From Stoltenberg, head of NATO, to the Heritage Foundation:
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_222258.htmChina, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are increasingly aligned. Together, they subvert sanctions and pressure. Weaken the US dollar-based international financial system. Fuel Russian war in Europe. And exploit challenges to our societies, such as terrorism, disruptive technologies, or migration.
In these dangerous times, we must stand strong against any regime that seeks to undermine us.
It's not just the four countries involved but BRICS and the Global South. BRICS refers to Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and the Global South to everyone other than G-7, etc. Examples of configurations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_marketExamples are MINT, EAGLE, CIVETS, NEST, Next Eleven, and more. Together, they make up the growing global middle class that is taking over the world economy:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-22956470Several of them are subverting sanctions but also coming up with new economic blocs, bilateral deals, and plans to move away from the dollar.
That's the same dollar that characterizes the international financial system and what gives real power to the U.S., allowing for a unipolar global economy.
As more countries become economically stronger, then they become less reliant on the dollar. When that happens, then the U.S. can't continue its heavy borrowing and spending binge, which it started in the early 1980s thanks to voodoo economics or Reaganomics:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/164163-krugman-and-the-pied-pipers-of-debtAnd the U.S. needed to do that because when the dollar became a global reserve currency, its exports became too expensive for most, which is why it began experiencing chronic trade deficits less than a decade earlier.
Much of spending from debt is needed for consumer spending and for the military, which is the most expensive in the world and most expansive, with over 700 military bases and installations worldwide.
That's why Stoltenberg unwittingly pointed out the truth: the goal of NATO is to protect the U.S.-led international financial system, and that means keeping other countries weak and thus dependent on the dollar through various means of manipulation but also intervention. But it's no longer working because many members of BRICS and the Global South have become too strong economically and have been answering back.
And the result may be a multipolar world.