An end to the dollar’s global hegemony? The Kremlin sees an opportunity.

An exchange-office screen on a Moscow street shows the currency exchange rate of the Russian ruble and US dollar in April. The Kremlin has begun making moves to insulate the Russian economy from escalating US sanctions. (Pavel Golovkin/AP)

 

The dollar has long been the world’s reserve currency. But some countries, angered by sanctions, are challenging that status, potentially undermining one of the US’s most influential tools for shaping global policy.

For average Russians, a small personal hoard of US dollars has always represented a place of safety amid the wild ups-and-downs that continue to beset the country’s national currency, the ruble.

So it triggered a touch of panic among them when the Russian government confirmed long-standing rumors that it is working on a plan to insulate the economy from escalating US sanctions through “de-dollarization.”

State of the Union

A German-dominated United States of Europe with its respective European Army is on the rise — out in the open.

The Fourth Reich has landed.

 

BERLIN/BRUSSELS (Own report) – The EU must develop the capacity “to shape global affairs” and act as “architect of tomorrow’s world,” declared Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission during his “State of the Union” speech yesterday. The speech is modeled on the famous annual “State of the Union Address” presented by the US President to a joint session of Congress. Juncker particularly wants to accelerate the EU’s militarization and the fortification of its external borders. While the German-dominated Union is striving to become a global power, at all costs, tensions within the EU are growing significantly. The disciplinary action adopted yesterday by the European Parliament against Hungary, which has been undermining democratic rights for years, exacerbates the conflict between the West European centers of power and the EU’s eastern members. The blatant prosperity gap between the EU’s center and the impoverished periphery continues unabated. Serious violations of human rights, particularly against refugees, accompany the internally disunited Union’s striving for a global role.

The Imperial Consensus

BERLIN (Own report) – With the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an extreme right wing party will enter the German Bundestag for the first time since the 1950s. With 13 percent of the vote, the AfD has successfully mobilized an extreme right-wing potential that, according to a sociological study, has always existed within the German population. All parties in the Bundestag openly repudiate the AfD. However, this only obscures the fact that the AfD’s program, particularly on the important issues of foreign and military policy, show remarkable parallels to the political objectives of almost all other parties in the Bundestag. Like the CDU/CSU, FDP, SPD and the Greens, the AfD sees Germany as a global “policy-making power,” whose armed forces should be massively upgraded and made more operational. Whereas, the mainstream parties in the Bundestag are relying on the EU as the instrument for German global policy, the AfD favors a national course for Germany exercising global power. This course would probably take effect should the EU disintegrate due to the growing internal dissentions or if more and more countries opt to exit.

Claims to Western Superiority

ELMAU/MOSCOW (Own report) – On the occasion of the G7 summit in Elmau, Bavaria, German government advisors are discussing the significance of the cohesion among the leading western powers. For quite a while, the G7 and G8 have been a sort of global policy “steering committee,” according to a recent analysis published by the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). For the first time in 2008, the global financial crisis compelled the G8 to include other industrial and emerging countries in global consultations in the framework of the G20. By setting the agenda for the G20, the G7 seeks to safeguard its “leadership role” in global policy. At the same time, in Berlin one hears that Russia’s exclusion cannot be permanently advantageous. Since its exclusion, Moscow has become even more engaged in the BRICS alliance. Commenting on BRICS’ aims, experts write that its members are striving to “pit their collective political clout against the North’s claims of its superiority.” In a few weeks, BRICS will decide on operative steps in establishing a New Development Bank. As an alternative to the World Bank, it should become operational by the end of the year. Steps are also planned to undermine the US Dollar’s hegemony.

Domination over Europe

Every day it becomes increasingly clear that Germany is using economic warfare as a means to subjugate EU members and force them into being vassal states. It’s also clear that all EU members aren’t on board and won’t tow the German line, therefore we are likely to see in the future a breakup of the EU because it was never going to work in the first place, yet it was by design that this was to happen. As a result, look for an inner-core of Europe consisting of ten nations to be formed and in a union around the German center. The manufactured chaos will allow for German political influence coupled with its economic tenacity during hard times to lead the way while the remaining members latch on to its leadership and give it power.

To preempt a complete and 100% breakdown or revolt against its imperial hegemony as the article suggests, Europe’s powerhouse is likely to shift cheap labor outward towards the peripheral countries to keep their economies just above water and the citizenry obliviously content. The EU’s answer to the EU’s problems is always centered around one goal: More Europe, as every crisis proves to be an opportunity for more regulation and centralization. The United States of Europe is coming, and it will resemble iron mixed with clay.

BERLIN (Own report) – German government advisors support the establishment of new integrationist procedures to pre-empt future resistance to German predominance over the EU. “A major redistribution of power” is currently taking place in Europe, with France and Great Britain falling clearly behind Germany, according to a recent declaration of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). In Southern Europe, there are already massive protests against the German government’s dictates. These have not yet had major consequences, but timely preventive measures should be taken to pre-empt the establishment of a “countervailing power.” The SWP’s suggestions support various initiatives from within Berlin’s establishment aimed at consolidating German domination over the EU and pushing the next German government toward a more offensive global policy. The German president, for example, called in this year’s National Holiday speech for a more offensive German approach to global politics, and the SWP pleads for Berlin to assume a more decisive “leadership.” Whereas German predomination over the EU is today taken for granted, a shift is perceived in relations to the most important global rival – the United States.