “America’s Enemies”. Concentrate on the forecast of Weimar style inflation resulting from … the Saudis announcing that they’ll take payment in yuan. No, I can’t say that that’s exactly true, but the consequences will be very unpleasant:
One catches a whiff of panic in the air. A note of hysteria, doubt whether our Neocon masters actually have a clue. We already knew they didn’t have the welfare of ordinary Americans at heart, but do they have any clue of any sort at all?
Finally, an example of what Rand Corp. meant when it maintained that
the international order protects U.S. values by maintaining an environment in which the ideals of a free and democratic society — like that of the United States — can flourish.
In fact, US “values”—as news story after news story informs us every day—protect and enable male degenerates who oppress normals. How long will normals put up with this? Dollar dominance over the years has had the strong tendency to keep the American population in a state of moral somnolence:
The saddest part of these American values is that this girl was unable to even speak using normal human expressions. Instead she felt compelled to speak in the only terms recognized in our public discourse—”rights talk”, which is morally empty and recognizes none of the fundamental realities of human nature. The reality is that, using the ideology of “rights”, the enemies of human nature have been able to privilege degenerate males over all others in our society, while normals in American society are left struggling to find the words to express their moral disgust. This is the effect that the American Empire’s ruling elite has on normal human beings, at home and around the world.
@Mark
Excellent post.
I’d like to further explore a few aspects of your post. Not to disagree, but to try to help expand and round out the arguments. I would also say that in your constant inquiries over the last several years you are getting closer and closer to the ‘truth’ of where we really are.
The Rand report states, “Building an international order has been a formal program of U.S. foreign policy since at least the 1940s and an aspirational goal since the nation’s founding.”
Regarding the aspirational goal…perhaps. But there has always been an anti-internationalist side to the American experiment. I’m thinking of George Washington’s farewell address in 1796 when he said, undoubtedly speaking for many Americans: "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world." My sense is that this statement reflected the policy of the United States for a long, long time and influenced the several isolationist and anti-war movements that have marked American history. In other words, I don’t think building an international order has always been an aspirational goal of US policy and, to the contrary, quite the opposite has often been our prevailing policy.
But I don’t disagree that building an international order has been a formal program of U.S. foreign policy since at least the 1940s. As you and some of your readers may remember I have noted in the comment space here recently how interesting and instructive I found Alan Talbot’s 2016 book ‘The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government”, which describes in chapter and verse our aggressive internationalist post-WWII policies.
Later in your post you write
“Finally, an example of what Rand Corp. meant when it maintained that ‘the international order protects U.S. values by maintaining an environment in which the ideals of a free and democratic society — like that of the United States — can flourish.’ In fact, US ‘values’—as news story after news story informs us every day—protect and enable male degenerates who oppress normals.”
I’d like to follow up on two aspects of this.
One, is the implicit assertion that U.S. values are the ideals of a free and democratic society. I doubt you’ll disagree with me (at least I hope you won’t) but the lizard language here is the assertion that our values are the values of a free and democratic society. There are many reasons why this is not true but I’ll just mention one aspect of the untruth of this statement and that is the perverting influence of our broken electoral system. The system is broken in many ways…one of the most important ways is that the electorate is currently unable to freely elect representatives who reflect the policy positions a truly informed electorate would pursue. So…’U.S. values’ are simply not the ‘ideals of a free and democratic society’.
The second is that US ‘values’ protect and enable male degenerates who oppress normals. I’m not going to argue against the truth of this proposition…in fact I agree that the Elites’ version of US values do enable oppression of normals. But I think there is a larger game at work here. I think the moral degeneracy in elitist policies is not so much a statement of elitist values as it is an intentional distraction from their real and fundamental value system, which is to obtain and retain as much power and money as possible. Don’t listen so much to the absurd and undeniably false things they say…look at who they are and what they do. There are so many examples of this that I need not list them, but I will list just two simply for the purposes of illustration:
• Has Nancy Pelosi not spent her entire career in Congress and is she not the richest person in Congress?
• Has Joe Biden not spent his entire career in federal government without ever holding a job in commerce but does he not have a fortune in the tens of millions?
Absurd social and legal policies may be a tactic in their quest for ‘votes’ and control but money and power are their ultimate goal.
"One catches a whiff of panic in the air. A note of hysteria, doubt whether our Neocon masters actually have a clue. We already knew they didn’t have the welfare of ordinary Americans at heart, but do they have any clue of any sort at all?"
From the beginning of this takover by bidenobamadeepstate, I have been convinced it was by design, an evil plan by luciferian bots wearing human costumes, out to destroy so they can Build Back Better.
Occasionally I read something written by people smarter than me that chips away at my conviction and there is a slight chance all this is chaos is a result of stupid actions fueled by arrogance, incompetence and greed and these fools are winging it.
Not that it will make things current or future any better, but in a weird way, I want to believe the latter. And depending on the day, I'll briefly let myself believe in the winging it/no clue theory.
But it never lasts very long.