Mike, good analysis, if maybe spoiled a little by that last paragraph, which looked a little like a manifestation itself of the very thing you indicated in all the others; a big, formerly powerful, even bullying nation, losing badly, pointing at others, saying its their fault.

I can’t see what game Russia, China, or even Iran has played, that the US didn’t teach them how to play. It seems to work just like playground bullying. For every bully in the playground, there will always arise another one, just bigger, and badder.

The US, and arguably we, its its allies, taught them how to be the biggest, baddest players in an obviously very unfair world.

Evidently the teaching was very effective.

Now, to avoid things exploding any further in physical violence, like a war, which would play perfectly into the hands of the guilty, we need to try to avoid giving in to our emotions, our tendency to blame other countries for our problems, and try to see a way towards starting to work collaboratively with them, to start to put things right for ordinary folks around the world, who’ve all suffered more or less, due to the inequalities we see.

I really hope that all countries will continue to see reasonable value in the dollar, as well as their own currencies, for the sake of peace being the most valuable thing we could have.

There are probably a few in the US, as well as in other places, who are literally drooling over the prospect of war, fervently wishing for a catastrophic drop in the dollar value, to make it so.

Those are the folk we should be wary of.