Yves here. Please welcome Andrew Korybko to Naked Capitalism. He regularly posts on his own Substack and has graciously agreed to let us reproduce his work from time to time.
Please note that the tone of this post is a bit out of character for Korybko, in that he is clearly chuffed and is taking a mini-victory lap. Specifically, events are playing out in line with his assessment of the BRICS bank and Global South economic leaders’ approach to the de-dollarization project, namely that they will be very careful and deliberate. That means way way slower than most enthusiasts for the multipolarity project would like to believe.
I can understand his frustration with commentators who generally have sound geopolitical views but gone ga-ga over the prospects for establishing new payment and investment arrangements. We’ve focused on the governance and infrastructure/institutional requirements, which are substantial and generally ignored and pretty much guarantee that progress will be slow. Korybko has focused on another set of impediments, that the countries who wants to slip the dollar leash are still considerably entwined with the First World and thus need to move deliberately.
If you are still skeptical of Korybko’s and our take, check back in after the big BRICS meeting on August 22 to 24. New reserve currency fans have for the most part been predicting the launch of major concrete measures. Let’s see what actually happens.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website
Those who aren’t irredeemably brainwashed and sincerely aspire to understand the global systemic transition to multipolarity as it objectively exists instead of indulging in wishful thinking about it should use this unpleasant development as the opportunity to finally awaken.
The Alt-Media Community (AMC) has hyped their audience up since the start of the NATO-Russian proxy war seventeen months ago into thinking that BRICS is supposedly on the brink of dealing a deathblow to the dollar. Top influencers deliberately exaggerated the group’s role in advancing financial multipolarity processes in order to generate clout, push their ideological agenda, and/or solicit donations from their well-intended but naive followers.
The reality is that BRICS only envisages gradually reforming the global financial system through a series of carefully coordinated moves whose effects will take a lot of time to materialize, not radically changing everything by de facto declaring war on the Western-centric financial order with all that entails. After all, apart from Russia nowadays, all of its members are in relationships of complex interdependence with the same lopsided system that they intend to reform.
It therefore follows that none of those other four ever planned to cross their Western partners’ financial red lines like the AMC’s top influencers falsely claimed and thus risk catalyzing the mutually disastrous consequences of a so-called “decoupling”. Their economies could crash, Color Revolution threats might then soar, and the resultant international instability could complicate their respective grand strategies. Anyone who expected otherwise was misled as the latest development on Wednesday proved.
Newly appointed President of the New Development Bank (NDB, which is popular known as the BRICS Bank) Dilma Rousseff confirmed in a statement published on her official Twitter account that “The NDB reiterated that it is not planning new projects in Russia and operates in compliance with applicable restrictions on international financial and capital markets. Any speculations on such a matter are unfounded.”
Rousseff used to lead Brazil prior to her ouster in August 2016 as part of the US’ rolling regime change campaign there at the time. Her appointment as President of the BRICS Bank by newly re-elected and now three-time President Lula da Silva was spun by the AMC’s top influencers as allegedly proving its supposedly secret plans to de facto declare war on the Western-centric financial order. Their audience fell for this lie due to their sympathy for her and their false belief that Lula is against the US.
They could never have imagined that she of all people would be the one to officially inform the world that the BRICS Bank is complying with Western sanctions against Russia and then rubbish all related speculation about her group’s intentions as “unfounded”. In one fell swoop, it became undeniable that “BRICS Isn’t What Many Of Its Supporters Assumed”, thus shattering the AMC’s worldview and discrediting those of its top influencers who deliberately exaggerated its role in the emerging order.
There’ll of course be some shameless charlatans who’ll predictably claim that Rousseff is just playing “5D chess” in order to “psyche out the West” or whatever exactly as they always allege whenever “politically inconvenient” facts expose their lies, but this is an insult to their audience’s intelligence to allege. Nevertheless, these sorts of conspiracy theories have regrettably become common in recent years after top influencers realized that many people desperately want to believe them for whatever reason.
Those who aren’t irredeemably brainwashed and sincerely aspire to understand the global systemic transition to multipolarity as it objectively exists instead of indulging in wishful thinking about it should use this unpleasant development as the opportunity to finally awaken. They’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes by the AMC’s top influencers for far too long, which got their hopes unrealistically high and thus inevitably set them up for the deep disappointment that they’re probably experiencing right now.
The seven steps suggested here half a decade ago will help them deprogram their minds after all the false narratives that they were duped by “trusted” sources into believing. Together with that, they’d do well to see if those aforesaid sources publicly account for why they got it so wrong about BRICS. Those who do deserve credit for taking responsibility and trying to improve their work, while those who ignore the latest development or double down on “5D chess” conspiracy theories should no longer be trusted.
As was explained in this analysis here about the recent arrest of Igor Girkin, “5D chess” and “doom & gloom” (“D&G”) conspiracy theories are equally inaccurate depictions of reality that members of the AMC should always be on the lookout for. Rousseff’s confirmation that the BRICS Bank is complying with the Western sanctions about Russia shatters the first false perception about its role in advancing financial multipolarity processes but it also shouldn’t be exploited to extend credence to the second.
This “politically inconvenient” development doesn’t mean that BRICS isn’t important or sold out to the West like “D&G” conspiracy theorists might predictably claim. Rather, it simply confirms what was earlier shared in this analysis regarding that group’s goal of only gradually reforming the global financial system through a series of carefully coordinated moves whose effects will take a lot of time to materialize. Progress is already being made even though the pace isn’t to the liking of many in the AMC.
The shock being felt by those well-intended but naive folks who fell for “5D chess” conspiracy theories about BRICS shouldn’t lead to them becoming so despondent that they “defect” to “D&G” ones, but should instead inspire them to seek the truth about the global systemic transition as it objectively exists. To that end, they should follow the seven steps that were previously suggested in parallel with diversifying their sources of information and always being careful not to fall for conspiracy theories.