I think so as well, the war in Ukraine was the catalyst for the rapid western decline that we’re now seeing. In my opinion, the kinetic war is far less consequential than the geopolitical realignment that it triggered. Russia getting cut off from SWIFT necessitated establishing ways to do trade without using western financial system because Russia is just too big of a commodity exporter to ignore. Meanwhile, freezing of Russian assets made everyone realize that it could happen to them too. These were two critical events that created immediate pressure on the global majority to start decoupling from the western economic system. The economic decoupling necessarily translated into geopolitical shifts as well with the strengthening of BRICS, and a new economic bloc forming outside western control. That created the foundation for the Global South to resist the trade war that Trump started with the world because a lot of the underlying mechanics of trading outside the west were already in place.
I think so as well, the war in Ukraine was the catalyst for the rapid western decline that we’re now seeing. In my opinion, the kinetic war is far less consequential than the geopolitical realignment that it triggered. Russia getting cut off from SWIFT necessitated establishing ways to do trade without using western financial system because Russia is just too big of a commodity exporter to ignore. Meanwhile, freezing of Russian assets made everyone realize that it could happen to them too. These were two critical events that created immediate pressure on the global majority to start decoupling from the western economic system. The economic decoupling necessarily translated into geopolitical shifts as well with the strengthening of BRICS, and a new economic bloc forming outside western control. That created the foundation for the Global South to resist the trade war that Trump started with the world because a lot of the underlying mechanics of trading outside the west were already in place.