Complexities of war

Despite all the complexities of war, even a simple question like "Why did Israel-USA attack Iran (all of a sudden) on 28 Feb 2026?"

There are so many different perspectives:

1. Change the focus from Scandal perspective - Over the previous 1 week 7 big names have come out and maybe the next was DJT. Hence, he needed something bigger to distract the media and the accusations.

2. The China angle - DJT was to meet Xi in late march to negotitate and he wanted 2 main keys of oil before this meeting. One was Venezuela and the other was Iran, both of which do a lot of oil selling to China. He blocked Venezuela with picking up Maduro and hoped that Iran would be controlled with the leadership gone and internal infighting/ upraising.

3. The Military Intelligence angle - Israel-USA got to know that there is going to be a meeting of 50 senior leadership of Iran on 28 Feb 2026 and although both were preparing for war, this opportunity was too irresistible to not bomb.

All this, when there was no Imminent threat to USA (As per the counterterrorism chief who resigned) and the war was not winnable (according to both the USA agencies - their intelligence and the Pentagon).

Multiple unchartered risks - All at the same time

The world today is going through multiple unchartered risks, all at the same time.

Finance:

1. US debt gone to unsustainable levels that multiple people have commented on the sudden fall of the US economy and the US Dollar. Ray Dalio calls it the economic heart attack. We haven't seen anything like this after world war 2 where an empire is coming down. USSR was a breakage. This is different.

2. Japan has continued the zero interest policy causing massive borrowings in Japanese Yen and conversions to USD and investments in treasuries. The increase in the Japanese interest rate would easily cause the mass selling of the USD and the treasuries to pay back the Japanese borrowings. For the first time, the Japanese central bank is at risk and a Central bank at risk has never happened before.

3. France and UK have worsening finances and are expected to go to IMF next year for debt restructuring. This is the first time, giant western economies are under so much financial stress and IMF is small to carry the load of these economies. A first again.

4. Global finance decentralisation and derisking - From Asian countries planning alternate payment mechanisms to SWIFT, multiple countries decreasing their assets of US treasuries, most countries buying physical gold, BRICS discussing a new currency, bilateral trade in some countries being done in each other's currencies. A first again.

Trade:

1. Decades of established specialisations is being turned useless with unexpected turmoil by illogical tariffs by the US Administration.

Wars:

1. No one expected a physical war in Europe when Russia attacked Ukraine. A first of its kind since world war 2. And continuing so long? That is something no one can even fathom.

2. The Israeli massacre of the starving people asking for food aid is cruelty of another era, of the bygones, or so we thought.

3. USA threatening Venezuela with war (as if we need another US based forced leadership change after so many of them)

4. 19 Russian drones in Poland shot down as on 10 Sep 2025. (Start of NATO-Russia war leading to world war 3?)

Technology:

1. AI is disrupting human work. The future of many works remains uncertain.

2. AI - singularity, where it gets smarter than millions of humans together can break human superiority and become the apex controller and the humans the slaves/ pets/ prey. Humanties' first instance of more intelligent life.

Unemployment:

1. Tariffs and geopolitical disputes (US tariffs, Bangladesh-India, Russia-Ukraine war) causing industries to rupture and unemployment to increase.

2. AI bringing more unemployment its own way

3. US cutting down departments and uncertainty of outsiders in USA by creating visa issues and even threatening green card holders.

Countries standing up:

1. India and Japan standing up to the bullying of the US

2. France being the first western country to recognise Palestine as a state

Each of the above are volatile enough to cause a cocktail of furious unexpected events to happen in multiple domains of finance and/or economic turmoil each affecting the other one and our lives in unexpected ways.

But with all these risks running simultaneously, I think the world is in the most dangerous phase I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.

Any month could be our last (in case world war 3 happens).

Far more nail-biting than IPL!

This IPL season, there is one real nail biting and interesting match I am eager to witness.

The real India Pakistan match.

And how India is going to thrash the Pakistani military and its puppet govt.

India will go with Military action this time too. The question is when? Tonight or tomorrow night or day after night? The bets are on!

India has already flooded a district of PoK last night.

What is different this time is the context.

External to both these countries, the state of the 2 biggest associated countries - China and USA and the 2 running wars.

China usually supports Pakistan militarily and has been against India in multiple fronts including the trade front. But this time, if India gains some key areas in PoK, the China invested area in PoK for the Belt and Road Initiative would be for India to destroy or overtake. This would be interesting to see how China would respond: Whether it would ask India to not destroy their investment or to deter India, start a parallel military campaign on India-China border. The other change this time is China's slowly warming to India after many years of the military standoff as its trade war with USA is raging.

USA this time is very different than all the historical USA. With an indifferent Trump at its President who has very weird goals, (like making Gaza a tourist spot) and not getting USA into any new war and trying to end the Russia-Ukraine war. But, unfortunately, as usual, USA has supported Pakistan again and given USD 400 million aid to Pakistan to sustain its F-16s. Mostly, USA wants to watch the 'fun' from the sidelines and then ask India to invest more into its Apaches, AWACs, F-35s and other military platforms.

Wars are not anathema in today's world. The Russian war on Ukraine saw the first fulls scale war in history in Europe after 60+ years. The Israel-Palestine war is also running. People are not so against war and reasonably expect it in case of retribution.

This time, the Indian govt. is more determined to take action than the previous govts and is willing to make use of all the historical mistakes it has done previously and turn it around.

Best case scenario: 

1. Breakup of Pakistan into an independent Balochistan (40% of Pakistan territory) and the rest of Pakistan

2. Retaking of PoK by India

3. Destruction of China's investment in PoK worth billions and stopping China in its tracks

Only if Pakistan was not nuclear armed, all this could have been achieved with much ease.

Fingers crossed and waiting to read the books on this war and the strategies employed a few years from now.

May your force beat you back

One of my senior colleagues at one point in time who practised Taekwondo, told me that "one of the keys of Taekwando is to use the force of the opponent itself to subdue him."

The above is a powerful statement. Reread and think about it.

The opponent: USA

Opponent's move: USA issues 125% tariff on products from China with immediate effect

China was anticipating this move after the tariff war during Donald Trump's first presidency.

The countermove:

Today, Chinese companies are sharing where the US's top luxury branded items are made, their materials, methods and costs and are asking the world to directly work with them and make things cheaper for consumers instead of buying them from the top Luxury brands.

The top US companies have used and sometimes exploited the Chinese to make the huge profits and become some kind of a poly (monopoly or duopoly or oligopoly).

How does this move work:

The US's outsourcing and demand for all these years have helped built the Chinese manufacturing ecosystem for luxury products. Now, by using the credibility of the brands (minus their tags and prices) - (The opponent's force), the Chinese are hoping to sell their products to the world at a lower price point where they would continue to manufacture and customers would buy them worldwide. In one way, this is open-sourcing the proprietary luxury products

This would also force the luxury customers to start evaluating the value they are getting after the exclusivity is gone and when they see 100s more of these same products with everyone. This in turn would loot and ruin the luxury brands the most.

Understanding the big game of world economics in 2025

The below link involves a lot of macro economics and helps explain the rationale of the trade war initiated by USA.

https://medium.com/@mcnai002/the-sovereign-wealth-effect-americas-new-tool-for-rebalancing-the-global-trading-system-363176816035

There would be multiple questions for the readers after this article on the hows, whys and the impacts.

It also helps predict the future, but no clear answers on what to do exactly depending on what is your locus standi.

China is the No.1 Technology King

 This month, China has overtaken USA as the No.1 Technology king with 3 announcements in different fields of Technology:

1. Deepseek outperforming OpenAI alternatives

2. Chinese Quantum Computers beats Google benchmarks

https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/china-achieves-quantum-supremacy-claim-with-new-chip-1-quadrillion-times-faster-than-the-most-powerful-supercomputers

3. BYD unveils 5 min EV charging

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/byd-unveils-battery-system-that-charges-evs-in-5-minutes

RIP USA! Our condolences!

The fall of the US Dollar

Over the last 20 years, there has been multiple disquiets about the de-dollarisation. 

1. It has been stated that USA went to war with Iraq overthrowing Saddam Hussain and Libya overthrowing Gadaffi as these oil producers were exploring selling oil in currencies other than dollars, thereby removing USD hegemony.

2. Wars - The USA didn't do any favours for itself by constantly raising it's debt levels and printing more dollars and starting wars around the world directly like Iraq, Afghanistan or indirectly in Ukraine by expanding NATO countries continuously and then funding Ukraine. Also, funding Israel for it's war in Gaza.

3. BRICS - Over the last 10 years, the formation of the BRICS currency gained ground which would compete with the US dollar globally and almost all nations in the world trade with one or more of the BRICS countries.

The inter trade itself among BRICS countries itself is huge. Plus, the potential of Saudi Arabia, being the world's largest oil producer,  joining this alliance adds weight to the the new currency and more transactions.

4. Crypto currencies - The other counter weight underdog which has been waiting in the wings is crypto currencies. These have certain features of non-manipulation which is necessary to avoid the manipulation of countries and bring accountability to the countries.

The call of the imminent fall of the dollar is increasingly going up. The following are evidences. 

5. Big US based investors/ companies have accumulated crypto currencies. The current US administration of declaring to having a strategic crypto currency reserve. This means that it is moving away from Gold reserves to this.

6. The open talk by the current US administration of auditing fort Knox to check if the US gold is really there. This further highlights that maybe there is no actual gold there and it is a bogus trust. Adding Crypto currencies is a countermeasure to add value and trust.

7. Maybe, this in consonance with the tariff wars will bring down the value of the dollar and make it competitive enough to start manufacturing again. But, can the USA citizens afford the high cost of imports once the dollar goes down?

This would degrade the lifestyles and would become a true developing class nation which got hidden as a developed country just because of printing own money and having it's value just because it was a reserve currency and everyone traded in it.

I have been watching these signs over the years and for the last 2 years came to the conclusion that the USD would fall substantially over the next 5-10 years.

My prediction gets more substantiated when a famous investor like Ray Dalio starts ads on instagram on a book on the fall of nations indirectly or directly talks about the USA.

Update 4 Apr 2025: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has joined the chorus of voices warning that the U.S. dollar's reserve currency status is at risk. Unlike most, however, he has gone one step further to suggest a likely replacement: Bitcoin.