So I overshot it, when I predicted a quick downfall of US-led Globalism based on extrapolation from the Afghanistan withdrawal. US-led Globalism may and indeed likely will fall but here, the next five years will be crucial. I therefore intend to spend the rest of the essay exploring how that might come to pass:
In the United States of America, the unit of currency is called “the United States Dollar”. In terms of how it holds value, it could better be called “the United States Petroleum and Navy Dollar”.
In my series of posts on “The Epic Confrontation”
PART 1:
PART 2:
PART 3:
I discuss why the naval basis of the dollar’s value (the USA is the security center for trade across the seas through the Navy so it pays to be the USA’s friend). The series also elaborates on how this arrangement is quite vulnerable.
My later post on “Operation Gut Strike” theorized on how the petroleum basis of the US dollar (alliance/protection with government exporting most of the world’s oil) could be undermined.
It was NOT undermined thusly. Whether the USA has not been ready to completely withdraw from the Mideast and/or whether Iran fails to see the point of concessions due to seeing its eventual defeat as inevitable, the scenario laid out in “Operation Gut Strike” did not come to pass.
On the other hand, it’s still true that links to the petroleum trade and deployment of naval power enable the USA to vest its currency with considerable power. So are its enemies left with no choice but to surrender? Not necessarily!
The Republic of Turkey is an underrated factor in discussions of petrostates. The post-Soviet states and Mideast States neighboring it transit oil through it to Europe. Consequently the pipeline network can, given complicity by Recep Tayyib Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkey, be used to smuggle Iranian oil past sanctions as Russian oil. But now Russia is sanctioned like Iran. What are Iran and Russia to do?
If Iran exports Russian oil rather vice versa, India will still buy.1 Indeed a pipeline network to favor a Russia-Iran-India oil trade is in the making. With the Russian and Mideastern oil assets directed to India’s market, 2 out of 3 major world oil markets route around the US Globalist System. Meanwhile the USA needs India to counter China if the US Globalist System is to be maintained never mind needing Putin to even pretend that productive negotiations with Iran will occur eventually. Something will have to give.
It seems to me—I may be wrong but I may be right, based on the currently available data and based on how petroleum and naval power form the consistent basis of US dollar value—that the US Globalist System and the Russia-China-Iran Counter-System both have advantages and disadvantages. The deciding factor will be a show of force by which one side intimidates the other into surrender. How might that play out?
The China Scenario: The key factor is whether the USA blocks a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or whether instead it’s easier to blow any ship, even American ships, out of the water than any admiral can be comfortable with—in other words, if the firepower exists to make navies in their entirety completely obsolete.
The Russia Scenario: Both sides lay on the propaganda thick, saying the other side is losing right this very moment. On the one hand, each side pours in more personnel and more advanced weaponry. On the other hand, all such things are finite. Soon we will learn who the victor is!
The Iran Scenario: So, as I said earlier, the USA may not be ready to withdraw and Iran may not be ready to make concessions. So it was in Afghanistan. Then the years passed and both leaderships changed their minds as well as some of their insider personnel. Assuming the same pattern, negotiations will inevitably occur some years from now. What will the terms and conditions under discussion be?
A realist repartition of the Mideast where all nations have the same borders but some nations are split between rival states, as with the West-East divide in Cold War Germany, would be the initial settlement. Syria a la Kurdistan and Iraq a la Kurdistan would de jure Syria and Iraq and de facto Kurdish states. They would host American garrisons, a la the privilege of sovereign states to make alliances of their choosing. This would Stage 1 of the Mideastern Peace Process. This would set the stage for Stage 2 of the Mideastern Peace Process where the conditions set by Stage 1 set the scene while negotiations for further reductions of tensions take place.
“Reductions of tensions” are code for demobilization. Demobilization of the American garrisons is countered by mobilization of native forces. This gives the Iranian and Iranian-allied forces the justification to renege on demobilization. At the same time, demobilization is for the USA a thick red line, separating a time for involvement and a time for non-involvement. Negotiations become a pretext and process for the USA to dissolve a regional order that demands more from the USA than it wishes to continue contributing to.
If any such scenario occurs first, then the victor has a stronger hand for intimidation in the other two. As described, the Iran Scenario, if played out first, probably ends with Iran victorious. Then again, if one of the other two scenarios occur first with the USA victorious, then the commitment of the US Government to the US Globalist System would be renewed.
The USA would still be uninterested in military occupations but perhaps an American-Iranian detente would be the region’s final settlement rather than a total American rout. The petroleum and naval backing of US dollar value would be renewed and the US Globalist System would be reinvigorated, at least until the next challenge emerged.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iran-russias-gazprom-sign-primary-deal-energy-cooperation-2022-07-19/