Global War Edges Closer

Rumours of the death of unipolarity have been greatly exaggerated.

But unipolarity - a world run and dictated exclusively by the United States - is dying.

The US is threatened by multipolarity.

The attack on Venezuela demonstrated both things are true.

A Vassalised Venezuela

Earlier today the ‘conditions’ for Venezuela to avoid another US assault were set out by the American gangster state.

They include kicking Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and Cuban companies and officials out of the country and severing economic and strategic ties with those countries. The US is also demanding Venezuela partner exclusively with the United States on oil production and hand over control of all logistics, including tankers and shipments, to block oil deliveries to rival countries.

Firstly, this exposes the justification for the attack as total imperial propaganda.

None of the US demands on Venezuela relate to drug trafficking.

Maduro was not, and has never been, a drug trafficker.

Yesterday the US Justice Department revised the indictment against Maduro. The initial indictment mentioned El Cartel De Los Soles, the gang Maduro supposedly led, more than 30 times. In the revised indictment, all mention of the cartel was dropped.

None of the demands relate to drugs.

They all relate to oil and geopolitics.

And they are all a huge clue to the future.

The US is trying out a revised model of imperialism: instead of invading and installing a puppet government, kidnap the leader and demand absolute fealty from the government left in place. Demand that it abandons its ideas, ideals, policies, voters and supporters, and switch their strategic allegiance to the enemy. Or else.

The US spent years calling Maduro anti-democratic only to demand from Venezuela nakedly anti-democratic rule.

Will it work?

China buys three-quarters of Venezuela’s oil, but this is only a fraction of its imports. Iran and Russia buy the rest. The US is betting none of them will respond meaningfully. The empire is betting true multipolarity, a multipolarity that means no one country can act with lawless, naked impunity, has not yet arrived.

And if I had to bet, I’d bet they’re correct.

What’s the alternative? The government now led by Delcy Rodriguez refuses to meet American demands, the US invades and does a classic regime change, inflicting huge amounts more violence and death?

I can’t see it.

The other alternative is that China (and/or Russia) goes to war for Venezuela.

No chance.

Hard power wins. Imperial aggression wins again.

At least in the short-to medium term.

Because paradoxically, the attack is a sign that multipolarity exists. To a degree.

Not true multipolarity.

But certainly a form of it.

US sanctions on Venezuela weren’t doing the job. The blockade against Venezuela initiated by Trump hadn’t worked. The military build-up and the murder of fishermen hadn’t worked. The country hadn’t collapsed. The people hadn’t risen up in anger. On the contrary, Maduro’s government had been handing out weapons to the pueblos to defend the government from a US invasion. Not the sort of thing you do if you fear the people will turn the weapons on you.

Venezuela hadn’t collapsed because China now has the economic might to sustain an ally in the face of US hegemonic power.

While there might still be one global hegemon, there is an alternative pole.

The world is still unipolar enough that the US felt it could attack Venezuela without consequence.

But it’s just multipolar enough to have made the attack necessary in the first place.

The US demand to cut all ties with China is an acknowledgement of the threat it perceives from multipolarity. It is an acknowledgment of this alternative pole.

Now China might not go to war for Venezuela, from whom it buys a very small amount of its daily oil.

But it might go to war for the country that supplies 15% of its daily oil imports.

It might go to war for Iran.

The US has landed on a model of imperial control it is extremely enamoured with.

And if it isn’t confronted over Venezuela, if it faces no real consequences, as it won’t, it will try the model out again.

Trump said so.

But attempts to turn Iran into a US vassal state would be a different ballgame. Attempts to sever Iranian oil from China would be a whole new level of escalation.

But with Trump controlled by Miriam Adelson and the Zionist lobby, with Netanyahu struggling for his political life and desperate for a showdown with the final boss, who would bet against it?

We’re about to find out just how multipolar the new world is.

All those who forecast the end of US empire also forecast that the US was never going to go quietly.

This is the period of not going quietly.

This is the re-assertion of unipolarity in the face of China. This is the taunt by the playground bully: what you going to do about it?

The answer will go some way to determining our futures.

OIL

This is also, obviously, a story of oil.

Of peak and dirty oil.

The Permian Basin, the beating heart of American oil extraction, is dying. Production is forecast to peak around 2027, while global oil demand is forecast to keep growing. American planners are planning. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. It is no coincidence that right at the point of peak US oil production, the empire has decided to steal a replacement source.

Energy, after all, makes the hegemon.

Subsequent to the peak, the US will continue to pump oil. But it will be lower quality, more expensive to extract, fracked oil. Oil that, due to the methane emitted in blowing up rock to get it, is significantly more damaging to the climate.

Which brings us to the story of what extracting and burning all that oil does to the global atmosphere, and what the heat produced by a newly-configured atmosphere is doing to global geopolitics.

Greenland is currently experiencing an historic heatwave.

This heat is melting Greenland, exposing ground formerly encased in ice which contains rare earth minerals like bastnasite and monazite needed for batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. Greenland also has enormous oil and gas reserves, reserves which are prohibited to be explored under a Greenlandic moratorium.

US threats to Greenland at this moment in history are another of those not-coincidences.

The US wants to steal Greenland’s energy. Because that energy is more accessible than ever. Because energy makes the hegemon. And the hegemon makes the future.

The trends are converging.

To put it another way, geopolitics are playing out exactly as forecast by the so-called doomers.

The rise of China. Multipolarity. The challenge and response of empire. Peak oil. Climate change. Force multiplier upon force multiplier.

And for an empire with a massive military-industrial bureaucracy that needs a new mission after the failed/functionally over ‘war on terror,’ the timing just might be ideal.

The upshot is that conventional global war is becoming an increasingly distinct possibility.

I’m not saying this for impact or effect. I’m not dooming for clout.

As I wrote the other day, my intention is never to make people feel sad or anxious.

But the trends are trending, and you’d have to be spectacularly dishonest to ignore them.

The empire is force-projecting with a glee and excitement we’ve not seen for some time.

If that force ends up running into an immovable object, it would be long overdue.

And it would also change our lives forever.

(As always a massive thank you to my financial supporters. Your generosity gives me the time and head-space for writing, and keeps everything paywall-free. Sign up free, upgrade, or donate a coffee.)