An imperial grand plan of destabilization or a series of hubristic decisions that will have disastrous consequences? In recent years the US-led “West” have accelerated the systematic dismantling of whatever was left of international law and institutions, trashed the freedom of the seas, ignited conflicts across the world, and created a global energy and food crisis that brings with it severe inflation and debt crunches.
Whether by chance or design, what’s certain is that global destabilization is arriving fast on a scale that could make the Arab Spring look minor by comparison. And with it will no doubt come imperial efforts to capitalize off the chaos.
Let’s briefly recap what’s going on and how governments across the world are about to face increasing turbulence before turning to how the US is likely to try to capitalize.
Energy and Food System Destabilization
Through its conflicts with Iran and Russia, the US has achieved the following:
- Massive destruction of fertilizer supplies.
- Natural gas shortages on which fertilizer production relies.
- Diesel shortages, which means reduced harvests.
The throttling of global chokepoints and seaborne trade is making the transport of export of agricultural products more expensive and challenging.
All of this means higher prices. The US and Europe seem to believe they’ll simply outbid poorer countries, and they likely will, although they’re unlikely to get off that easily. Already the jolt to the system seems to—finally— be awakening Europeans to a future of conflict and declining living standards, and they aren’t happy about it.
Perhaps the elites in what’s referred to as “The West” believe their police-surveillance states are advanced enough to handle any resulting unrest. They’ll surely be put to the test. Elsewhere the risk rises of famine, destabilization, mass migration, and more conflict. The combination of droughts, El Niño and the Fertilizer crisis are set to cause mass suffering starting early next year.
Imperial efforts to starve non-compliant states into submission are nothing new; what is unique about this go-round is that it will be global in scale—including the empire’s own population in yet another sign that the international financial class has largely left the notion of nation states behind. It’s the Nation of Davos vs everyone else.
Shock Therapy on a Civilizational Scale
Is this shock therapy on a civilizational scale or just massive incompetence? At this point it hardly matters as the pain is already beginning.
Here’s Satyajit Das on how unprepared emerging market nations are:
Assuming no disruption in supply chains, they have pitifully low buffer stocks or reserves. Their economies remain narrowly structured with little diversification of their industrial base. Despite a history of energy dependence and previous disturbances, there has been limited efforts to increase energy independence by conservation measures or seeking alternative sources. Investment in renewables, such as solar, wind, hydro and biofuels, remains inadequate. Even emergency plans for rapidly scaling up alternative fossil fuels, like coal, are largely absent.
And here’s a brief overview of what’s on tap for the global economic order, courtesy of Michael Hudson:
…as prices for energy, fertilizer and food imports rise for businesses, farmers and labor throughout the world, many will be unable to pay their scheduled debt service. That will lead to defaults, distress sales and rising bankruptcy rates, followed by foreclosures and takeovers of property. These financial pressures will intensify the conflict between creditor and debtor countries as foreign investors swoop in and buy companies at distress prices, as they did in the Asian financial crisis of 1997.
For most countries, their deepening balance-of-payments deficits will put pressure on their exchange rates, confronting them with the choice of whether to use their limited reserves to pay for higher-priced oil and food imports or to pay their foreign debt service falling due. Many countries will turn to the IMF to borrow dollars to cover their deficits as an alternative to seeing their exchange rates depreciate. The problem is that IMF loans are conditional on governments reducing their budget deficits by cutting back social support such as helping families and businesses cope with the crisis and its rising debt overhead.
And there’s nothing on the horizon from China and the BRICS to disrupt this plan. Beijing might be able to buy some more allies by offering financial assistance. Russia, too, with food, fertilizer, and energy assistance, but a new economic system is not in the works.
So we’re stuck with more of the same. What does that mean?
US Kingmaker? – Currency Swaps and Color Revolutions
The US is going to try to use the crisis-of-its-own-making to force countries into submission. It will help those that bend the knee with IMF or US Treasury loans or currency swap agreements.
Nations that resist US demands on, say, sanctions against Iran, will be targeted for regime change.
Let’s take a look at a few recent examples of carrots and sticks for an idea of what’s coming.
Pakistan
Islamabad’s $10 billion currency stabilization request came on the heels of its role in “peace” talks with Iran. Pakistan has also signed onto the Mecca Defense Alliance with Turkiye and Saudi Arabia. Or is it the help with the empire’s other major conflict for which they should be rewarded? From Andrew Korybko:
The Intercept reported in September 2023 that Pakistan agreed to sell $900 million worth of arms to Ukraine the year prior shortly after April 2022’s post-modern coup against former multipolar Prime Minister Imran Khan in exchange for American support in receiving another IMF bailout. Two months later in November 2023, BBC Urdu published a detailed report citing public documents to claim that Pakistan sold $364 worth of shells to two US private military companies that then sent them to Ukraine.
Pakistan has consistently denied these claims, and the Russian Ambassador to Pakistan declared in March 2025 that “We have not found any proof of Pakistani arms supplies in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. All such claims are baseless.” His statement on the matter might have been meant to retain the overall positive momentum in bilateral relations amid years-long talks on a major oil deal over which the US is thought by some to have obtained de facto veto power after April 2022’s post-modern coup.
Washington is still dragging its feet on Pakistan’s request; perhaps it is demanding more from Islamabad before giving the okay, but it does offer a reminder that the US provision of dollar liquidity rewards countries that support US economic and strategic interests.
And it benefits the recipient country in the short term. A 2025 study from Yumi Park and Sujeong Shim published in the Review of International Political Economy found that in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, recipients of Fed swap announcements experienced an increase in government popularity. They point to the greater room for expansionary policy as the primary reason. In contrast, approval continued to fall in non-recipient countries.
And that brings us to another likely fallout of the coming global destabilization.
Color Revolutions
In those strategic countries not approved for assistance and where government popularity plummets, attempts to usher in an empire-friendly government are a near certainty. Kit Klarenberg recently had a fine historical overview of the color revolution. A reminder, if needed:
Milosevic’s fall provided a precise blueprint for future ‘color revolutions’ – so-called because frequently, the Empire-supported activists who led these mob putsches prominently adopted specific colours for their banners, branding and logos. Initially, US officials eagerly associated themselves publicly with this upheaval. Meanwhile, the mainstream media routinely published remarkably illuminating post-mortems of the revolts, extensively exposing Washington’s guiding hand and oft-enormous financial outlay.
Klarenberg goes on to describe how the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), “a US state entity avowedly concerned with executing overtly what the CIA once did covertly,” has gone underground. A few years ago NED purged its grant records for the entire world and now only provides brief regional summaries that leaves it unclear where exactly the money is flowing and to what aim. What’s more clear, however, is that NED is still up to its old tricks.
The Case of Nepal
In September 2025, rioting began in Nepal that would result in a change of government. How much was NED helping to guide the “Gen Z” movement? Klarenberg with more:
Based on publicly available information, the clear insinuations of a colour revolution could be discerned. An NGO that organised the protests, Hami Nepal, had clear links to organisations known to be in receipt of NED funding. Subsequent leaks amply demonstrated the Endowment and USAID expended substantial sums over the years preceding the coup training young Nepalese citizens how to protest, found NGOs and political parties, and “advocate concerns” publicly on issues including corruption. This included the very individuals now in power in Kathmandu.
The overthrow of Nepal’s government came on the heels of Imran Khan being ousted in Pakistan in 2022, and him and his supporters are still being persecuted. That same year the Sri Lankan president was ousted. Student-led protests led to the fall of the government in Bangladesh in 2024. American NGOs, the CIA, and intelligence agencies from US-allied countries reportedly played a role in all.
What else do all the above-mentioned countries have in common? They all border India, which is dealing with its own student-led movement (with foreign support) at the moment. It’s also one of the countries that is set to get hammered the hardest by the energy and food crises. Oh, and New Delhi has also faced years of pressure from the US to fall in line on Russia, Iran, and China. While India has agreed to some of Washington’s demands, it has refused on others, making it a spot to watch as the food-energy crisis unfolds.
While the empire might gain some advantages by instigating a global crisis, one can also see plenty of instances where it backfires. It’s already causing serious instability in the most loyal vassal states in Europe. The US itself could struggle to deal with the backlash from an increasingly precarious peasantry. The permanent governments in the US and Europe likely care little about electoral consequences and believe their militarized surveillance states can keep the rabble in line.
What of Latin America, though, where widespread economic misery could put the advances of the Donroe Doctrine in jeopardy?
There are also a growing number of countries cracking down on Western NGOs, which can pump sorely-needed money into local economies but also allow groups like the National Endowment for Democracy to finance regime change training for lawyers, judges, journalists, members of parliament, and others.
How big a role these NGOs and foreign intelligence agencies play in these revolutions remains up for debate.
There’s little reason to doubt the grievances of protestors, which typically include corruption, unemployment, and state censorship of social media.
What’s also true is that the regime change promises rarely ever materialize. Instead of better living standards, what’s typically delivered is some or all of the following: austerity, corrupt bailouts, foreign plunder, domestic conflict, even more repression, and oftentimes war.
The coming crises look like a regime change operation on a global scale, and while it could help reset the geopolitical board for a brief time, if your strategy for hegemony is centered around misery for the masses, your empire is running on borrowed time.
As mentioned above, colonial starvation policy was common in the British Empire, and it gave rise to a determination to defeat the empire and gain self-rule.
