Joseph Stalin ran a very tight ship. His admirers will however tell you that he inherited a nation of wooden carts and turned it into a nation of space crafts. It had its costs though; especially the human cost. Millions of Soviet citizens were imprisoned, millions were executed and several more were sent to Gulag; labour camps in the Russian far East.
His ruthless henchman doing the dirty work was one Georgian named Laverinty Beria. Just a mere mention of the name Beria was enough to bring chills of intense fear down anyone's spine! Famously he is reported to have said, " show me the man and I will show you the crime"!
Lebensraum is such an innocuous German word meaning living space. Amazing that this word is behind world war 2. Hitler invaded Poland, France , Russia and bombed half of England to bits in order to get more land towards the eastern part of Germany.
History is littered with tyrants, despots, dictators and megalomaniacs that bought war, misery, suffering and injustice to the world. All of them had very high sounding stated ideologies behind their actions and there is no dearth of their admirers too. Yes, even Hitler! He is largely credited for the German industrial Renaissance like Autobahn and volkswagon? That however does not absolve him of murdering millions for being Jewish. You might recall the sign at the entrance of Nazi concentration death camps was a lofty sounding "Arbeit macht frei", meaning work makes one free! Yeah right ; free as in dead ! Straight out of the devil's playbook if you ask me!
Do you know why these names come to mind when you think of Trump? One word - Venezuela! Now I am not going to to give any character certificate to the Maduro government but look if US has the authority to execute an unilateral action ; what is the use of UN then ? Can a country simply invade a weaker nation on any pretext without providing any proof of any kind? If all countries did what US so blithely did, where will it lead to? They masked the military action as a police action in order to avoid taking appropriate approvals from the US congress. It does not fool any body and Trump does not care if it does ! USA has a bad history with facts. Remember they invaded Iraq to get their hands on their WMD that never was. At the same time US proxy Pakistan not only pursued one but also openly ran a nuclear Walmart trading fissile material and nuclear tech with North Korea among others. US calmly turned a blind eye!
Now I have gone through a number of commentaries and analysis from various sources and here is my take in a nutshell. USA is afraid; it is very afraid and there is a good reason for it too. Firstly when it engaged in the ping pong diplomacy with China in the early 1970's ; USA never imagined that they are digging their own grave. They saw supporting China as a way of neutralizing One more Soviet ally. Fifty odd years later China has turned into a huge monster that is directly challenging USA from sports to Trade and Technology. These are the modern currencies of the world. Every day USA is trying to play catch up and losing ground steadily. Strictly from the US perspective China needs to be slowed down.
Then comes the traditional currency itself - The mighty Dollar ! After the significant US role in the second world war and because of it US$ replaced British pound as the most prominent currency in the world. US strengthened its position incrementally and made agreements in the middle east for them to sell oil in US$ only in return for the US security umbrella. This worked fine for long. Every nation needed to hunt for the dollar; US$ went from strength to strength and USA kept laughing all the way to the bank! With the demise of the Soviet Union; US virtually had a free run of the world. Sadly for them Russia has resurfaced. China of course has become quite powerful and holds a massive dollar reserve; 3.3433 Trillion to be exact. Highest of any nation. Then there is India- fast adding economic heft and growing at 7%. Among the highest rate of growth in the world. With a GDP north of 2 Trillion Dollars , Brazil in the US backyard has also become a rising economic power and if you think I just explained BRICS to you ; you are right because I did! Just add South Africa to the mix and you have the core. BRICS is the biggest nightmare Trump has and he is wildly lashing out to control it!
"Dedollarisation", is a concept whose time has come. More and more international trade deals are seeking to divorce the dollar. If you know anything about divorces ; you know it is not easy. USA accounts for 25% of the world economy and at times the sole supplier of critical equipment and products. Remember that Oil price is denominated in US$. Decades of interactions; trade and financial ties as well as intergovernmental treaties and critical business necessities can only be ignored at a cost. You understand how difficult it is to finalize this divorce, don't you? China is increasingly producing high technology products; even arms and armaments. Mostly at a lower price point. A number of recent deals have been snatched by them from the US hands. US F 35 stealth fighter Vs. Chinese J 20 stealth fighters is a case in point. Nearly the same initial price but J 20 has significantly lower costs over its serviceable life and their order books are filling fast. While F35 orders are being scaled back and cancelled at times. No surprise! US is worried sick !
USA has largely blocked Iranian oil from reaching the world markets. It has severally sanctioned Russian Oil on the pretext of Ukraine. The war that is mostly forced on Russia by the west. US at the same time has been severally pressurizing both India and China from buying the Russian oil. So far with minimum success! I know you are thinking Where is Venezuela in all this gibberish ?
Get this, Venezuela holds 20% of the entire oil reserves of the world ! Venezuela has been selling the oil directly to customers and reportedly accepting currencies other than Dollar! China is the biggest customer in the world. India is right behind. Crude oil fuels their economies. Venezuela had also made overtures to Join BRICS. Just as comparison estimated GDP of BRICS jointly runs between 45 - 50% of the world economy measured by purchase power parity. Way ahead of the US. US wants to control access to the Venezuelan oil and exploit it for their own gain.
What happens when 50% of the world neither buys from the American businesses nor use American currency for their trade? US dollar loses value; US economy stagnates and US loses influence in the world. US can not let it happen so it resorts to thuggery, kidnapping , violence; violation of national sovereignty and goes against every international tenant in the rule book!
You might recall USA has recently floated the idea of Canada as a US 51 st state. It has been repeated so often that is not funny any more. It does not bother US that Canada is a sovereign nation and the closest ally that is more than offended by this loose talk . Just to clarify, Canada has massive oil reserves in addition to most of the world's freshwater and extensive mineral resources.
Greenland is another pie that US wants to gobble up. It does not matter that a NATO ally Denmark is impacted by this intransigence; Trump wants it pronto ! There is even a constant banter of 'forced annexation'. Obviously alarm bells are ringing wildly in the European capitals! Why Greenland you ask! Well one for the natural resources and two for its militarily strategic geographical location between North America and Europe. USA also wants to control the trans arctic shipping route. This route is increasingly being used to supply China among others.
Just off the mainland China sits Taiwan. We are not going to discuss that tense and fractured relationship but understand that US is strongly present there. Ostensibly to provide security to Taiwan but actually to monitor and squeeze China by blocking the sea lanes, if need be.
So Trump wants to control trade routes; corner a lion's share of the world resources and keep a stranglehold on crude distribution. They plan to keep dollar high and absolutely necessary for commerce for a start. It also wants to slow down the technological and economic progress of other countries, mainly China and India by choking access to cheap oil and limiting technology transfers to some extent. Tariffs are being used strategically to smother trade and inflows of hard currency for these economies. Trump has weaponized immigration too. 100,000 dollar fee for H1B visa is one aspect ; you might have heard of how a regular mother of a small child was shot dead by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Things are just getting out of hand!
Just today someone very worriedly asked my take on the possibility of a US commando raid to kidnap the Canadian PM Carney if he does not facilitate Canada becoming the 51 st state of the USA.
As I said earlier even Hitler has admirers! A whole lot of people; a lot of them US voters are currently wondering what did they ever see in this person ? Although not a US voter; I am sadly one of them. It's amazing how we could not see through the chap for a deranged narcissistic that he is . One that is an ego driven megalomaniac taking reckless actions and making dangerous emotionally charged and amplified rhetorical claims. He is simply doing more damage than good ! We should have known better. We should have!
So many think Trump is a discredit to America and wish to get him out of the way. He of course still has most of the three years of his Four year term left. He remains in charge at the white house. There is no knowing what other crazy mess he will create ahead. Pray for a rule based world order. Pray very hard and keep your fingers crossed because Trump is going nowhere in a hurry !
What did I say about divorces! It is never easy; It is not!
