Geopolitics - As easy as B, C, H (part 1):

"Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically one. Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played."

- Zbigniew Brzezinski

In-short: Geopolitics looks at international relations in the context of specific regions, and the influence these region s possess. How then does one change the influence of regions, allied states, or individual states?

There is, not strictly speaking, three types of war:

Economic war Information war "Guns up" war

Bitcoin is a part of a grand chess board which states or groups of actors can use to gain ground in a perpetual geopolitical war. Bitcoin is a tool which can be used more effectively by a those actors not in a position of economic power.

Summary of contents:

A look at The States, China, Iran & Russia

Who has economic power?

Who can win economic power?

The curious case of Venezuela

Why Bitcoin (BCH)?

A look at The States, China, Iran & Russia

The States

"Controls" the Federal Reserve Bank which acts as lender of last resort to the national banks. As the Federal Reserve controls the world's reserve currency it adds more significance to it's importance, as it can directly influence world markets.

The US Dollar's significance is widened as both the International Monetary Fund as well as World Bank largely function with the US Dollar. These organisations then provide loans (in US Dollars) to governments the world over. These governments are then mostly required to pay their loans back in US Dollars.

You can read more in the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkin's:

The States is also the largest single consumer market and is highly sought after and with a GDP of around $19.3 trillion packs quite a punch. For perspective, the entire European Union has a GDP of approximately $12.6 trillion, while China has climbed to around $12.2 trillion.

In terms of information power, The United States reigns supreme too with arguably the most influential media outlets as well as digital media companies (think FANG, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Google). To emphasis the importance of information power, here's a quote from Zbigniew Brzezinski describing how U.S media has far reach:

"The language of the internet is English, and an overwhelming proportion of the global computer chatter also originates from America, influencing the content of global conversation."

The above "information power" does not touch on the classic James Bond 007 stuff, this is a component on it's own.

In terms of military superiority the U.S.A has a larger military budget than all of the world's nations combined. This budget of approximately $700-1,000 billion, largely, maintains the status quo.

Hate them or love them, Henry Kissinger & Zbigniew Brzezinski have influence the world more than one can comprehend:

China

The nation which has seen a meteoric rise in prosperity (mostly due to opening up to the free market), has for the past few years owned the largest reserves of USD at approximately $1,200 billion. They have also positioned themselves as a global player (and rightly so) with investments in the African, South American, and increasingly the Eurasian continent with the ambitious 一带一路 (One Belt One Road initiative).

China posses the second single largest economy which is primarily export driven, but is still tied closely to it's largest export partner The States in two ways. Firstly due to the size of the U.S consumer market, access to the market with favourable trade deals is essential for continued Chinese success. Secondly international trade is still denominated in USD, so, even if trading with other countries contracts are still largely denominated in US Dollars.

The best way to think of trade being denominated in USD (from the Chinese perspective) is to think of many crypto enthusiasts wanting to have more "trading pairs" with their currency of preference. The more useful a currency is in a global environment, the better. Network, network, network.

China also holds an influential position in the information space. The primary difference between Chinese and American press as well as digital companies is their ability to influence world thought. Chinese tech giants BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) are primarily focused on the domestic market and have little traction outside of their bubble, this while U.S digital companies span the world.

Although China's influence is primarily domestic it doesn't mean that this is where the information war stops, as the recent speech by Mike Pence calls out Chinese media propaganda operations in Iowa (U.S.A):

Finally there's China's military. With a budget of around $180 billion the military has been steadily growing, and although not yet on the level of U.S spending and assets, it has been making strides towards being an international force to match it's economic size and aspirations.

Iran

The country has found itself again in a bind, which is having more of an impact than any time in the last ten years. This is primarily for two reasons, firstly the United States has reimposed sanctions, and secondly, and most importantly inflation has sky rocketed!

Although domestic inflation is currently recorded at just above 30%, many businesses believe the numbers are far greater. Furthermore the currency has lost over 70% of it's value against the US Dollar.

In previous times of sanctions the Iranian people were still able to live a prosperous life, however this time is different. This time they are both effectively excluded from the international system of trade, AS WELL AS having domestic inflation. This domestic inflation is hampering the market's ability to use prices as a way to transmit information, with only those sitting in the central bank aware of the real money supply.

As this time is different, and the domestic economy cannot function correctly private individual have reconsidered how best to preserve their wealth, with Bitcoin becoming one of the potential safe havens.

Government has seemingly lost a little more control over the population and has had to legalise Bitcoin as well as mining. This in stark contrast of it being illegal only a few months ago.

In the Iranian context we see a nation state which has economic difficulty from two vantage points, doing international trade after being effectively blocked by the United States, as well as dealing with domestic inflation due to poor monetary policies (or rather, monetary policies).

Iran is in tough situation on the economic front.

When looking at the information front they are too not in the strongest world position. Not able to truly influence world chatter, but fortunately able to contain the bulk of their population from English propaganda.

In a military context they are also not able to expand their influence very far from their borders.

So why is Iran important?

"If Tehran insists on combining the Persian imperial tradition with contemporary Islamic fervor, then a collision with America — and, indeed, with its negotiating partners of the Six — is unavoidable. Iran simply cannot be permitted to fulfill a dream of imperial rule in a region of such importance to the rest of the world."

- Henry Kissinger

Iran is important as it holds a key position in the grand chess board which is Eurasia. Their significance is multiplied when understanding they have have a long-standing history, and are gifted some of the largest natural resources in the world (oil, gas, copper, zink, etc).

Russia

"Like so many empires before it, the Soviet Union eventually imploded and fragmented, falling victim not so much to a direct military defeat as to disintegration accelerated by economic and social strains."

- Zbigniew Brzezinski

Economically Russia is the eleventh largest single economy in the world with approximately $1.5 trillion worth of GDP. The nation state has a low debt to GDP ratio of only 13%, to put this into perspective The U.S.A is at 105%, Japan at 253%, the Euro region around 85% and China about 47%.

On top of not having high debt burdens, the nation does not see low interest rates as a positive, as they see loans made out of speculation as detrimental to long-term economic growth (hence interest rates at 7.50%) while inflation sits at a mild 3.40%. This in stark contrast with many European nations with low, zero or negative interest rates coupled with comparable inflation rates.

The economy is largely fuelled by, well, fuel and other natural resources.

Regarding information, Russia too isn't an outward power as The United States is but does have it's own avenues of world influence in the form of RT (Russia Today). In the digital media space their power, as a laymen, seems to be lacking as power houses like Telegram have moved shop outside of Russia and come into conflict with each other over the last year.

It is clear that Russia might not have an "in" to companies like Telegram, but it then begs the question as to whether the U.S is now in a favourable position with companies like Telegram ( https://www.wired.co.uk/article/telegram-bribe-fbi-us-government ).

In the 2016 U.S elections Russia was in the spotlight for allegedly hacking, these allegations have continued into 2017, and now 2018, however no concrete proof has been mustered on the issue. So again, it leave one to guess as to the truth in these claims and to the power of Russian information agents.

The Russian military remains the second most capable in the in the world today (according to Global Fire Power), and although apparently dated, focuses on offensive equipment which is battle tested vs investing in defensive systems as the like the missile defence system of the U.S and Israel.

One is hard to forget that Russia too has the second largest nuclear arsenal.

In "Geopolitics - As easy as B, C, H (part 2)" we continue to look at:

Who has economic power?

Who can win economic power?

The curious case of Venezuela



