This shit might dangerously soon be enough for Putin to just say "yolo". Also, insane how the entire world is quickly responding to Russia, while noone gave a shit about the US killing literally millions of people. Or the Saudis killing more innocent people right this moment than Russia is. And they will be allowed to continue to do so. It looks like the US hegemony is getting only stronger, not weaker, no matter what it does.

  • HexbearIntern [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    It looks like the US hegemony is getting only stronger, not weaker, no matter what it does.

    The contradictions rise

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      It makes it all the more viable for Russia and China to build their own alternative

        • Shoegazer [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          How likely is that? They’ll be sanctioned by the west, and if the sanctions don’t work due to the alternative system, they’ll most likely be couped

          • SaniFlush [any, any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            America can't make the entire rest of the globe into vassal states at the same time. They'll try no matter how nice anyone is, but eventually they'll fail.

          • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            Why would countries be sanctioned for simply utilizing an alternative system to SWIFT? It is their right in the free marketplace, by the west's own line of reasoning.

            Or do you mean Russia? Good luck couping that. The second largest party is explicitly communist, the third largest is explicitly socialist, and the fourth largest is even more ultranationalist and eager to go to war with the US than Putin. There's some weird libertarians and other leftists dotted around, but yeah, this shit isn't super coupable, unless the US wants a Cold War II so bad they'll recreate a USSR to fight against. Americans are dumb, but I doubt they're that dumb.

            Putting a ton of sanctions on Russia at this point is essentially the only option other than straight up holding a press conference and saying "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas." It's a dying empire's only option other than losing a ground war with Russia in the winter, and it's likely to be just as devastating to them in the long run as they hope it will be for Russia in the short term.

            Russia is sure to utilise CIPS as it's an easy phone call to ensure banking in country behaves the same on Monday morning as it did on Friday afternoon, and they almost certainly were prepared for this possibility in advance. That will expand the CIPS network, while at the same time SWIFT shrinks, and other nations will surely see the writing on the wall as well. Your banking system is not safe under SWIFT, and CIPS is the alternative.

              • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Sure, contradictions rising.

                The point is that utilising a secondary system, especially in a system like bank telecommunications where they're essentially fungible commodity backends, is something that is no more sanctionable than choosing adidas vs nike for your olympic team's sportswear. Doubly so since it's perfectly possible to get both the adidas ones and the nike ones and hold onto one set just in case there's an issue with the first. It's not a pick one or the other system. You can implement both, and just flip a switch. Like having two SIM cards in your phone, and switching between them if service drops on one.

            • star_wraith [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              I have seen theories about both Saddam and Ghaddafi were trying to challenge the petrodollar, and that's part of why they got invaded. don't know how credible, but intresting

            • Shoegazer [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Why would countries be sanctioned for simply utilizing an alternative system to SWIFT? It is their right in the free marketplace, by the west’s own line of reasoning.

              They would be sanctioned for cooperating with Russia and China like Belarus allowing Russians to invade from their borders

              • s0ykaf [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                They would be sanctioned for cooperating with Russia and China like Belarus allowing Russians to invade from their borders

                the stronger the block, the weaker the sanctions

                besides, allying ourselves with china would be way better than it was with the USSR (with all respect to our fallen comrades, i'm not really talking in terms of ideology here, but trade potential)

              • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                For... utilising a bank telecommunication system? Extremely unlikely. Especially since it could be done in parallel. Set up CIPS, continue allowing SWIFT communications. Something happens to SWIFT, congrats, it's meaningless, just use the other one. The national equivalent of your wifi going down while you're watching a video on your phone so you just switch to 5G.

      • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        China doesn't want to be tied to a Russia that acts like this. There's a reason China doesn't invade countries.