Global shift

German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck famously flipped the concept "trade follows the flag" to "Die Flagge folgt dem Handel" i.e. the flag follows trade. This would now mean that geopolitics follows geoeconomics, or that wars follow economic interests.

In fact, powerful states want free control over the resources of weak states; those resources become the 'national interests' of the powerful state and to secure them they are willing to go to war with those states. To achieve that, wherever all diplomatic means and deterrence fail; when global nay-saying, political isolation and sanctions become futile; when colour revolutions become unsuccessful and even proxy wars miscarry – then direct war becomes the inevitable last option to set things straight again.

Usually, war breaks out when one of the warring parties perceives that the existential or strategic cost of not fighting is worse than the destruction of war itself i.e. if you don't fight you will lose national sovereignty or become politically or economically enslaved. And the other party that is perceiving itself as the 'stronger' one, is thinking of the zero-sum game, wherein it will simply knock down its opponent and force it to 'behave' and then snatch away its resources as war bounty.

Then there is also the Thucydides Trap, wherein Thucydides noted in his History of the Peloponnesian War that "it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable." With globalisation in all avenues, Thucydides Trap has also become global, and the rise of China, Russia and the Global South has instilled fear in the US that its unipolar, strategic and financial hegemony over the rest of the world is decreasing and will soon face a total collapse if the other side is not stopped.

One should bear in mind that there is a difference between power accompanied with prudence and power accompanied with arrogance. With prudence you tend to develop legitimate, constructive power that fosters collective wellbeing. Such power has the approval of the masses, societal cohesion and institutional credibility. But power under arrogance breeds coercion and becomes a complex game of influence, fear, ambition, authority and profit. And that is exactly where the liberal-democratic-capitalist model has brought the US to be. Under the façade of democracy, this profit-driven, elite-controlled system overrides public interest and deepens the rich-poor divide. And because the US has also deemed to spread this system into every country, like a religion, the problem has become universalised.

The capitalist system has another major evil, 'credit'. Credit or loan is such a curse that it has literally indebted the whole humanity just to benefit a few hands. Today, global debt sits at over $250 trillion, which is roughly 235% of the world's GDP. Which means that for every dollar in the market we have taken a loan of 235 dollars. The US remains the largest debt accumulator at about $40 trillion.

A global economy based on behemothic loans is an unsustainable façade that is doomed to crumble down. And again, who benefits from these loans – the big multinationals, the elite class in business and politics, and institutional bigwigs. The IMF and the World Bank force states to engage in loan-based programmes and force them to accept 'structural changes' in return, like imposing austerity, ending subsidies, creating acceptance for sexual minorities and LGBT, etc – things that make people more impoverished and more socially raptured.

Profit-taking in capitalism has no upper-limit, nor is there any moral code that it won't breach in this pursuit. That is the reason that at the rise of China as an economic giant, the free-market ideal was given up in favour of interventionism – hence, the Trump's Trade War. And that is the reason why the US and the EU allowed themselves to freeze $300 billion in Russian Central Bank sovereign assets after the Ukraine War. Going further they planned to rob the money altogether, breaking all institutional norms and promises.

You have power, but your arrogance has made you forget the limits of your power; your friends stop trusting you and your foes decide to band together in order to give you a decisive blow. This has propelled a global shift!

This shift may not be overtly anti-America as China along with the Global South is working on slow, pragmatic and deep structural changes while avoiding a direct conflict with the US or its allies. So, first with the US practically losing in Ukraine and Iran, its influence is being pushed out of the Global South, the Middle East in particular.

Then, there is a monetary shift in the making, wherein the dollar hegemony will erode and make way for a basket system with global currencies pegged not to another fiat currency but to gold. Then there will be the dumping of the US treasuries. With no trust in financial instruments, the states will move toward assets like gold, energy, food, etc. In turn a dollar decline will erode the US military posture. When alternate payment systems have been set, US sanctions will lose utility. In the new multipolar system, commodity prices may vary by region, creating a more pluralistic economic atmosphere. Consequently, states will talk less about universal values and more about sovereignty, civilisational identity, security, energy, food, technology and regime survival.

As the two largest holders of US Treasury securities, Japan and China have significantly reduced their portfolios: Japan cut its $1.23 trillion January stockpile by $47.7 billion in March and $75.6 billion in May, while China has shed $666 billion from its 2013 peak of $1.31 trillion. China-backed gold-vault infrastructure is being built all around, with the first ones in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Saudi Arabia. These vaults, having the ability to hold large volumes of gold, will facilitate bilateral and regional trade to be contracted in gold terms. China-backed CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) is poised to soon replace the dollar-dominated SWIFT and the dollar-clearing system.

While wars are inherently enzymatic, they frequently accelerate outcomes that are diametrically opposed to their original intent. Sometimes you just quicken things your opponents have been working on for decades and planning for the long-term. Because your wars are not built on prudence, strategic depth, or pragmatic calculation – but on sudden, rhapsodic arrogance.