Shifting World Order Reveals U.S. to be a Threatened Brute
Amid the decline of American influence on the world stage and Biden's desire to "lead" the "new world order," U.S. hegemony is at risk. This wounded animal seems prepared to fight, and that's scary.
The west's corporate, mainstream press has remained remarkably consistent with its typical use of selective coverage and outright propaganda, but what they are leaving out may very well be considered important information to patriotic Americans willing to pay high gas prices and risk nuclear war to stick it to Putin: the United States' place among the world's power order is faltering.
This is bad for everyone.
Throughout the last month since the most recent escalation of the years-long conflict in Ukraine—Russia's invasion, that is—the U.S. hegemony is losing ground regarding its power and its partnerships. The result is in no way good for anyone, and not because the U.S. is slipping from its position, but rather because it's doing so unwillingly, and like a wounded animal, likely feels threatened and ready to do crazy things in its most desperate moment.
Since the invasion occurred, the western public has been led to believe that the world is uniting against Russia. However, that's not really true. It would, in fact, be more factual to say that those who have the freedom to align anyway they want won't necessarily do the bidding of the U.S., especially if there are other options.
Yet it's these other options that are viewed as threats to the United States.
One of the most prominent threats to America's hegemony, mainly in terms of economy and diplomacy, is China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The BRI is China's central strategy for boosting international diplomacy by constructing global infrastructure, including a new Silk Road Economic Belt and a maritime Silk Road as well as developing close diplomatic ties around a world by aiding other nations' development in an effort to expand Chinese economic and political power. It set the stage for the multipolar shift occurring now.
The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) is a big player in Washington's network of pro-war think tanks, it's members are part of the "ruling establishment of the United States" consisting of various journalists and media company executives, and it is inextricably tied to the monopolized propaganda machine that is U.S. corporate media.
The CFR regards China's diplomatic and economic initiative as "a significant challenge to U.S. economic, political, climate change, security, and global health interests."
The primary reason U.S. power opposes the BRI is because it threatens their power. Being a "challenge" to America's various interests is code for a risk to U.S. hegemony. The CFR, and by extension the whole power establishment, refers to China as "a revisionist power seeking to displace the United States and build a Sinocentric world order and therefore should be countered at every step."
Over the course of this past month-plus, the threats to power have only increase din volume.
President Biden this week made remarks prior to the Business Roundtable’s CEO Quarterly Meeting in which he expressed his optimism about the economy and claimed Putin "wasn’t anticipating the extent or the strength of our unity."
The president closed those remarks with a statement that raised some eyebrows (emphasis my own):
"As one of the top military people said to me in a secure meeting the other day, 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946. And since then, we’ve established a liberal world order, and that hadn’t happened in a long while. A lot of people dying, but nowhere near the chaos.
"And now is a time when things are shifting. We’re going to — there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it."
As global power shifts and the new cold war continues to stick dangerous wedges between empires, this—with the risk of sounding like a broken record—is an unpleasant position for the world population.
The U.S. continues to portray themselves as the lone exemplary nation that can lead the world order, but after decades of the post-war Rules-Based International Order the portrayal carries little weight among many world leaders.
Under the insanely insulated impression that America is the single force of moral good in the world, the propagandized mind misses out on the realities that contradict such self-righteous beliefs. For instance, the widely popular conviction that the fight for Ukraine is a fight for freedom—as seen in social media posts, bios, and profile pictures—rages on while these same people remain completely nescient of the fact that at least 13,000 newborns have died of starvation since January 2022 in Afghanistan or that the U.S. continues to support and assist the Saudi genocide in Yemen.
Moreover, under such circumstances, the reality is missed that such a power-hungry empire like the United States is in danger of losing ground, the thing that produces the anxious growls of desperation from the brute that's ready to bite.
The world order is shifting away from American unipolar hegemony, and the U.S. is in decline. The world outside the western propaganda apparatus knows and sees this.
Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is not picking up Biden's phone calls— which is sad for Biden because he has maintained his nation's steadfast support for the bombing and starvation of Yemen despite calling the kingdom carrying out the operation a "pariah" on the presidential debate stage. However, his ban on Russian oil seemed to backfire as MBS and leaders of the UAE seemed uninterested in easing the price surge that came as a result.
The cold shoulder from the pariah government was such a haymaker to U.S. confidence, the western empire had to crawl over to Nicolás Maduro to offer easing sanctions in order to beg for oil in the face of surging prices even as Venezuela has noted their support for Russia.
To make matters worse for the U.S.—and moreover, the U.S. dollar—the Saudis have decided to begin selling oil to China using the yuan rather than the petrodollar. This is a blatant showing of how the world order is evolving away from the unipolar power structure because it shows the dollar is not the preeminent currency, nor is its status as a "reserve currency" in any way safe.
And it just so happens that India agreed to buy Russian oil at a discounted price and in a transaction made in each nation's respective currency. India has struggled in the post-pandemic economy, and higher energy prices proved no good for them. Instead of bending to some western-based strategy to isolate Russia—a move that would only further cripple the nation's economic state—India embraced the multipolar opportunities. And that says a lot considering that India's relations with China are in no way considered strong.
In fact, for the first time since deadly border clashes in 2020, India hosted the Chinese Foreign Minister this week.
India is not an exception in their decision to circumvent the west's desperate demands not to sanction Russia.
The west may be united against Russia, but the world sure isn't.
Even just beyond the United States' southern border, the former world order barely stands. Mexico has been working to achieve energy independence, which is a severely bad thing for U.S. oil companies, so the empire has ridiculed the smaller country's just ambitions. As a result of trying to control everything in the palm of their power hand, the U.S. has shoved Mexico further away from diplomatic understanding to the point where Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government has no interest in standing with the west.
Further south, more and more South American countries are turning to China's BRI for the benefits. Twenty nations across South America and the Caribbean are signed up for the initiative (make it twenty-one if Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva comes back to power in Brazil, which is likely).
This is an illustration of China's influence comparative to America's— South America has been dubbed "America's backyard" and more recently its "front yard," but with decades worth of U.S. meddling and regime changes, the strong-arm diplomacy is causing the U.S. to lose influence.
Empires jostling for power should never be applauded, but at least China, with its strong influence, has already publicly cited NATO's large role in creating the current conflict in Ukraine. And U.S. power continues to slide.
Of course, this week there was also the news of Russia's announcement that it will begin selling natural gas to "unfriendly countries" in rubles. As many have noted, Russia supplies roughly 40% of Europe's natural gas, which sanctions conveniently excluded. This announcement is big news because Europe cannot cut off such a substantial portion of its natural gas supply without, you know, sending the continent into absolute chaos. As has been pointed out, since the European nations are explicitly those "unfriendly countries," these nations need to find a way to get some rubles.
Leo Rowley wrote a piece for Multipolarista after his Twitter thread went viral. In it, he lays out four ways Europeans might be able to attain rubles (which undercuts the strategy to lower the value of Russia's currency), while also laying out the consequence that accompany each one.
Rowley notes that one of those options is to purchase rubles with euros and dollars from Russia's central bank. However, the problem with that is "[if] Russia refuses payment in euros and US dollars, 'unfriendly' countries will be forced to first purchase an intermediary currency, like the Chinese yuan," something the west "has little remaining leverage to prevent."
Continuing, Rowley claims that this is the main reason for America's current posture with China, writing that part of "the conflict over Ukraine is about cleaving a receding Europe off of Asia and forcing it back into dependency on the United States." Thus, as Rowley notes, "EU leaders now have a fateful decision to make: if they continue down the path of subordinating to US aggression against Russia, Europe will be plunged into economic chaos."
And going even further, the world. The world is put at heightened risk when U.S. power senses such imminent threats.
It is very evident that the U.S. intends to try to maintain its place atop the world power order, they are prepared to initiate global chaos and conflict as a result of their delusions. Therefore, as the U.S. grip on the world's order is slipping fast, it's precisely their ambitious desire to "lead" that order which signals that they are bound to get even more desperate.
This is no good for anyone.
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