>no, the move away from the dollar will not hurt the US.
This is wrong - as you point out. When people don't need dollars except to buy/sell from the US, the dollar is a less attractive currency to keep around.
This is going to hurt...
This is wrong - as you point out. When people don't need dollars except to buy/sell from the US, the dollar is a less attractive currency to keep around.
This is going to hurt...
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-05-30/the-untol... (https://archive.is/kRW9c)
[2] https://www.currencytransfer.com/blog/expert-analysis/saudi-...
* From [1]: “Just a week before setting foot in Saudi Arabia, Simon publicly lambasted the Shah of Iran, a close regional ally at the time, calling him a “nut.””
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Showdown-at-Doha%3A-th...
The rise of Islamic Jihadis, financed by KSA and trained by CIA, propagation of Wahabism, tolerating the replacement of a secular ally in Iran with Islamist revolutionaries, ..., are all the direct consequence of this strategic shift by the USA. This is all in the context of post-Vietnam debt, rise of OPEC, and a still very menacing Soviet Union.
The Shah had made the error of thinking that by not joining the oil embargo of Arab states he was proving yet another reason (beyond being a forward Western block allied barrier to Soviet Union’s access to the Persian Gulf) for being considered a strategic ally to US. Nixon and Kissinger publicly and privately also assured of Iran’s importance. But what actually happened was that the oil embargo demanded a reassessment of the value of Shah of Iran to US. It was seen that oil and Arab producing nations’ alignment was far more important than any value Shah’s Iran was providing as a bulwark against the Soviets. The Brezhinski doctrine effectively addressed the means of filling the vacuum: Islamic Fundamentalism.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/five-arab-states-plus...
But it's interesting this particular "power center" of the world (US dollars for oil) is weakening just as oil's grip on the world is weakening.
The world was totally beholden to oil for what, 100 years?
But everyone with a brain sees that oil demand is going to plummet with EVs and wind/solar to recharge them ... and domestic reserves will likely cover the remaining demand. The political power dynamic of the petrodollar has ... what ... a decade? Or it's already dead?
Power and economic productivity is/were hand in hand. The geopolitical dominance of oil provided direct political dominance over everyone's economy.
But Solar/Wind/EVs are largely independent of geopolitical control. Yes China appears to be dominant in EV production, batteries, and solar cells, but it isn't the ironclad grip of "we have oil underground you don't".
EV drivetrains are simple, everyone can make an electric motor. Viable EV battery chemistries are proliferating and also becoming immune to cobalt, nickel, and even lithium supply constraints. Anyone can make a wind turbine, and solar cell production will likely plummet in cost and diversify in production if/when perovskites and other non-silicon panels hit the mainstream.
But likely we are headed back to a cold war alignment, or even more fascinating, a tri-power alignment (EU, US, China), and economic alignment will be replaced with the good old protection racket of the Cold War.
Oil will probably remain as a military energy source. But likely everyone will be able to solve gas production with, at minimum, biofuels.
What is interesting to me is how ignorance of the actual issue -- our civilization now depends on continual growth that we can not sustain -- shapes the discourse of alternatives to global regime du jour (with the so-called multi-polar model as the 'solution'). This would be nothing more than rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. No one is discussing alternatives that address the credit-interest-growth regime. This is the 'sacrosanct' dimension of the problem, and no one in polite society wants to touch it, anywhere.
The Human Predicament, Nate Hagens (57m) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNzLkdr7UIU
As in, I get there are current dependencies, but what is it fundamentally about the wind turbine's parts is beholden to ground-extracted oil? Plastics/fiberglass (should be replaceable)? The electric dynamo because of needed heat in metallurgy/refining?
For solar (silicon solar cells specifically), again, what is it beholden to? Silicon? Etching chemicals?
I can see oil still being used for lots of industrial processes (and plastic production), but ... EVs are going to drop a massive amount of demand for them. And while plastics suck for lots of reasons, fundamentally plastic is fossil fuel carbon that has been sequestered in a durable long-lived form.
I'll check it out, but again I wonder if the dependence is due to someone "growing up" ensconced in a petroleum world not realizing the full path forward that will eliminate so much of it, particularly the massive scale of burn-into-CO2 part.
some linger in centuries long decline, some collapse overnight
Well, imho, this question hinges more on the calculations (and subsequent actions) of US's allies rather than the counter-organizing efforts of the rebel states.