The current geopolitical tensions between the US, Russia, and Mexico are not merely political disputes but are symptomatic of the terminal decline of the American imperial system and the broader crisis of global capitalism, driven by structural economic forces and class interests rather than individual leaders.
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Let me explain something that the
corporate elites in Washington don't want
you to understand about the crisis
that is unfolding right now
between the United States, Russia, and Mexico.
What the media presents as
personalized political drama between
individual leaders is actually the
clearest manifestation to date
of the structural collapse of the
American imperial system.
And when I say collapse, I am not using
hyperbole; I am describing an
observable and measurable economic process that follows
institutional architecture of its global hegemony.
This is not strength, it's panic. It is the
behavior of a system that knows it
is losing control and is
willing to destroy the institutions
it once controlled rather than
allow others to use them. From my
perspective, as an economist who has
studied the crisis cycles of
capitalism for five decades, what
we are witnessing is textbook
Imperial Overstretch, combined with a
crisis of internal legitimacy. The
United States is trying to maintain
a dominant global position that its
economic base can no longer sustain,
while internally it faces
levels of inequality,
infrastructural decay, and political polarization
that make the consensus
necessary for a coherent
long-term strategy impossible. To understand
Russian fury and Mexican warnings.
We need to examine the sequence of
economic events that led to this
moment. We are not talking about
national personalities or cultures. We
are talking about the material interests
of specific classes responding to
structural pressures of the
global capitalist system. Let's start with
Russia. During the 1990s,
after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, Russian elites attempted to
fully integrate into the
Western capitalist system. They privatized
virtually the entire economy,
allowing Western capital to
buy Russian assets at
fire-sale prices. They adopted
extreme free market policies that caused the
collapse of the standard of living for the majority
of the population. It
was exactly what Washington had
demanded. What was the result?
Instead of being rewarded with
full membership in the Western club, Russia was
treated as a subordinate client state
. NATO expanded to
the Russian borders.
Western corporations extracted Russian resources
without transferring significant technology.
The Russian financial system remained
dependent on institutions controlled
from New York and London. Russia had
fulfilled all the conditions of
neoliberal capitalism and yet was
kept in a subordinate position. Putin
represents, among other things, the
response of sectors of the
Russian ruling class who decided that
subordinate integration into the
Western system was not viable. I am not here
to defend or attack Putin as an
individual. I am analyzing the
structural forces that your government
represents. These forces decided that
Russia needed to develop
independent economic and military capabilities
that would allow it to negotiate with the
West from a position of strength.
This led to decades of what we might
call civilized capitalist competition
. Russia developed its
energy exports, modernized its
military capabilities, and built
alternative alliances, but it continued to operate
fundamentally within the Western-
dominated global financial system .
.
Even after the 2014 sanctions
over Crimea, Russia maintained
significant connections with the
Western system. But in 2022, with the
massive sanctions following the invasion
of Ukraine, the United States and Europe
essentially expelled Russia from the
Western financial system,
froze the reserves of the
Russian Central Bank, cut
Russian banks off from Swift, banned
imports of Russian energy, and
confiscated private property of
Russian citizens without due process
. Here's what Washington didn't
calculate. These actions did not weaken
Russia enough to change its
behavior, but they did
definitively demonstrate that it cannot rely on
any agreement with the West. If the
United States can confiscate
a central bank's reserves, if it can cut a
country off from the international payments system
, if it can ignore
long-term energy contracts for
political reasons, then no
rational country can base its
economic strategy on cooperation with the
United States. This is the source of
Russian fury. It's not emotional, it's strategic.
Russia spent three decades trying to
build mutually
beneficial relationships with the West, only to
discover that the United States always viewed
these relationships as tools to
maintain Russian subordination, not as
genuine partnerships between equals. And
this is where Mexico enters the
equation in a crucial way. Mexico has
observed very carefully what
happened to Russia and the lessons are obvious.
No country can rely on the
United States to respect international agreements
when those agreements no longer serve
immediate American interests.
Mexico has an advantage that Russia did not
have: geography. Mexico shares a 3,145
3,145
km border with the United States. This makes it
impossible for the United States to treat
Mexico the same way it treated
Russia, because Mexico has the ability
to create immediate crises on
U.S. soil simply by ceasing to
cooperate in critical areas such as
border trade, migration, and security. But
Mexico also has a disadvantage that
Russia did not have: extreme economic dependence
. Approximately 80% of
Mexican foreign trade is with the
United States. Millions of
Mexican jobs depend on this relationship. The
Mexican economy is integrated with the
U.S. economy in ways that would make
any sudden break extremely costly
. This dependency has been
deliberately cultivated by the
United States for decades as a mechanism of
political control. Through NAFTA and
now USMCA, the United States created an
economic integration that benefited
corporations in both countries, but
left Mexico with very few
independent strategic options. It
was a sophisticated form of
economic colonialism where Mexico
maintained formal political sovereignty, but
had severely limited economic autonomy
. Mexican warnings to the
United States reflect the
recognition by
Mexican elites that this model is no longer
sustainable. When they see what the
United States did to Russia, they understand that
total dependence is an
unacceptable strategic vulnerability.
Mexico needs options, it needs to
diversify its economic relations, it
needs to develop capabilities that will
allow it to withstand US pressure
when necessary. That is why Mexico has
been quietly expanding its
relations with China. strengthening
ties with other Latin American countries,
Latin American countries,
exploring membership in organizations
such as the Bricks, which operate
independently of
US-dominated institutions. It's not
anti-Americanism, it's
basic geopolitical pragmatism. Now let's analyze what
specific class interests are
driving these dynamics, because this
is not a story about
abstract countries, but about concrete social groups
with specific material interests
. In the United States we have
a growing fracture between different
sectors of the ruling class.
The military-industrial complex and
Wall Street firms specializing in
volatility trading benefit from
geopolitical confrontation.
More tension means more military spending,
more demand for safe-haven assets
denominated in dollars, more
opportunities to trade on crises.
For these sectors, the fragmentation
of the international order is profitable,
but multinational corporations
that depend on global supply chains
are terrified.
General Electric needs
global markets for its turbines. Apple
needs to manufacture in multiple
countries to maintain
competitive costs. Exxon Mobil needs access
to global energy reserves. For
these corporations,
geopolitical fragmentation means massive losses and
operational disruptions that can
take decades to repair. This
division explains the
apparent incoherence of American policy.
Different government agencies
pursue contradictory policies
because they represent different sectors
of the corporate elite with
conflicting interests. The Pentagon promotes
confrontation because it serves the
military-industrial complex. The
trade department tries to maintain
trade relations because it serves multinational corporations.
multinational corporations.
The Treasury imposes financial sanctions
because it serves Wall Street. In Russia the
situation is clearer.
Western sanctions unified the
Russian ruling class around a
strategy of independent development.
The oligarchs who previously
favored integration with the West
now understand that this option no longer
exists. The Russian state,
state corporations, and
private capitalists are all
aligned in developing
economic capabilities that do not depend on
Western systems. In Mexico we see a
transition in progress.
Traditional sectors of the Mexican elite that
benefited from full integration
with the United States are being
challenged by emerging sectors that
see opportunities in
geopolitical diversification. President Claudia
Shainbound represents this second
trend, and her government is
carefully navigating between maintaining
beneficial relations with the
United States and developing alternatives.
strategic. But let me be
absolutely clear about something. These
conflicts between different elites do not
necessarily benefit the
workers of any of these countries.
In the United States, the working class
is being manipulated into supporting
policies that will increase their cost of
living while enriching different
sectors of the elite. In Russia,
workers have absorbed the costs of
the sanctions, while elites have
maintained or even increased their
wealth. In Mexico, workers
face economic uncertainty,
while the elites calculate which
alliances will be most profitable for them. The
tragedy is that the workers in
these three countries have
fundamentally aligned interests. Everyone
needs decent jobs,
quality public services, a
clean environment, functioning health systems, and
accessible education, but they are being
divided by nationalist narratives
that convince them to see workers
from other countries as enemies rather
than natural allies. Now, let's examine
the specific contradictions that
are driving this crisis. towards a
breaking point. The United States
faces what economists call
the impossible trilemma of
late imperialism. It cannot simultaneously
maintain global military hegemony, the
financial privilege of the dollar, and
internal democratic legitimacy.
Maintaining military hegemony requires
massive defense spending that diverts
resources from
infrastructure investment. education and
social programs that the population needs.
Maintaining the dollar's privilege
requires permanent trade deficits
that destroy the
domestic industrial base and eliminate
manufacturing jobs. Maintaining
democratic legitimacy requires responding to the
needs of the population, but that would
contradict the interests of the elites
who benefit from the imperial system.
Trump represents the attempt to resolve
this trilemma through what we
might call
nationalist imperialism: maintaining
global domination, but transferring more of the
benefits to
American workers at the expense of
foreign workers and globalized elites. But
this strategy is inherently
incoherent because
modern imperialism works through
global integration, not
national isolation. When the United States cancels
international agreements, when it imposes
unilateral tariffs, when it uses
sanctions as its primary
foreign policy tool, it is essentially
applying shock therapy to its own
imperial system. And like all
shock therapy, the immediate results are
chaos and massive dislocation. Russia and
Mexico are responding rationally
to this chaos, creating
alternative systems that can function independently
independently
of US institutions. They
are not attacking the United States,
they are protecting themselves from
American unpredictability.
But there is a deeper dimension that
we need to understand. This crisis is not
just the decline of a
particular empire, it is about the crisis of
global capitalism itself. The
capitalist system requires constant expansion
to maintain profit rates, but
we are reaching the
ecological and social limits of that expansion.
Climate change, the destruction of
ecosystems, the depletion of resources,
the growing resistance of
exploited populations. All of this creates
contradictions that cannot be resolved
within the existing capitalist framework
. Current geopolitical conflicts
are symptoms of these
deeper contradictions. The
United States is behaving in an
increasingly erratic manner, not only
because it is losing
relative hegemony, but because the global system
it led is entering a
systemic crisis. Russia and Mexico are seeking
alternatives not only to US dominance,
US dominance,
but to the development model that the
United States represented. This crisis creates
both enormous dangers and opportunities
. The dangers include the
possibility of military conflict between
nuclear powers, the collapse of
international cooperation systems in
critical areas such as climate change and
public health, and the fragmentation of the
global economy in ways that could
create a global economic depression. But
the opportunities include the
possibility of building
economic systems that prioritize human well-being
over corporate profits,
political systems that respond to
popular needs rather than
elite interests, and
international systems based on cooperation
between equals rather than
imperial domination. Let me construct three
scenarios for how
this crisis could evolve. In the first scenario, which
I would call managed decline, the
elites of the United States, Russia, and Mexico
manage to negotiate a
relatively orderly transition to a
multipolar system. The United States accepts losing
global hegemony in exchange for maintaining
significant influence in its region.
Russia consolidates its sphere of influence
in Neurasia. Mexico is becoming a
regional power broker that balances between
different global centers of power. The
result would be temporary stability,
but without fundamental changes in
class structures within each
country. In the second scenario,
chaotic fragmentation, the
contradictions intensify to the
point of ruptures. systemic. The
United States takes refugees to accept the loss of
hegemony. Intensifies
military and economic confrontation. Russia responds
asymmetrically through cyber
warfare and destabilization of US allies.
US allies.
Mexico is forced to choose sides,
leading to an internal political crisis. The
result would be economic depression,
political upheaval, and possibly military
conflict that could escalate into a
global catastrophe. In the third
scenario, which I would call
democratic transformation, geopolitical crises
catalyze popular movements in the
three countries that challenge not current
policies but underlying economic
systems. American workers organized
against both military industrial complex and nationals
nationals
extracted wealth from their communities.
Russian workers demand democratic
control over their country's vast
natural resources. Mexican workers
organize par socialism combine national
sovereignty with national solidarity. The
exploitation. Obviously, this third
scenario is the most optimistic and also
the least likely in the short term. But
history shows that periods of
hegemonic crisis create openings for
transformations that would be impossible
during times of stability.
The current contradictions of the
global capitalist system are so severe that
some fundamental formation is inevitable.
inevitable.
For the third scenario to be
possible, workers in the three countries need emerges
worker more Russian worker Mexican worker
than American billionaire
same workers everywhere.
This requires building international
solidarity based shared class interest
rather accepting nationalism that
divides workers along artificial lines
requires understanding key capitalism is
inherently expansionist exploitative
regardless of which country dominates the system requires recognizing care security for everywhere workers comes not from military dominance but from economic systems.
The failure of global capitalism to provide
prosperity, security and
sustainability for the majority of crises
crises intensifies,
Those next few months years will be
crucial in determining what direction
this transformation takes. If popular
movements can organize internationally
to challenge the capitalist system
itself, we could emerge something
genuinely better. If not, we're likely
to see continued chaos, conflict, why
suffering, while different elite
factions fight over control the a
fundamentally broken system. The choice
is ours, but time is running out. Last
contradictions of global capitalism are
becoming severe
climate change, inequality, political
instability all are accelerating. We can
either organize parafundamental change
or we can allow current system to
destroy itself possibly taking much to
human civilization. Item. That's why
understanding what's really happening
between United States, Russia, Mexico is
so important. It's not about taking
sides and geopolitical conflicts. It's
about understanding
structural forces drive these conflicts
working to transform underlying system
makes such conflicts inevitable. Because
at the end of the day, no matter who wins the
competition for global dominance, if the
system remains based on the exploitation of
workers and the destruction of the environment, it's all for nothing
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