by Regis Chamagne
On March 21, 2023, Vladimir Putin, in the presence of Xi Jinping, officially unveiled the nature of the war with the United States: “ We support the use of the Chinese yuan in settlements between the Russian Federation and countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. »
If Vladimir Putin says that now, it is because the conditions are met: diplomatic, military, economic and financial.
Little reminder
Briefly, let us recall that American power rests on the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This state of affairs allows the United States to feed the Ponzi scheme on which the dollar is based because countries around the world need dollars for their trade. The mission of the American army is to impose the dollar on the entire planet and punish recalcitrant countries when they come forward: Libya, for example, which aspired to launch a pan-African currency pegged to gold. The collapse of the dollar will therefore be the real witness to the geopolitical paradigm shift.
Clarification
To properly measure the scope of Vladimir Putin’s statement, one thing must be kept in mind: official statements by heads of state do not generally announce an intention, but most of the time they reveal a process that has already begun and been validated, they evoke a fait accompli. Thus, if Vladimir Poutine announced the end of the hegemony of the dollar, it is that the business is engaged for a certain time already and that it reached its critical point, that where the American economy is in great danger. So much so that the issue was raised recently on CNN ; the economist invited to debate the question simply said that dedollarization would be a disaster for the United States and the American people, that it would lead to hyperinflation in the United States.
Moreover, beyond the technical explanations, the bankruptcy of certain American banks is perhaps only the foretaste of the global collapse of the Ponzi scheme.
State of play
In the financial field, the United States and the EU dug their own grave, as early as 2014, by excluding certain Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank exchange system. This prompted Russia and China to develop their own systems. Today the Chinese CIPS will support exchanges between countries outside the West. But SWIFT is not just a financial system, it is also and perhaps above all a valuable intelligence tool because it allows you to know all the commercial exchanges between the countries of the world. Thus, economic exchanges between countries outside the West will become increasingly opaque for the United States and the West in general. It’s too bad.
In parallel, the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS was officially opened in July 2015. Dilma Roussef has just been appointed as its head. All the tools are therefore in place for non-dollar trade to develop. Moreover, the Indian central bank now authorizes international payments in Indian rupees and Saudi Arabia is preparing to sell its oil to China in yuan; it’s the end of the petrodollar.
In the diplomatic field, things are accelerating and events are happening. Here are the most recent, less than a month old:
- Restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, under the aegis of China.
- Bashar al-Assad received by Vladimir Putin in Moscow. In this regard, we will have to follow the operations in Syria and the fate of the American military installations there.
- Travel of Bashar el Assad and his wife to the United Arab Emirates.
- Signing of a security cooperation agreement between Iran and Iraq to put an end to Kurdish activities supported by the CIA.
- Reception of Xi Jinping by Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
- Reception of Luiz Inacio Lula by Xi Jinping in Beijing for five days.
- Russia-Africa Forum in Moscow with African leaders.
This diplomatic sequence comes after a year of great upheaval in the world. Gradually, the non-aligned countries have moved from a posture of benevolent neutrality to an implicit support (to say the least) for Russia, as evidenced by the rejection of Western countries by Africa and the recent Russia forum -Africa. But above all, the two organizations on which the new emerging geopolitical paradigm is based, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS, are attracting more and more attention.
Remember that the SCO has the shape of a Russian doll, with the member countries in the first circle, the observer countries in the second and the discussion partner countries in the third circle. The meeting in Samarkand, on September 15 and 16, 2022, was an opportunity to clarify Iran’s obligations to join the organization, to launch the process of approving Belarus as a member state, and to agree on make Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Maldives, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Myanmar new discussion partners.
As for the BRICS, under the Chinese initiative of the “BRICS Plus” format in May 2022, the organization will be able to open its door more easily to future members. There are currently four official requests: Algeria, Argentina, Iran and Mexico; countries that all have a certain regional weight. There are also many expressions of interest, not yet official: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Senegal, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea south.
We are witnessing the shift of the world towards this new geopolitical paradigm which is being put in place more and more quickly and concretely.
Supporting military operations
In my previous Article, I mentioned the possibility of at least two strategic options for Russia in its war in Ukraine. It now seems reasonable to think that Vladimir Putin, with the support of China and others, opted for the predominantly economic option by strangling Western countries, military action being at the service of the “dominant thrust” .
Seen in this light, Russian strategy and tactics in Ukraine take on a different meaning. It is a question of prolonging the war by a tactic of slow but continuous nibbling, destroying the successive armies raised by Ukraine and NATO until the exhaustion of the West, economically and consequently military.
Let us quote in this respect Evgueni Prigogine who had declared on November 28, 2022: “ Our task is not Bakhmut (Artyomovsk) itself but the destruction of the Ukrainian army. The word “task” is important because it clearly means that Wagner has a precise mission, therefore in coordination with the Russian general staff.
By having made Bakhmut-Artyomovsk a strategic objective on the military but above all symbolic level, the Russians attracted Ukrainian units which, relieving other parts of the front, were crushed one after the other. The maintenance of 600 men along the front line also offers the possibility of strategic offensives in several places, thus a permanent threat which poses a headache for the NATO staff.
Alongside this strategy of attrition and exhaustion, Russia affirms its technological superiority by using, sparingly and wisely, hypersonic missiles, just to dissuade the NATO countries from taking the step too far. A recent salvo of six missiles, one of which would have destroyed a secret NATO headquarters in the suburbs of Kiev, delivers a clear message: six hypersonic missiles are enough to sink six American aircraft carriers simultaneously.
And after ?
Virtually, Russia has already won against the United States and NATO. The emergence of a multipolar world has accelerated considerably in one year, particularly in recent weeks, and is becoming a reality before our eyes. The collapse of the dollar is underway and we can predict a succession of Western bank failures as well as short-term hyper-inflation.
On the ground, Russia will reintegrate Novorussia into its federation. How ? Either through a rapid military offensive once the Ukrainian army is completely exhausted, or through negotiations in which it will impose its conditions.
On the side of the old world, the fall of the dollar will cause a collapse in the standard of living in the United States, to such an extent that one can wonder if the Union will survive this shock, and by domino effect, a fall in Western and European economies. We are going to witness the dismantling of NATO and the EU and insurrectionary phenomena, not necessarily violent, leading to regime changes.
This will be an opportunity for France to recover its sovereignty and its place in the world if the new regime is worthy of it.
source: Regis Chamagne
