The Weaponized Dollar and the Coming Cashless World

Darrell Castle talks about how the United States has demonstrated in the Ukraine/Russia war that it can wage very effective economic warfare against other non-complying nations and what this portends for the United States and the world. Transcription / Notes THE WEAPONIZED DOLLAR AND THE COMING CASHLESS WORLD Hello this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday, the 25th day of March in this the year of our Lord 2022. I will be talking about how the United States has demonstrated in the Ukraine/Russia war that it can wage very effective economic warfare against other non-complying nations and what this portends for the United States and the world. There are lessons to be drawn from conflict and plans made for fighting the next war. It is a concept like a football coach studying film of his past games to learn his team’s strengths and weaknesses. Generals and Presidents learn from past wars and develop ways to prevent the same losses and to preserve the same victories. That at least partially explains why generals always seem to fight the last war as the Russians seem to be doing now in Ukraine. We can take more than one lesson from Ukraine right now such as the lesson that nuclear deterrence works as a powerful defense. I have little doubt that except for Russia’s nuclear arsenal, the U.S. and NATO would be actively involved in the air and on the ground in Ukraine. The realization that Russia’s nuclear missiles have prevented NATO’s active involvement has provoked Europe to re-arm and the U.S. is currently conducting seminars about modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In other words, another nuclear arms race. The U.S. arsenal, especially in space, has apparently been allowed to degrade since the Reagan years, and suddenly U.S. planners are confronted with two powerful nuclear armed enemies. The U.S. has demonstrated, however, that perhaps the most powerful weapon in the world today is not nuclear weapons which cannot be used without risking worldwide destruction, but the weaponized U.S. dollar. Since the Bretton Woods agreement at the end of World War ll, the U.S. has enjoyed world reserve status for the dollar. That means that world trade must be in dollars either dollars in hand or as the benchmark. No country will currently sign an agreement for future projects denominated in anything but dollars. The Euro is a distant second and the Chinese Yuan an even more distant third. During the Nixon/Ford years when the oil Sheiks in the Middle East discovered that oil could also be a powerful weapon Henry Kissinger, as Secretary of State, developed a system of trade known as the Petro Dollar system. It worked like this; The United States will use its blood and treasure to protect and guard in power the Saud Royal family as rulers of Saudi Arabia and in return they will only sell oil denominated in dollars at the prevailing market rates. Biden’s recent courting of Iran, ancient enemy of the Saud Family, along with his refusal to defend them from attacks by the Iranian armed Houthi rebels in Yemen, has convinced the Saudis to take proposals from China to sell them oil in Yuan. Nevertheless, world trade requires U.S. dollars and to get them one must have access to the place where they can be printed in unlimited amounts, the Federal Reserve. Other countries or banks that are awash in dollars are very concerned about violating U.S. banking regulations because they have witnessed the power of the dollar and the message is loud and clear. The lesson for virtually every nation and financial institution in the world is as powerful and clear as an armed strike but even more deadly. No access to dollars means no nation will take your local money to buy anything. You are effectively cut off, unable to conduct business anywhere in the world. The United States is by far the largest economy in the world and the largest importer. For example, the weakness of the Russian economy has been laid bare for the world to see.