August 13, 2024
OPINION BY GREG RAY
Pope Francis called it more than two years ago. In his 2022 book, Against War, the Courage to Build Peace, the Pope joined the dots between various global conflicts and friction points, concluding that the world was already on the road to World War 3 and the situation would escalate in a piecemeal fashion unless enough determined people pushed back against the unfolding process.
“And so, step by step, we are moving towards catastrophe. Piece by piece the world risks becoming the theater of a unique Third World War,” the Pope wrote in the introduction published by Vatican News on April 13, 2022. “We are moving towards it as if it were unavoidable. But we must forcefully repeat: no, it is not inevitable! No, war is not inescapable! When we allow ourselves to be devoured by this monster represented by war, when we allow this monster to raise its head and guide our actions, everyone loses, we destroy God’s creatures, we commit sacrilege and prepare a future of death for our children and grandchildren.”
He’s absolutely right, but I’m afraid that the warmongers will have their way, as usual, and the rest of us will be dragged along. Just like the previous two “world wars”, where desperate voices that tried to derail the march to destruction were marginalised, ridiculed and ignored.
Fading empires are dangerous
So much of what is happening in the world now, things that seem disconnected and unrelated, are actually integral parts of a bigger picture that makes sense in a dreadful way. What’s happening is an empire is beginning to totter, and those who pull its strings are willing to throw the dice on a global war to try to stop that empire falling. Grim as that is, it shouldn’t be any surprise. All through human history kings, emperors and regimes of all shapes and sizes have been willing and eager to sacrifice the lives of others in attempts to enhance or maintain their wealth and power. In that respect the current globally dominant empire centred on the United States of America is no different.
On any honest view, it must be conceded that this empire has been a rather bloodthirsty one. Its forerunner, the British Empire, was also notably bloody. Once Great Britain got into its global stride it was more or less constantly at war somewhere in the world, fighting for its own “rules based order” that kept wealth flowing into the pockets of the powerful cliques that ran it.
Have you swallowed the story that Britain fought Germany in World War 1 for some kind of altruistic reason? To stop the villainous Kaiser stomping German-style Kultur on poor innocent Europe? To honour its promise to Belgium? Sorry to burst your bubble but no. It was to block Germany from rising. Had Germany brought Western Europe under its control it could have generated enough economic impetus to put the British Empire in the shade. Fighting Germany to a standstill in two world wars effectively bankrupted Britain anyway and the baton of capitalism’s empire was passed to the USA. Since then decades of arms race, Cold War and more or less perpetual hot wars in support of the US’s preferred “rules based order” have brought us to where we are today. The US outspent, outgunned and outmaneouvred the USSR but now finds itself fading just as China starts its run in earnest.
The power of the dollar
More than just guns and propaganda, the magic ingredient that has helped the US-centred empire defy the force of gravity that ultimately drags all empires down has been the global reserve status of its currency. The fact that other countries had to have greenbacks to finance major trade transactions gave the US an incredible advantage over all other nations. Human nature dictated that this immense advantage was abused (the advantage itself was already, arguably, a form of abuse) and many countries would now like to throw off their reliance on the dollar and its connected systems and institutions. This is not something the USA can readily permit. Indeed, the issue might well be an existential one for the empire as it is presently constituted. With a massive deficit and a debt so vast it can’t ever conceivably be repaid, the empire will defend the status of its currency with every weapon at its disposal.
As things stand, the chief threat to the empire is the group of nations that uses the acronym “BRICS”. This stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Notably, Iran is a key member. BRICS is actively recruiting, and with inflation running rampant around the world, many nations are sorely tempted to slip the onerous bonds of the dollar system and escape to what is promised to be a fairer model of trade and transactions that utilize a basket of other currencies.
To blow apart BRICS the US needs to scare nations out of joining, and also to smash up the key players before the movement gathers enough momentum to bring the dollar down. If forced to compete on a level playing field with other currencies, the dollar would have to shrink dramatically in value. One need only consider the immense volumes of dollars created since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 to glimpse the scale of the dollar supply overhang. There are more dollars in existence now than ever before, a vast proportion of them having been created over the past few years. This tells us where the inflation crisis has come from. Indeed, inflation is a feature, not a bug, when one considers the benefit to the debtor nation in being able to repay its debts with dollars whose actual purchasing power has plummeted since those debts were incurred. This is a major reason why countries with massive dollar holdings are busily shedding those devaluing assets in favour of gold, real estate, farmland and other more intrinsically valuable investments.
Pressure for a war
In many ways, it might be suggested that the US and the interests it represents cannot afford not to bring on a war. Hence the proxy conflicts now being fought as a prelude, while in the background a new arms race – and associated propaganda battle – is ramping up. Europe, with Ukraine as the blunt end of the battering ram, is being deployed against Russia. Israel is clearing the decks in Gaza and surrounds, perhaps in preparation for an intensification of the campaign against Iran that has already been playing out for years. The US is being portrayed as helplessly wringing its hands as Israel’s campaign rolls on, but actions speak louder than words, and the money and weapons flow unabated to the aggressor. Rational voices in Israel have been pointing out for a long time that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ought by now to have been facing court on his serious corruption charges, that Israel has been hi-jacked by far-right religious and racist extremists and that the state of Israel has been put at risk by this ruling combination. Read this dire warning by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, to get some hint of what’s unfolding. In his article Olmert warns of “the growing impact of the Judeo-messianic sector of this country, which is growing in strength and taking hold in many parts of the country and its society, determined to undermine the foundations of our existence as they’ve existed since the state was established”. None of what Olmert has written is a secret, especially not to the omnipresent intelligence agencies of the USA. So the fact that the money and weapons are still flowing can only mean one thing: what Israel is doing suits the empire of which Israel is a vital component.
Perhaps the looming US election is holding back the unfolding of a full-blown regional war, into which – if it breaks out – Russia and China must be sorely tempted to wade. If Iran is subjected to a standard empire “shock and awe” campaign then BRICS may well be on the rocks. Russia has its hands tied by the war in Ukraine – into which European states are poised to pour yet more resources, and China is being confronted in Taiwan and the South China Sea.
While this ugly mess matures, both blocs – the empire and its challengers – are building up their armouries and preparing to fight on every front with every weapon and technique at their disposal. Even the most sleepy of empire subjects can see and feel the intensification of propaganda, the deployment of new means of censorship and information control and the construction of the good versus evil narrative that is always used to fan the flames when those who hold the reins of empire decide that war is desirable to achieve their goals. American lawmakers, meanwhile, understand the truly existential threat to their empire involves the US dollar. That’s what we will be fighting to defend.
Pope Francis was right. None of the terrible things now occurring in the world are happening in isolation. There is a clear pattern and a pathway, and that pathway leads to more war and more destruction. Empires almost never fall without a fight, and the bigger they are, the harder they fight and the harder they fall. The Pope, no doubt, is praying for peace. Let’s hope somebody is listening.