ac04 said:
not going to bother with most of that, but i will say the idea that the US navy will be able to do anything to prevent a multipolar reserve currency system from proliferating is completely absurd. its already happening now and we're not doing anything about it. europe is buying natural gas from russia using rubles. china is buying oil and coal from russia with yuan. saudi arabia has openly stated they may accept yuan from china in exchange for oil. when exactly is the US going to start sinking tankers over any of those actions? we cannot afford a war with the middle east or china and they can't afford one with us, we're co-dependent. the whole idea is very "my dad can beat up your dad" to be honest.
if the navy was as powerful and the world actually feared the US as much as you claim, the sanctions against russia would have actually worked. and if the US was actually going to instigate military action against countries using alternative currencies to trade with our enemies, we'd be doing it right now. instead the ruble is stronger now than it was when we implemented the sanctions because russia has commodities people actually need, so countries are going to trade for them in whatever currency is necessary. nobody seems to give a damn about our sanctions or the strength of our navy at the moment. not surprising after we spent trillions over 20 years losing to guys on camels and then ran away with our tail between our legs, then stole money from russia and subcontracted the actual fighting out to ukraine instead of doing anything real about it.
de-globalization and de-dollarization will go hand in hand and they are both accelerating. i don't know what the east and/or BRICS will land on as their alternative, but ultimately it doesn't matter. we have already witnessed the peak of the USD as the world reserve currency and there's nothing the navy can do about it. i'm not saying the USD will be completely replaced, but it will continue to shrink as the preferred medium of exchange for international trade and as the dominant FX reserve. IMO you have completely overestimated the US and underestimated the rest of the world's ability to trade without our involvement. there is plenty of evidence of this happening right now and its not going away. and when your main export is debt, that's a massive problem.
Fair enough. I'm in. Let's recall the Navy today and see what happens. Hint, it will all unravel very, very rapidly. Piracy both state sponsored and emanating from parts of the world with insufficient government to prevent or sponsor it will accelerate it's decline. What you have to understand is that nobody in BRICS can ship goods within their system or anywhere else without the US Navy patrolling the seas. That's a fact, not an opinion. Global trade didn't exist before we created it and it won't exist when we stop supporting it. This is largely not an economic discussion but rather a geopolitical one. All history of global reserve currencies isn't relevant because this world has never existed.
Europe was caught with their pants down and is forced to do business how the Russians want it done. That's not a good relationship and it's not a good place to be but it beats the hell out of freezing to death this winter which is where they were headed with literally no other options. Hell we have seen Germans buying wood burning stoves and lumber this summer. Expensive lesson in the importance energy independence that in no way suggests the Ruble is strengthening. And that oil China is buying, where is it coming from? Their western fields via tankers sailing under the security we provide through waters that butt up against nations that don't like the Russians or the Chinese. Why does it get from point A to point B? Because we let it. Same goes for that oil they're buying from the Saudis. Why doesn't India seize those tankers? Because we don't let them. China is 100% dependent on us for safe passage of they crap they export and the food and energy they import. That's not a debatable point, it's a fact. Remove the US Navy and it all comes to a screeching halt. Everyone plays nice because we force them to even when it's against our own best interests.
IMO you're too caught up in what's happening right here, right now, today. Geopolitics is a long game. Three years ago Trump told the Europeans they were making a mistake in allowing themselves to depend on Russia for energy and they laughed at him. In front of him, no less. Then it turned out he was right and we're seeing that play out now as the Europeans fund the Russian war machine in Ukraine. You're arguing sanctions didn't work which is going to be interesting to revisit when the Siberian oil fields go offline in the coming months because the western engineers that operated them left the country when the war started. Further impact of those ineffective sanctions will be felt next year when global crop yields suffer because Russian fertilizers were offline this year. These things happen over time, not overnight.
Why would we start WWIII just because some nations are trying to be bigger than they're capable of being? Why would we pick a fight we don't need when we don't have to? The dollar is strengthening against most all currencies. We're the only nation in the world that can be energy and food independent. Why would we create a fight we don't need? I assure you nobody is looking at Afghanistan and thinking, "Yeah, we can beat the US in a war." That's not happening. Naval battles and occupations/nation building aren't the same thing.
Again I'm not saying we're in a good place right now but the threats aren't from Russia or China or a potential rival currency and their coalition. The threat is the Democrat Party and their force feeding of "green" energy in parts of the country where it's a poor fit (which is most of it) and artificial limits on fossil fuel production and runaway spending and racial division. That's where our exposure comes from. The international stuff is noise.
