World War III and the West's Suicide Mission

Thucydides Trap is inevitable but citizens have the power to prevent further bloodshed by rejecting their leaders policies.

Thucydides Trap is when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power and the resulting conflict culminates in War. This has direct implications for our current geopolitical situation. Failure to recognize how history is repeating itself could result in extreme physical and economic hardship for Western countries.

The term Thucydides Trap was coined by Professor Graham Allison in his book Destined for War.

Thucydides is said to be one of the founders of history and the first to apply scientific principles to the study of history. Thucydides is particularly well-known for his account of the Peloponnesian War (431 to 405 B.C.E.).

The Peloponnesian War was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world.

According to Thucydides the cause of the war was the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta (Sparta was the most powerful ruling city-state at the time). The rise of a new power threatened the hegemony of the existing power and War became inevitable.

According to Professor Allison, Thucydides Trap has occurred sixteen times in the last 500 years, and twelve of these occurrences led to War. Just four were resolved without going to War.

In his 2017 book, Professor Allison frames the geopolitical problem we face today in terms of a rising China and a declining American hegemony. However, the last few years have seen a rapid rise in not just China but the BRICS countries collectively.

The expansion of BRICS and the isolation of the West has been accelerating. Particularly during the last month - when we have seen more countries express an interest in aligning with BRICS. During the last couple of weeks Thailand, a historically very neutral country, officially applied to join BRICS. Earlier this week, Malaysia, also formally announced its intention to join BRICS.

The original BRICS block - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, was expanded last year to also include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. An additional 35 countries are reported to be in formal or informal discussions about joining BRICS. One of these is Turkey, a member of NATO. In fact Turkey has the second largest military of all the NATO countries. Turkey’s desire to join BRICS is probably sending shockwaves throughout Europe behind closed doors.

The world is basically fed up with the West. Countries are fed up of being bullied by the West - politically, economically, and militarily. The United States has interfered in the elections of at least 80 countries since the end of the Second World War.

There were numerous reports last month that Saudi Arabia did not renew an agreement with the United States to price oil in US dollars. This is difficult to verify because the agreement was informal, perhaps even secret. However, regardless of this being true or false, the writing is on the wall for US dollar hegemony.

The BRICS countries are building a new payment system specifically designed to circumvent the US dollar. This corresponds with individual countries making active moves away from the dollar. For example, in 2010 China conducted more than 80% of cross-border payments in USD, and practically no transactions in RMB. But as of 2024, almost 53% of China’s cross-border transactions are now in the Chinese currency and only 43% are conducted in USD.

The US dollar is still the number one currency for global cross-border transactions, but for how long? This trend also correlates with a general decline in the economic power of the West.

In 2023, Martin Wolf wrote in the Financial Times that American hegemony and the economic dominance of the G7 is now history. The G7 accounts for less than 10% of the global population, but have been calling the shots for about two centuries. Data from the International Monetary Fund shows the reversal of influence more drastically.

Looking at GDP based on purchasing power there has been an obvious flip in dominance from the advanced economies to the emerging and developing countries. By 2029, advanced economies will only hold a 38% share of the global purchasing power.

The decline in purchasing power of Western countries and their allies along with the decline in the dominance of the US dollar represent tectonic shifts in the geopolitical landscape.

The sensible thing for the West to do would be to find its place in the new multi-polar or multi-nodal world. However, Thucydides Trap suggests that this will not happen and the escalation to World War will continue..

The other significant problem the United States in particular has, is the mounting debt. While dollar hegemony exists, the United States can keep printing US dollars in order to get out of economic trouble. This money printing has already caused a monumental debt crisis, which currently stands at around 35 trillion dollars. However, if the rest of the world stops using US dollars, then the 35 trillion dollar debt needs to be addressed. My understanding is that this would lead to hyper-inflation and a crash of the US economy like nothing ever seen before.

So, Western leaders are not incentivized to give up their hegemony and appear to be falling deeper into Thucydides Trap. We can expect ever more reckless spending on the military industrial complex, and War is inevitable. Elites in the US, the UK and Europe will suck out as much as they possibly can from the system for themselves before it finally crashes. This will continue to be at the extreme detriment of domestic public services and the well-being of the general public in Western countries.

Meanwhile, the domestic political landscape in the US and the UK continue to offer a pantomime style distraction. None of the candidates put forward in upcoming elections have any intention or ability to fix the current situation.

As Gerald Celente, publisher of the Trends Journal, often says “When all else fails, they take you to War”.