William Moloney
When Napoleon (1812) and later Hitler (1941) launched immense armies to invade Russia, they believed they were compassing the final element needed to give them total mastery of Continental Europe. In fact, they were advancing toward a nemesis where their great armies would perish in the snows of Russia, and they themselves would be in exile or dead within a few years.
As with individuals, nations move through history often unaware of either the nature of their journeys or their likely destinations. Evidence is mounting that strongly suggests the United States is approaching a critical turning point in its historical journey that will lead to a transformation of global geopolitics and a destination far different from what its current leadership believes or hopes for.
These reflections arise in the wake of the recently concluded BRICS summit in Johannesburg, where the core nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — welcomed as new members Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia. Even before these additions, the BRICS nations, which comprise 40% of the world’s population, produced 20% of global oil. Now with the addition of three major producers from the Middle East, that proportion jumps to 42%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This provides a strong indication of the strategic ambitions of the BRICS alignment. Though neither a formal alliance nor a comprehensive economic union, BRICS is an affinity group with two distinctive characteristics: All are authoritarian, by varying degrees, and over time have chafed under the U.S.-led international order that has dominated global geopolitics for 75 years.
Clearly, oil is an important theater of competition in international relations. The recent decision by Saudi Arabia and Russia to extend restrictions on their oil production for the rest of 2023 will result in higher gasoline prices in the U.S. Combine this with America’s self-inflicted economic wounds, such as foreclosing the vast energy potential of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the recent ban on oil and gas exploration in 11 million acres beneath the Gulf of Mexico in order to create a new wildlife preserve, and it’s hard to deny the merit of a recent Washington Times editorial, “Biden’s War on Oil Empowers BRICS Bloc Rivals.”
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, China's President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov raise their arms as they pose for a group photograph at the BRICS Summit on Aug. 23, 2023.ALET PRETORIUS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
As demonstrated by several statements made at the summit, currency and exchange rates are another important focus of the BRICS group, the purpose of which is to challenge the status of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency by promoting trade among members and other states utilizing alternative currencies such as the Chinese renminbi or the Russian ruble. The advantages the United States derives from the dominance of the dollar are immense and we have long taken them for granted. Yet we would do well to remember that once Britain’s pound sterling enjoyed a similar eminence but lost that primacy when that country’s power, prestige and credit rating began to sharply decline in the aftermath of World War II.
To examine these matters through a wider lens a useful reference is Ray Dalio’s 2021 book, Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order, which marshalls an extraordinary amount of data to examine the performance and prospects of leading nations in a wide range of measures: education, innovation and technology, cost competitiveness, infrastructure and investment, economic output, expected growth, debt burden, internal order, governance and rule of law, military strength, external conflict, and others.
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