Much ado about BRIC as threat to America’s global economic dominance

No question, powers rise and fall. It is the immutable law of nature and of geopolitics. The US has dominated the globe both in the economic, military and geopolitical spheres for over half a century and beyond, frankly since the end of the Second World War. Hence, this is often described as the US century.  So, it is natural for any nation that has been on top for such a long time to expect emerging powers to challenge it.  So, the ongoing realignment of the globe’s economic and geopolitical power structure is to be expected. However, any boxer who has faced a dominant, undefeated super heavyweight champion of the world knows it is much easier to talk about dethroning him than actually doing it.  So, when you see and hear all the hyperventilation about the decline of the US and how its dethronement is imminent, take it with more than a pinch of salt.  The US is not sitting on its rear end waiting for someone to walk up and take the championship belt from it. Whoever wants the crown would have to do better that the iconic Zaire Kinshasa rumble in the jungle bout to get it. So, when you see a half-baked, amateurish, voice-over, outlandish, really hogwash of a video reporting China suspending all trade with the U.S., you need to put your thinking cap on.  It is so outlandish and an obvious no-brainer hogwash, that it is so shocking that anyone will share that video.  Anyway, no surprises here. Almost anything, including the master of all absurdities, gets shared on Nigerian social media, including a platform like the “Great Minds” populated by the cream de la cream of Nigerian intellectuals and movers and shakers of society.  We have already entered the phase of the diminution and override of the human neural cells by AI.  We are so bombarded with information overkill to the point that we are slowly losing our ability to conduct nuance and critical analysis of information. Otherwise, why would anyone share a video that announced with fanfare and so authoritatively that China has officially cut off all trade with the US!!!? For China to do that will be akin to a man cutting off his trachea to stop the passage of inspired and expired air into and out his lungs. Does that even pass the laugh test?  Yet people are mindlessly sharing that video on Nigeria social media predicting a global economic earthquake.  China is an export dependent economy while the U.S. is a consumption-based economy (the consumer confidence index is a great indicator of US’s economic health). China economy will crumble like a house of cards without demand from the West, especially the U.S. for its manufactured goods. Yes, the exploding Chinese middle class and super rich is changing its economy to a more mature consumption and service driven economy, but it still depends on exports for its sustenance.  So, this ridiculous post about China suspending trade with US and how BRIC is a threat to a dollarized global economy in the near term, reveals an abject misreading and lack of knowledge of how the global economy operates.  While China and Russia might want to use BRIC as a counterbalance and in fact, anti-U.S. body in their geopolitical struggle with the U.S., India and Brazil have a different objective. Brazil is in the orbit of the North and South America economic zone.  India is trying to decouple its military from its reliance on Russia for her military equipment.  Who would blame them after what the world has now seen about the incompetence weakness of Russia’s military industrial capacity and its military?  Russia’s overblown and oversold military is depending on Iran made drones and missile from North Korea in its disastrous war against Ukraine. India is a rising global power. It just landed its spacecraft on the moon, the first country to do so on the more challenging moon’s southern hemisphere. Juxtapose that against Russia’s space mission to the moon which just failed spectacularly.  Global policy analysis requires nuanced and critical analysis than simply sharing alarmist, half baked propaganda of an economic earthquake.  The US, because of the dynamism of its economy, and its leadership as the innovation heartbeats of the globe’s economy, will continue to remain a major, albeit diminished force in the globe economy as new power centres emerge.  India is the country to watch. It also has territorial dispute with China. The Indian diaspora is also deeply entrenched and connected to the U.S. with high profile Indians in both the political and more so in the economic domain. Anyone who is hoping India will align with China or Russia in opposition to the West should look at who is the current occupant of No 10 Downing Street, the residence of the UK Prime Minister.  In case we have forgotten, Rishi Sunak is a full-blooded British-Indian. About the Author: A current affairs analyst, Prof. Wale Alonge is a university Don and Head, Africa-Diaspora Partnership for Empowerment and Development (ADPED) based in Miami, Florida.

Niger Crisis: Guarding our minds against information warfare and perception manipulation

When we see a sleekly produced video with subliminal political overtone like the “Yoruba” woman on a viral video showing President Tinubu sleeping in the background, making an emotional plea about the plight of Yorubas in Niger, please keep your wits about you and be vigilant and know that you are being subjected to perception manipulation by AI and deep fake. The woman who claims she is more Nigerien than a Nigerian and that she is a foreigner in Nigeria should be told to stay her butt in her native country Niger, and let the president who Nigerians have elected to take the hard decisions on our behalf to do his job. History and the electorate will hold him accountable for the outcome of his decisions. That is why he has been hired, to take all the information in his possession and the experts serving on his national security council into account, to make the hard choice. He has the intelligence report most of us do not have access to. Yes, we can exercise our civic responsibility to let him know where we stand, but international crisis management is not conducted by taking polls but by data. Don’t let us be manipulated by crass emotionalism and social media hyperventilating when it comes to the ongoing Niger crisis. We must remember that complex international issues such as a military junta in Niger, and a clientele state run by Putin’s Wagner mercenaries, with which we have no real geographical nor cultural border, represents a present, imminent and existential danger to our country. None of us is getting the security and intelligence report that is on the desk of the president in Aso Rock, so we are not in the position to know the dynamic at play in the Niger crisis. Yes, Mr. Tinubu as the president of Nigeria and the Chairman of ECOWAS is the face of the Niger crisis, but we must remember this is a crisis of dire international and geopolitical implications and there are many actors involved, including the ECOWAS, the African Union, the UN, the Western powers and of course Russia. So the notion that piling pressure on President Tinubu like many are erroneously assuming, will cause him to deviate from what intelligence report is guiding him to do, shows naïveté about the complicated dynamics of international crisis management like the contagion of military coups that is spreading and rampaging the Sahel region, and that is inching towards our homeland. They are not issues that can be resolved by the maddening appeal to emotionalism on Nigerian social media. No one wants war. However, sleeping with one’s two eyes closed when you have a raging lion at one’s doorstep is neither a smart thing to do. The Nigerian social media and especially WhatsApp, is consumed by fear mongering about impending war and dooms day prediction about how the ragtag Niger military will make a mince meat of the Nigerian military. That is nothing but an empty posturing and fear-mongering. We must realise that behind the scenes, frenetic diplomatic, economic, and political pressures are now being applied to the juntas to make them see reason. Russian propagandists have seized on this crisis to portray the Nigerien coup plotters as anti-imperialists who are seeking to liberate Niger and the entire African continent from under the yoke of France imperialism, neo-colonialism, economic servitude and exploitation. What a pile of hogwash. Would a true anti-imperial regime go to bow before and kiss Putin’s ass like the young lad leader from Burkina Faso did, when like a school boy before his dad condescendingly gave his rousing support for the Ukraine war and then begged the Russian leader, that he is willing to open Burkina Faso economy to the Russian with no strings attached? He then made the ridiculous request to Putin to come and build a nuclear plant in impoverished Burkina Faso. We all could see the flag of Russia flying all over Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Are those the kind of actions that a Thomas Sankara whose image all the three military leaders are invoking would take? On the contrary, by their naive posturing, it can be said that they are frankly desecrating the values that their fabled hero stood for. If anything, they are merely selling to us their selfish lust for power as the long awaited African revolution to free the continent from servitude to France and other Western powers. Record has it that the coup leader in Niger, General Tchiani has been a member of the Nigerien political class that has enjoyed the spoils of power and that have been serving the imperialists’ interest of their France overlords for decades as the head the presidential guards. He, in fact, crushed another coup against President Bazoum just days to his inauguration in 2021. Reports have it that the reason he struck with a coup was because he was about to be booted out of his position of power and influence. All of a sudden, he is now the liberator and Thomas Sankara of Africa. What a desecration of that sacred name and of the legacy of Shankara, one of the greatest leaders to walk the surface of Africa. We must remember that we are fighting on social media against information, disinformation, and propaganda warfare, and against a force that is a thousand times smarter, more nimble, and more adaptable than us. Artificial intelligence and deep fake. AI can gobble through trillion bytes or data and use it to manipulate our thought process and perception. That is what is happening with the Niger coup with the massive amount of auditory and visual information manipulation and disinformation that is coming at us like the great flood of Noah. We must guard our brains and minds against this powerful enemy that is seeking to mess with our minds and perception of reality like the woman in the sleekly produced video whose intent is to tug at our heart strings. Don’t let us