On April 16, 2025, the Chinese-sponsored international payments system surpassed the U.S.-sponsored system in transactions volume. It’s not the end of the dollar’s reserve currency status, but it could be a harbinger. From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.su:
Should China succeed, the U.S. would lose its ‘magic weapon’ of monetary dominance.
“I believe we must start from the notion of defeat leading to revolution – to grasp the Trump revolution”.
“The experience underway in the United States, even if we don’t know exactly what it will be, is revolution. Is it a revolution in the strict sense? Is it a counter-revolution?”
So spoke the French historian and philosopher Emmanuel Todd in his April Moscow lecture, From Russia With Love.
“This [Trump revolution] is, in my opinion, linked to defeat. Various people have reported to me conversations between members of the Trump team, and what is striking is their awareness of defeat. People like J.D. Vance, the Vice President, and many others, are people who understood that America had lost this war”.
This American awareness of defeat, however, contrasts markedly with the Europeans’ surprising lack of awareness – rather it is denial – at their defeat:
“For the United States, it is fundamentally an economic defeat. The sanctions policy showed that the financial power of the West was not omnipotent. The Americans were reminded of the fragility of their military industry. The people at the Pentagon know very well that one of the limits to their action is the limited capacity of the American military-industrial complex”.
“That America is in the midst of a serious revolution, right now – easily comparable to the end of the USSR – is understood by a few”. Yet our preconceptions – political and intellectual – often prevent us from seeing and assimilating the import of this reality”.
Todd, to his credit, admits the difficulty with perception readily:
“I must admit that when the Soviet system actually collapsed, I was unable to foresee the extent of the dislocation and the level of suffering this dislocation would cause for Russia. My experience taught me one important thing: The collapse of a system is as much mental as economic ... I didn’t understand that communism was not only an economic organization but also a belief system, a quasi-religion, that structured Soviet and Russian social life. The dislocation of belief would lead to psychological disorganization far beyond economic disorganization. We are reaching a situation of this type in the West today”.
The psychological dislocation caused by ‘defeat’ may explain (but not justify) the West’s ‘curious’ inability to understand world events: The almost pathological dissociation from the real world that it displays in its words and actions: It’s blindness – for example, to the Russian experience of history and to the long history behind Shi’a defiance in Iran. Yet, even as the political situation deteriorates … there is no sign of the West becoming more reality-based in its understanding – and it is very likely that it will continue to live in its alternative construction of reality – until it is forcibly expelled.
And the WAR drums against China are sounding.
Are you tired of all this winning in Afghanistan and the proxy Ukraine?
Be all like winningest winnarz evars. (not really)
WWIII officially begins when the reserve fiat status is over?
The Post-American World that trained clapping seals voted for.