America is on a slippery slope, by Alasdair Macleod

America can be an amazing nation, but trying to be world’s unipower is a fool’s errand that will destroy the nation’s potential for greatness. Alasdair Macleod analyzes the consequences if US policy makers do not abandon this foolish quest. From Macleod at goldmoney.com:

It hadn’t happened before, at least not since US presidents started visiting foreign countries after the Second World War.

In early September, when President Obama landed at Hangzhoi for the G-20 summit in early September, the CIA security men were told in no uncertain terms by the Chinese that they were not in charge of landing arrangements, and that the President would disembark by the rear exit. It had the hallmarks of a calculated snub, as did the obligatory photograph of the world’s leaders, where the President was placed firmly on the far left, and not near the centre, which is customary.

Barak Obama suffered a further indignity, when ahead of his visit to Laos the following week, the new Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, referred to him as “a son of a whore”. The official meeting between the two was cancelled, though they did meet privately. So not only are ordinary Americans showing signs of rebelling against the status quo at home, but foreigners, some of them very important, are as well.

What follows is an assessment of today’s geopolitical situation, based on a mixture of obtainable facts, background information, informed opinions, and reasoned deduction. Guesswork, eliminated as much as possible, is inevitably involved, particularly in assessing outcomes. The conclusions are not something anyone in the deep states of America and elsewhere will admit to or endorse, which paradoxically gives this article its importance.

This article assesses the failing American empire and the current state of the global power-play between China and Russia on one side, and America on the other. It summarises the importance of gold which is central to China’s financial strategy, and concludes that America is likely to be an accumulator of bullion, for strategic if not monetary reasons. It also looks at the challenges the top three major currencies will face next year, in the context of geopolitical developments to date.

Decline and fall

All empires eventually decline and usually their fiat currencies fall with them, which is what westerners are seeing today. In modern times, it has happened to the British, and now it is happening to the Americans. And when the decline starts, it proves impossible to stop. Either you accept it and retreat gracefully, as the British did giving up her colonies under Macmillan, or you fight it. The Americans are fighting it, which means the decline will be increasingly messy and dangerous. At the centre, directing strategy, is America’s deep state, the senior officials mostly in the intelligence services, who guide the President on security matters. They are obsessed with impeding by fair means or foul the foreign forces that in their paranoia they believe oppose them.

Every significant country has its own deep state. Presidents and prime ministers are not omniscient and need the guidance of experts in both domestic and international affairs. Naturally, this is why intelligence services are central to government, because they provide and present the most important information concerning risks to the state. It is these people who can wield the ultimate power behind elected politicians when it comes to external relations and domestic security, by managing information and influencing their decisions.

External relations are effectively under the control of the CIA in America, and MI6 in the UK. The world saw how dangerous these intelligence services can become when they fabricated intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Make no mistake, these two intelligence services took it upon themselves to take us to war. It was clearly intended to pave the way for Saddam’s removal, and led to an appalling civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, as these religious factions sought supremacy in the power vacuum left by Saddam’s overthrow. Tony Blair was discredited, and is reviled by his former supporters. George W Bush was marginally luckier, only because America did not have a damaging Chilcot inquiry.

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