THE ANTI-HEGEMON STUMBLES: A pessimistic assessment from Oliver Boyd-Barrett

have limited time this week. My quick update assessment is that without a qualitative intervention, probably related to Russia and/or China – and I am not expecting that to happen- we are witnessing the beginning of a new phase of US global hegemony. The US has taken Venezuela – in effect – and can take measures to significantly ramp up Venezuelan oil and the refinement of that oil. Cuba must fall to US control. Other dominoes will pass to US control, willingly (as in the case of right-turning political entities in Latin America and Asia) or otherwise. Much of this is due to the propaganda efforts of mainstream media behemoths, local and global. But it is mostly due to the sheer disparity of military power between the US and nearly every other political entity on the planet coupled with the US empire of bases, no matter how many of these have been smashed in the Gulf.

Is Oliver being too defeatist? Or is this the reality the world faces?

The destabilization of the global economy instigated by the US war on Iran will strengthen US power at the expense of the rest, with the exception, for the moment, of Russia. In Iran, the third assassination of a senior leader within as many days is hardly encouraging news, nor is the apparent degradation of Iranian air defenses and the uninterrupted arrival to Hormuz of US 5000 pound guided gravity bombs, to be followed by some form or another of US or US-Israeli ground operation. The US-Israeli attack on Iran has accompanied further decimation of Lebanon at their hands and of Palestine in Gaza and the West Bank.

Russia benefits from higher oil prices but Europe is escalating its offensive on Russian tankers or its “shadow fleet” with the recent detention of one such vessel near Sweden, the destruction of a tanker yesterday near Malta by an unidentified third party, and an escalation of anti-Russian war rhetoric from Britain and France. These attacks may reduce Russian oil revenue but will also push oil prices even higher.

The approach of a Russian tanker to Cuba could lead to an escalation of what has been up until now mainly a proxy war between the US and Russia, but even then the oil would take a month to process and refine. I don’t know if the tanker has a military escort.

Cuba cannot wait that long. It is almost without power. In Russia itself, Moscow, Belgorod, and Russian oil refineries are targeted every day by hundreds of Ukrainian drones; Moscow is shutting down the internet almost every day for long periods. Russia’s total territorial advances in Ukraine after four years of fighting remain glacial; last month it lost more territory than it gained. The argument that this is attritional warfare has merit but exactly who is being attrited grows less certain by the day. Perhaps Russia’s upcoming Spring offensive will resoundingly retrieve its confidence. In the meantime the collective power of the fractionalized BRICS looks every day more wishful thinking than reality.