In 2023, which is coming to an end, we have to pay attention to two wars, namely the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In October, the sudden 5,000 rockets focused the world's attention on the Gaza Strip, which forced the United States to focus its attention on Israel while suspending or even abandoning aid to Ukraine.
When the Palestinian-Israeli conflict first broke out, I produced many issues of **, analyzing the war itself and historical grievances, and deeply analyzing the contradictions between Palestine and Israel.
In this process, we cannot ignore the fact that both Israel and Ukraine have become pawns in the great power game, and the attitude of the United States is enough to prove that the situation forces it to choose between the two.
The core of war is rooted in interests, a phenomenon that has been going on throughout history. Whether territorial or economic, the root cause of every war can be traced back to the existence of conflicts of interest, and the Russia-Ukraine and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts are no exception.
In the era of economic globalization, how do the economies of major countries prosper?At that time, we had relatively good relations with the United States, the European Union, and Russia. The European Union buys Russian energy at a relatively low price** and enjoys warmth every winter, and two gas pipelines have been built. At the same time, the United States buys our goods in dollars, and Chinese-made products are all the rage in the United States, forming an almost all-win chain of interests.
However, suddenly one day, there was a country trying to break this relatively stable situation. This is because they have found that in this process of steady development, it is not conducive to maintaining its hegemony and may pose a challenge to its geopolitical position. This can be seen as a sign of extreme insecurity.
The United States regards Russia and us as its "enemies." At a time of growing tension between Russia and the EU, the United States is aware that Russia is making progress. At a time when Sino-US relations were not yet ossified, the United States noticed that we had been making progress in cutting-edge technologies, such as Beidou, 5G, lithography machines, chips, and so on.
According to the hegemonic line of thought of the United States, such progress is absolutely intolerable. Technological hegemony and financial hegemony were effective means for the United States to maintain its dominance after World War II, and the European Union has always been seen as America's backyard. These advances made Lao Mei feel oppressed and suffocated.
As a result, the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out, and we were subject to more and more sanctions. The end result?Russia has completely broken with the European Union, and the United States has ushered in escalating inflation, and Sino-Russian relations have become more and more tortuous.
This also verifies the saying from the side: there are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests.
Speaking of which, we need to understand one thing, where does America's prosperity come from?How did they manage to maintain the previous level?There are two main reasons for the reversal of the prestige of the United States in the international arena.
First of all, the indifference of the United States to ordinary people during the mask shortage, as well as the frequent strikes and homeless problems this year, are not baseless accusations. Because after disrupting the international situation, Lao Mei did reap the consequences.
Second, during World War II, the United States quickly amassed a large amount of capital through arms sales, ** anchoring, and later oil anchoring. This laid the foundation for the strength of the United States.
The rise of Wall Street has provided the United States with ample funds, allowing it to maintain its leading position in the world in the military industry and cutting-edge technology. Once it is in the position of big brother, it will rely on cheap Russian energy, Chinese-made goods, and the petrodollar system in the Middle East.
This system has maintained a prosperous life for the country's inhabitants, with a high level of social welfare, conditions for people to enjoy advanced consumption, and the emergence of the rich and middle class. On the one hand, Lao Mei started the money printing machine, and on the other hand, maintained low inflation, these three paths made Lao Mei cut off two of them, and the remaining one also appeared to be precarious.
First, let's focus on the first and second points, which are obviously related to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, few could have predicted that these two otherwise fraternal countries would clash. However, the course of Ukraine's history seems to suggest that there may be someone behind it.
Russia and Ukraine have historically been closely linked, and even in the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has always regarded Ukraine as an act of exile, despite Ukraine's repeated provocations. Russia needs to pass through Ukraine when selling natural gas, although Ukraine often raises the first grade, and even threatens to close the valve and ask for high tolls, but the big brother Russia has always silently accepted it.
What really irritates Russia is that Ukraine, after two color revolutions, is completely tilted towards the United States and aspires to become the forward position of NATO's blockade of Russia. When Ozawa came to power, the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out, which made people start to think about whether there was high-level support behind the color revolution.
In order to restrain Russia more effectively, Nord Stream 1 underwent a huge accident and was blown up, completely destroying the cooperation between Russia and the European Union. The question facing the EU is what to do?The answer is a complete fall to the United States. And how will Russia respond?It has chosen to spend the New Year hand in hand with us. And what about the United States?In order to continue decoupling, it has chosen to increase its separation from China. This series of operations has led to a spiral of high inflation, and even if crazy interest rate hikes are taken, it will be difficult to reverse the current situation.
It is not difficult to understand the brain circuit of the United States, which is a model of Britain and adopts a strategy of "offshore balancing", the core of which is to plunge the continental countries into chaos and not allow the emergence of superpowers. In the Russian-Ukrainian war, Russia had to respond. Due to Russia's vast territory, abundant resources, and close relations with the European Union, it will inevitably become a major problem in the eyes of the United States, especially during the mask period, when the United States is full of domestic contradictions. In order to divert the contradictions, the dollar returned, and for a combination of various reasons, a war broke out that attracted global attention.
I have previously analyzed the factors that are favorable to the United States, such as capital repatriation and the recovery of the dollar, but it is also important to note that the cooperation between Russia and the European Union has made the euro very much capable of competing with the dollar. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has given the dollar a respite in terms of hegemony in the Western world, and even allowed the US military-industrial complex to take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune.
In the early days of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, many analyzed how the United States benefited from it. However, it is only now that we can understand that the economic factors do not have much of an impact on American interests. More precisely, this is a struggle of Lao Mei in the gradual decline of "hegemony".
First of all, hitting the euro through the turmoil in Europe is not good for the European economy, the European Union, and the stability of the euro.
Second, by increasing the United States' say in Europe and rejecting Russia's application to join NATO, the United States will be able to better control the EU after losing a powerful hypothetical enemy. The need for NATO's military organization to exist behind the loss of this powerful hypothetical enemy line has been greatly reduced.
Thirdly, by openly finding a pretext for sanctions against Russia, the United States has provided legitimacy for its actions.
Finally, to force the transfer of European capital in order to maintain a sustained hegemonic position. For Lao Mei, short-term economic benefits are only a side gain, and more importantly, long-term hegemony.
The passage of time proves that Lao Mei overestimates his own strength. In the ongoing assistance to Ukraine, most of the ammunition comes from stocks. Despite the widespread focus on high-precision**, the consumption and production of ordinary ammunition has been neglected. In fact, most of today's wars require more consideration of the adequacy of ordinary ammunition. Interestingly, the Financial Times pointed out in its own statement that the full capacity of the United States can only produce 1. a year at full capacity5.5 billion artillery shells of all kinds, and on the battlefield in Ukraine, this is only enough to sustain two weeks of consumption. This exposes the problem that the United States is not strong enough and its production capacity cannot keep up.
At a time when the United States is already having a headache to aid Ukraine, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has broken out again, which is directly related to the US dollar oil hegemony system.
The premise of oil hegemony is that Israel, a role that relies on the United States, must have sufficient deterrence in the Middle East. Israel became a nail in the coffin in previous wars in the Middle East, which, once shaken, provoked drastic consequences.
Israel has experienced several defeats in Middle East wars, which have cast a serious psychological shadow on it, and it has to rely on the United States for military protection. In order to maintain its strong deterrent, Israel must ensure that it is undefeated. However, the timing of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was rather coincidental.
First of all, it comes at a time when the United States' aid to Russia and Ukraine is gradually weakening
Secondly, it took place in the context of the great reconciliation of the Middle East;
Third, Israel was interested in establishing diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia before it was attacked
Fourth, Lao Deng is about to face the ** of 2024;
In the end, the conflict has held back America's energy and left it unattended.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict involves many interests, Russia hopes to dismantle, the Middle East hopes to get rid of the control of the United States and Israel for many years, the United States hopes to alleviate the threat of the Middle East reconciliation through the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and Lao Deng does not want to have any rumors that are unfavorable to him before the first time. Before the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in addition to participating in the Russia-Ukraine issue, the United States also carried out so-called "joint military exercises" many times.
Russia finally had a respite after being pinned down for a long time, and even made a fortune in it. On November 5, Saudi Arabia and Russia announced that they would continue to extend additional oil production cuts that they had already implemented until the end of the year.
Saudi Arabia plans to continue the voluntary cut of 1 million barrels per day in December, which is expected to be around 9 million barrels per day. At the same time, Russia also announced voluntary cuts of an additional 300,000 barrels of oil and petroleum products.
In the event of war, the Middle East tends to cut oil production in order to put pressure on Western countries. This time Russia sees an opportunity, because the surge in oil prices is a good thing for it. EU countries and the United States are feeling headaches, the EU is facing the dilemma of winter, and the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine conflict will further reduce the trust of the United States. The United States is facing a peak in inflation, and oil *** will only make matters worse for it.
Russia cleverly used oil as a bargaining chip, which also gave it the opportunity to negotiate peace with Ukraine. In the absence of supporters, Ukraine must make compromises, which are in line with Russia's wishes.
In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Laos and the United States not only suffered economic losses, but also suffered serious damage to their credibility. The United States, which once supported Ukraine, shouted anti-aggression slogans, but Israel violated Palestinian land behind its back, and this double standard is clearly visible to all countries and the entire population. Lao Mei is known as a beacon of civilization, but while exercising hegemony, it has damaged its original good reputation, and this kind of contradictory behavior is not uncommon in history.
Looking back on history, the decline of empires is often due to internal and external difficulties, and the existence of the United States has repeatedly tried to delay this decline in the ** war. However, over time, this practice has exposed the shortcomings of Lao Mei even more. In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in addition to economic losses, support for Israel has also sparked partisan strife at home. This is not only not conducive to the long-term development of the country, but also shows the embarrassing situation of Lao Mei not being able to make a place.
The economic problem is more significant, and the continuous decline of the manufacturing industry has made the United States overly dependent on the financial market. The United States has tried to cover up this fact through capital repatriation, but its high welfare and high labor costs make the recovery of local manufacturing almost impossible. The United States has tried to consolidate controllable manufacturing capabilities globally to maintain its competitive position in manufacturing, but this also means limiting the manufacturing capacity of other countries, such as Japan, and in some cases, South Korea and India.
The United States originally hoped to control the situation through the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel to create conditions for alleviating inflation. However, the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has disrupted this plan, and it is no longer under control, and huge fiscal and military expenditures have made inflation more and more uncontrollable. The world's busiest shipping lanes have been affected, and maritime safety has come into focus. Lao Mei was forced to compromise in the process, which was manifested in a series of major events in November.
Today in 2023, looking back on the historical events of the past, we realize that we have experienced many times, and the most difficult time is when we have no strength and strong enemies are eyeing us. Through decades of hard work, we have participated in the process of global economy, and finally won the respect of other countries. But that's not enough, we want equality and respect, and we want to sit down and develop together. Win-win cooperation is the long-term way.