The Twilight of the Empire: Economic Collapse and the West's Blind Spot
Those who follow current world events might almost forget that much more is happening than just the wars in Iran or Ukraine. The recent analysis by American economist Richard Wolff painfully exposes what has been brewing beneath the surface for some time: the systematic decline of the Western empire. While Washington and Brussels fixate on military displays of power, economic and geopolitical power is irreversibly shifting toward the East and the South. It is the end of a century of humiliation for the rest of the world, and the beginning of the end for a West that has completely lost its grip on reality.
By Frank Dumon
The Illusion of the Middle East and the Rise of Iran
The Middle East shows us the bankruptcy of Western interventions. Iran is currently dealing with an enormous increase in power and standing worldwide. The way Tehran has resisted Western pressure has strengthened rather than weakened its position in the world economy and global power relations. On the other hand, we see the United States desperately debating what to do about its own declining global economic position.
The diplomatic 'solutions' that the West is now promoting are nothing more than a farce. The recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is, as the brilliant diplomat and analyst Chas Freeman so sharply noted, nothing more than "a ceasefire with Israeli characteristics." It does not bind the real actors, it is fragile, and it can be ignored at any moment by the initiators themselves. Uncertainty is omnipresent.
The Death of Certainty and Disrupted Capital Flows
This geopolitical uncertainty translates directly into an economic nightmare. Investing now means deploying resources with the expectation of future returns. However, in the current political situation, and particularly due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, there is a total absence of certainty. Ships are stranded, supply routes for fertilizers and energy are drying up, and companies don't know whether they will be able to pay for or receive their raw materials tomorrow. This chaos forces countries and corporations into desperate rearrangements, which only further weakens Western markets in favor of Asian alternatives.
All of this is happening against the backdrop of a system that has reached its own limits. Capitalism, the dominant system worldwide, carries a deeply ingrained instability. Every 4 to 7 years, a crisis follows. We saw the dotcom crash in 2000, the subprime crash in 2008, and the pandemic crash in 2020. As we once again enter the cycle of a new downturn, the combination of this inherent instability and the special shock of the war troubles in Iran creates an explosive mixture.
Imperial Overreach and Hypocritical 'Defense'
The United States still believes it can control the world. They want to fight with China over Taiwan, they are waging war in the Middle East against Iran, and they are provoking Russia in Europe. The US thinks it can do everything at once, but history teaches us that every empire—from the Roman to the British—has fallen due to overreach: exceeding their own limits out of arrogance.
Against the backdrop of the irreversible decline of the dollar, Donald Trump recently made a decision so foolish it becomes almost tragic. He increased the so-called 'defense budget' (which is a hypocritical name for a war machine) from 900 billion to 1.5 trillion dollars. This is an increase of 65% compared to last year.
These are resources being taken away from the population, from infrastructure, from science, and from agriculture, simply to explode rockets in the mountains of Iran while the domestic population has to pay seven dollars per pound for ground beef.
The Catastrophic Course of NATO and the West
The same conspiracy of blindness and aggression does not stop at the Middle East. The continued aggression of the US, EU, and NATO toward Russia will result in a catastrophe for themselves. Instead of diplomatic engagement, we see a Europe that willingly sacrifices itself to Washington's interests, while the industrial base withers and the population is presented with the bill.
What concerns me most is the psychological state of the West. The US and EU are in a state of denial, and frankly: that scares me. They no longer have insight into historical reality, no strategy for the future, no industrial capacity left to build their own ships, no functioning democracy, and no free press to hold them accountable.
They fixate on a stock market that only benefits the richest 10%, while the foundations of their society rot away. In short: they have no future left. The rise of Asia and the Global South is not merely an economic shift; it is the logical and inevitable consequence of a West that has lost itself in the madness of its own imperialism.