Dickson C. Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

Now, BRICS countries – the South- are winning the productivity war and possess demographic advantages in terms of population growth, natural resources, and geography, that spells the end of western domination.

BRICS countries are increasingly trading their scarce resources with each other in their local currencies. They are bypassing Dollar controlled mechanisms. This, aided by a belief in the need to create an alternative currency-trading infrastructure.

Still, the South remain a long way from replacing that Dollar infrastructure however, owing to a history of Dollar hegemony and myriad challenges in creating a currency alternative that can satisfactorily drive trade between states of the global south.

Consequently, the USA and the west remains at the top of the power stakes. The Dollar is a direct measure of US hegemony.

However, in a decade, that could be very different, as BRICS outstrips the west in terms of productivity and economic growth, and adopts an alternative currency-trading infrastructure of which it is in control, with BRICS financial institutions at the head, and not western central banks. Today, over 50% of transactions in the south is in some form of non-Dollar currency, down from over 75% a few years ago.

This is what worries the USA. Empires never accept decline gracefully. Economic growth drives military and logistics power. The South is becoming more powerful militarily.

Donald Trump says he will impose tariffs and specific measures on countries that move away from the Dollar. There are even signs that the USA will not allow itself be superseded militarily in Asia. Its possession of the world’s most lethal military, with over 750 bases around the globe, and management of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization- NATO- is testimony to that fact.

That US nervousness is simple testimony that the west is in decline, and that this decline will hasten in this decade.

The USA is willing to go to war with China to stop China becoming the replacement super power: Great Power Rivalry. However, the USA which essentially surrounds China militarily with bases in Asia that are in theory a choke-hold on China has not won any war convincingly since the war in Kuwait in the early 1990s, apart from skirmishes in tiny countries in its own hemisphere, such as Grenada and Nicaragua. The US has not won any major wars, even though these wars have killed millions and ruined countless lives in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Libya, and Iraq.

Modern war will not allow a conquering nation to prevail unless the country invaded has its institutions and cultures replaced: a huge logistical feat not done since the end of World War 2.

There has never been any benefit for the people in countries the USA has warred against in recent decades, just fear, death and destruction. Relentless tirades against China is simple bullying. The idea the US is a democracy is not pure truth.  The reality is that the USA is mainly a plutocracy. The wealthy rule. The super-rich control the US military industrial complex that has been a meat grinder to the South: a post-colonial police force. Modern day USA is a paradise for the wealthy: the American Dream is a fairy tale.

The US may go to war if China invades Taiwan. It cannot accept the loss of power and control an invasion will mean.

Nevertheless, based on recent history it does not have the stomach for a long fight, as war with China will mean thousands of body bags arriving at US airbases daily. An increasingly powerful China and its allies may be more motivated to fight a colonial type bullying power.

History reveals that the US public will not tolerate a war that may inflict horrific casualties in the tens of thousands.

For Donald Trump and his MAGA Movement – and Trump has been strutting the world stage stating he wants to expand US borders- the clock is ticking.