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Wednesday, September 3, 2025
YourTurnSubscriberWrites: The next world war, will it be the fight for dollar...

SubscriberWrites: The next world war, will it be the fight for dollar supremacy

As nations move away from the US dollar in global trade, could economic rivalry—not territory or ideology—ignite the next global conflict?

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Men find many reasons to engage in their most popular tradition, nothing but to fight. The reason varied with each history in making, be it for territory, pride, economics, religion or for matters of redemption. 

In a war those who come second in terms of lesser destruction will come up as the winner. It is not that in a war the winner claims all glory, but they may be only a few steps ahead. That’s why perhaps they say no one wins in a war. 

I of my conscious spirit has no doubt that the next world war will not be for any solemn reasons we can imagine, from any of our tinkling thoughts that can find a sensible meaning for the need to fight the war. The third world war may be fought for reasons as bizarre as my previous sentence.

Have anyone thought that there will be a war men might fight because some did not use their currency?.Can there be a reason as bizarre as this?

Why do we see more two-week wars?. This year itself we have seen at least three of such wars. These otherwise would have naturally exploded into a conventional war but that’s not what we have seen.Maybe people have found it less of a reason to fight a war than to enjoy the opportunities that are at disposal. Especially with the kind of prosperity we have achieved with trade.

We know in the contemporary era there is a relation between the dollar and the trade.

Maybe the next big war will be to uphold the supremacy of the dollar. This will be a confrontation that can build up slowly, in patches, hiccups here and there, while one nation is made to fall others may not even heed. But one nation after another can expand slowly into a bigger conflict  with a bigger group. Once started it can escalate to be the bloodiest. Because the dollar for America is one of the means to keep its control as the super power. 

So, will the dollar be the reason for the next world war?

Dollar has a global presence, it affects many nations. A war for the dollar could very well become a world war. Apart from its status as the most popular fiat currency, America has to make sure it is entitled for maximum global use, else its hegemony as well will get over. 

Think about the state of the US economy if all the dollar reserves in the world comes back to America. Every nation worth the trade has enormous reserves; I hear China has almost 3.2T dollar reserves, which is close to India’s economy. Such are the quantities of dollars used in trade around the world. What started as petro-dollar has now encompassed all forms of trade. We hear news about nations going bankrupt and not worthy of trade because their dollar reserves are very low. This is the only unit of currency used to measure the strength of a nation’s economy.

The current tariff war, freezing of Russia assets, belt and road initiative, US debt of $37 trillion etc can accelerate nations to move away from the dollar.Since the dependency of dollars and its importance is too much it becomes imperative for most nations to continue to use it at least for some more time. However, it can be a slow process to move away from the dollar.

Retrospectly there are soft and hard wars the US has fought that helped to keep the dollar afloat – Middle east wars, Shanghai accord that ended in devalue of Yuan, stopping nations from using local currency for trade, stock markets, bond markets etc.

BRICS is one of the latest groupings that engages in many activities including trade. After the cold war there are also nations aligning to the Russia-China framework.These are the two formidable groups that can challenge the supremacy of the dollar.

Russia-China, Russia-India, Brazil-China are already using their local currency instead of the petro-dollars. So the wheel has started moving in a direction once established will surely be a big change to rattle US supremacy.

Quoting Heraclitus “change is the only constant”. Change is the only one that does not change, everything else is in an organic state of evolution. The status of the dollar as well has to get into this cycle of change. 

A world war at such a sophisticated time can very well wipe out our entire civilization.

Will dollar be the reason we may go into oblivion? Will it be a perpetual fight or will the dollar simply go into history as one of the greatest currencies the world used to have.

These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.

 

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