Chaos And Hegemony – How US Dollar Imperialism Dominates The World

With last fall’s U. S. Congressional elections, the Barack Obama ‘era’ has entered its final phase. Shortly before coming to power, the new U. S. president had sparked a massive uproar when he proclaimed a new ‘Pacific century.’ Since then, roughly two years before the end of his term in office, we can see more clearly. First and foremost, the proclamation of an allegedly new orientation towards the Pacific served the purpose to put Europe, and particularly Germany, under pressure so that they fill the allegedly emerging security gap. In reality, however, it is not the Pacific that forms the epicenter of U. S. geostrategic interests, neither – despite the Crimea crisis – is it the ‘old (European) world,’but it is still the Middle East. For the latter’s fate defines whether American hegemony stands or falls.
America’s interest in this region is as old as the discovery of enormous Mideast oil reserves – albeit not at the moment, as is generally but falsely suggested, because of her own domestic oil supply. Thanks to its immense domestic energy resources, historically the U. S. has since the dawn of the last century been independent from importing oil. And with the current widespread use of fracking technology, it is once again about to become self-sufficient. As the new hegemonic power in the wake of the Second World War, the U. S. quickly realized that it could make rivaling world powers dependent on it by way of controlling the Middle East with its tremendous reserves of oil – the global economy’s fuel. Originally, the U. S., together with Saudi Arabia – its main ally in the region – established a global oil supply regime that could provide the West, China, and all BRICS countries with energy security. In this regime, Saudi Arabia arranged for constant overproduction. Thanks to this system that was politically controlled by the U. S., both its Western allies and its rivals enjoyed unimpeded oil supply at low prices – and all this despite great political turbulence raging during the entire second half of the last century. At the same time, the U. S. dollar, pegged to the oil price, acted as the global reserve currency.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on on 04/14/2015.