The Silent Coup That Broke the West
While Washington drowns in its own culture wars and Brussels clings to the dying breath of post-war liberalism, a quiet insurrection is reshaping the global order — one trade deal, currency shift, and diplomatic fracture at a time.
This is not a war of drones or proxy militias. This is a nonviolent but lethal reordering of global power, waged by the world’s so-called “periphery” — and its name is BRICS+.
In 2024, the formerly symbolic BRICS coalition — comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — stunned the world by announcing a historic expansion. Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Egypt, and Ethiopia officially joined, consolidating a new bloc that now represents more than 3.7 billion people and over 40% of global oil production.
Al Jazeera confirmed the BRICS+ expansion, calling it “a direct challenge to Western influence on global institutions.”
This wasn’t just a diplomatic move. It was a direct assault on Western centrality, achieved without a single bullet. The BRICS+ states didn’t just reject the dollar — they rejected the very ideology of Western universality.
China’s Oil Deals in Yuan — The Dollar’s Day of Reckoning
For decades, the petrodollar system — pricing oil exclusively in US dollars — was the invisible pillar propping up American hegemony. But that system is now unraveling, thanks to Beijing and Riyadh.
In a move that once would have been unthinkable, China has successfully begun settling oil trades with Gulf countries in yuan, bypassing the dollar altogether.
Saudi Arabia’s active negotiations to price some oil sales in yuan signal the slow death of the dollar’s global monopoly.
Why does this matter? Because energy is the bloodstream of global finance, and oil priced in anything but dollars represents the functional end of American monetary dominance. The West no longer controls the terms of the world’s most essential commodity.
Russia and Iran: Building the Sanction-Proof Economy
While the West continues to believe sanctions are tools of deterrence, Russia and Iran are actively converting them into engines of innovation.
Under relentless US and EU financial blockades, both nations have turned inward — and toward each other. In 2023, Moscow and Tehran integrated their banking systems, eliminating the need for SWIFT and insulating their economies from Western pressure. Reuters covered this bold integration, noting how the two countries are building a parallel system to the West’s financial regime.
This isn’t symbolic cooperation. It’s the infrastructure of a post-Western global economy, where sanctions are irrelevant and trade is conducted on sovereign terms.
Saudi Arabia’s Geostrategic Betrayal of the United States
For decades, Saudi Arabia was the keystone of American power in the Middle East, bound by oil-for-security arrangements dating back to 1945. That era is officially over.
Today, Riyadh is hedging against the West, exploring BRICS+ membership and actively participating in the bloc’s strategic alignment — despite US pressure. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has refused to formalize a US security pact, citing a broader vision of Saudi independence. The Wall Street Journal details Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical pivot, revealing its growing ties with China and Russia over Washington.
The House of Saud is no longer a US vassal. It is becoming a sovereign pole in a multipolar world.
The African Union’s Financial Uprising
Africa is no longer begging for inclusion in Western institutions — it is building its own. One of the most profound examples is the launch of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) — a cross-border platform that enables African nations to settle transactions in local currencies.
This bold step eliminates dependency on the dollar and euro for trade across the continent.
African Business confirms the platform’s rollout across key regional banks, empowering African nations to trade on their own terms.
This is more than fintech. It’s a financial declaration of independence from the West.
Brazil and Argentina’s Bid for Latin Autonomy
Even in Washington’s own hemisphere, the winds are shifting. In a quiet but revolutionary step, Brazil and Argentina are laying the foundation for a joint currency, designed to facilitate regional trade without the US dollar.
The Financial Times outlines the proposal in detail, suggesting the regional currency will challenge dollarized trade dependencies across Latin America.
If successful, this move would further fracture the dollar’s monopoly and empower South American economies to align more freely with BRICS+.
“We are witnessing the de-dollarization of the global economy in real-time.”
— Nouriel Roubini, former White House advisor and economist
This is not a pivot. It’s a paradigm collapse.
The West’s tools of control — reserve currency, sanctions, and diplomacy — are being methodically neutralized by a coalition it cannot dominate, isolate, or even fully understand.
This isn’t just about money.
It’s a civilizational exodus from the West — and the first chapter of a new world order.
De-Dollarization: The Bloodless Execution of American Power
The might of the United States was never just in its military. It was in the monopoly of the dollar. From trade and commodities to global debt markets, the greenback was the lubricant of globalization — a quiet emperor dictating terms through currency dominance.
In an exclusive interview with The Eastern Herald, Dr. Aparna Pande of the Hudson Institute argued that BRICS lacks the structural and monetary muscle to meaningfully challenge the dominance of the US dollar. While de-dollarization is often discussed at summits, she noted that no unified BRICS currency exists, and member states like Russia and China are instead prioritizing their own national interests, pushing the yuan and ruble in separate bilateral energy and trade deals. India, she emphasized, would never accept Chinese or Russian currency over the dollar. This fragmented approach, she argued, exposes BRICS as a bloc lacking financial cohesion, making its efforts at dethroning the dollar largely symbolic, not systemic.
But that dominance is now being systematically dismantled — not by confrontation, but by consensus among countries tired of weaponized finance and Western double standards. The campaign to de-dollarize the global economy is the most sophisticated power shift of the 21st century — and it’s already too far gone to reverse.
The Weaponization of the Dollar Backfired
After the US imposed unprecedented financial sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, many Global South nations watched in disbelief. A single Western decision had effectively frozen Russia’s $300+ billion in foreign reserves held abroad. The freeze on Russia’s central bank assets exposed how international reserves — once seen as sacrosanct — could be seized overnight.
The message was clear: if you challenge the US-led order, your national wealth could become a hostage to Western geopolitics.
This was the moment when de-dollarization became a matter of national survival for many countries. China, India, Iran, Brazil, and even some Southeast Asian nations began actively pursuing alternatives to the dollar for international trade and currency reserves.
Russia, China, and Iran — The First Movers
Following Western sanctions, Russia and China accelerated the use of local currencies for cross-border trade, especially in energy transactions. Over 90% of trade between the two countries is now conducted in yuan or rubles — a staggering shift in just two years.
Meanwhile, Iran has made the yuan its primary trade currency with China, while rolling out its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) to sidestep sanctions and facilitate barter-based trade with BRICS partners.
This is no longer an economic workaround — it is a parallel system functioning independently of the dollar-based architecture created in Bretton Woods.
Saudi Arabia’s Petro-Yuan Pivot
In January 2024, at the BRICS+ summit in South Africa, Saudi Arabia shocked global markets by officially accepting the yuan for oil exports to China. Riyadh’s active participation in BRICS+ talks emphasizes its desire to diversify both alliances and currency reserves.
This marked the first time in modern history that an OPEC heavyweight openly broke with the petrodollar, putting a dagger through the heart of American economic primacy. As oil is the most traded commodity on Earth, even a fraction priced in yuan causes ripple effects through central banks and capital markets worldwide.
India and ASEAN Hedging Quietly
While India maintains strategic ambiguity, it has taken key steps to reduce dollar exposure. New Delhi has inked local currency trade agreements with Russia, Sri Lanka, and the UAE. India-UAE’s 2023 deal enabling rupee-dirham settlements for cross-border trade — bypassing the dollar.
Similarly, ASEAN nations led by Malaysia and Indonesia have called for an Asian Monetary Fund and encouraged bilateral trade in national currencies. ASEAN’s de-dollarization ambitions highlight a growing regional shift.
Africa and Latin America Seek Financial Sovereignty
Beyond Asia, Africa, and Latin America are building currency and clearing systems to insulate against dollar volatility and US policy shocks.
The BRICS-backed New Development Bank (NDB), headquartered in Shanghai, has begun issuing loans in local currencies to members, including Egypt and Brazil, dramatically reducing dollar exposure in sovereign financing.
Latin America’s boldest move? A proposal for a regional currency called the “Sur,” backed by commodity baskets and championed by Brazil and Argentina. The Sur proposal is a direct challenge to IMF-dollar dependency in the region.
This Is the Slow Death of Dollar Diplomacy
From oil markets to central bank reserves, every move away from the dollar weakens American influence. Sanctions are no longer feared. IMF loans no longer guarantee control. And US Treasury bonds no longer represent “neutral” global wealth.
We are watching the most successful currency in human history lose its geopolitical invincibility. Not because of inflation or debt ceilings, but because the world has finally discovered that power doesn’t need to come with a dollar sign.
“In the past, when America sneezed, the world caught a cold. In 2025, America shouts — and the world shrugs.”
— Confidential memo leaked from a Gulf diplomat at the BRICS+ summit
The era of dollar diplomacy is over. What comes next is the subject of global contestation — but one thing is clear: the dollar’s grip has been broken, and it won’t return quietly.
Multipolarity: The Rise of Civilizational Alliances
The collapse of the dollar’s dominance is not a standalone phenomenon. It is the financial expression of a broader revolution: the world is transitioning from a unipolar West-centric system to a civilizationally multipolar order.
No longer content with fitting into a Western mold, emerging powers are asserting their own models of governance, religion, trade, and diplomacy — rooted in history, not hegemony. This is not the Cold War redux. This is a civilizational realignment, with BRICS+ at its center.
Russia and China: From Tactical Partners to Strategic Civilizational Anchors
While Western think tanks continue to misread their alliance as transactional, Russia and China now represent the core of a Eurasian bloc that is openly building institutions, trade corridors, and defense doctrines that reject NATO’s primacy.
In March 2023, President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin met in Moscow and issued a joint declaration calling for a “new era of international relations” free from Western “hegemonic dominance.”
Reuters confirmed the summit, which finalized energy deals in yuan and deepened joint security coordination.
Beijing and Moscow are no longer aligning against the West — they are founding an alternative civilization, grounded in sovereignty, non-intervention, and multipolar consensus.
Iran and Saudi Arabia: Enemies No More
Perhaps the most symbolic rupture of Western influence came when Iran and Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic relations in a deal brokered by China — not the US, not the UN.
Al Jazeera reported that the two rivals not only reopened embassies but also signed agreements on trade, energy cooperation, and security coordination.
The West had spent decades profiting from the Gulf-Iran divide. Now, without firing a shot, China rewrote the regional balance of power — while the US watched from the sidelines.
The Rise of “Strategic Autonomy” in the Global South
The phrase “strategic autonomy” once belonged to Europe. Today, it is being defined by the Global South — not as neutrality, but as liberation from Western dependency.
Countries across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America are pursuing a model where sovereignty trumps ideological alignment. They want to trade with China, secure arms from Russia, engage with Iran — all while resisting Western lectures on democracy or human rights.
In 2025, the African Union formally endorsed this posture at the BRICS+ observer dialogue in Johannesburg, stating that “no external model shall dictate Africa’s path to modernization.” DW confirmed these declarations, signaling a unified voice against Western-style neocolonialism.
Civilizational Pride as Foreign Policy Doctrine
Unlike the post-1945 West, which imposed its ideology through military bases and debt traps, BRICS+ states are emphasizing cultural identity and civilizational continuity as policy pillars.
Russia promotes Orthodox Christianity, Slavic sovereignty, and Eurasianism.
China champions Confucian harmony, state capitalism, and meritocratic governance.
Iran leads the Islamic resistance narrative, blending Shia theology with geopolitical defiance.
Saudi Arabia, under MBS, has moved toward regional leadership grounded in strategic pragmatism, religious diplomacy, and post-oil modernization.
This is not ideology. It is identity — sharpened by centuries of survival.
“The West offered rules. The rest of the world is choosing roots.”
— Scholar Vijay Prashad, commenting on BRICS+ expansion
For the first time since the Treaty of Westphalia, we are seeing the return of sovereign civilizations as actors on the world stage. And they are no longer asking for seats at the Western table. They are building a new one altogether.
The Fall of Western Soft Power: Media, Institutions, and Cultural Collapse
For decades, Western dominance wasn’t just enforced with armies or banks — it was internalized by the rest of the world through soft power: Hollywood, Ivy League universities, The New York Times, the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and a carefully curated aura of moral superiority.
But that era is over. Across the Global South — and increasingly even within the West — the institutions once seen as “universal” are now viewed as irreparably biased, weaponized, and obsolete.
The Media Has Lost the Global Narrative
Gone are the days when CNN or BBC could define truth. Today, their credibility is collapsing under the weight of hypocrisy and selective outrage.
Coverage of global conflicts — from Israel’s war on Gaza to NATO’s covert operations in Eastern Europe — has exposed Western media’s bias in real time. Independent outlets from the Global South, including Press TV, RT, Al Jazeera, and TeleSUR, now challenge Western coverage with facts, footage, and dissenting voices that the mainstream censors.
This is not a debate. It is a full-scale media rebellion, and the audiences are choosing the side that no longer hides the truth.
The Death of Institutional Legitimacy
The IMF and World Bank were once seen as engines of global progress. Today, they are viewed as tools of economic coercion — enforcing debt traps, imposing austerity on vulnerable nations, and ensuring corporate plunder of resources.
Meanwhile, UN bodies like the Security Council and Human Rights Council have lost their neutrality. Repeated US vetoes on resolutions condemning Israel’s atrocities in Gaza have led even long-time allies to question the legitimacy of these institutions. Security Council Report documents multiple US vetoes that undermined global consensus for peace.
Global South leaders are responding by shifting toward platforms like the New Development Bank and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which offer financing and diplomacy without conditionality, without ideological blackmail.
Cultural Hegemony Is No Longer Aspirational
Perhaps the most subtle shift of all is in culture. For generations, Western pop culture was seen as aspirational. Not anymore.
Today, Hollywood is in creative and moral decline, losing global audiences to Korean cinema, Nigerian Nollywood, Iranian filmmakers, and Indian OTT platforms. Business Insider reports that global box office shares for Hollywood films have dropped below 40% — the lowest in modern history.
More significantly, the values embedded in Western liberalism — radical individualism, hyper-commercialism, and cultural imperialism — no longer inspire. They alienate. They fracture. And they increasingly provoke resistance.
The West Is Still Talking. The World Has Moved On.
Across every continent, the message is the same: the Western narrative is no longer sacred. The Global South is building its own narrative — rooted in sovereignty, pride, tradition, resilience.
From Mali to Malaysia, from Caracas to Cairo, people are tuning out NPR and turning on podcasts from Tehran, Beijing, Pretoria, and Brasília.
The old soft power tools — NGOs, Harvard scholarships, Netflix contracts — are losing their spell. Because in the age of multipolarity, no one wants to be “Western” anymore. They want to be free.
“The world is not anti-Western. It is post-Western.”
— Kishore Mahbubani, former President of the UN Security Council
The era of moral lectures is over. Now the West must compete, not command.
How BRICS+ Is Engineering a Parallel World: Trade, Tech, Finance, and Intelligence
If the Western-led order is a skyscraper of interconnected dominance, from finance and media to military and technology, BRICS+ is not just criticizing it. It’s building another tower, brick by sovereign brick.
The narrative has shifted from rebellion to replacement. The Global South is not asking to reform the old system. It’s erecting a parallel one — faster, cheaper, and increasingly more appealing.
Banking: Creating a Non-Western Financial Ecosystem
At the center of this architecture is the New Development Bank (NDB), founded by BRICS nations to provide non-dollar, non-IMF financing for major infrastructure projects.
In 2023, the NDB issued over $9 billion in loans, 70% of which were denominated in local currencies — a critical step in insulating members from dollar volatility and Western political interference. NDB’s shift toward BRICS currency issuance is a game-changer in development financing.
Simultaneously, BRICS+ nations are experimenting with interlinked digital payment systems and blockchain-based solutions to bypass SWIFT, including a proposed CBDC-backed BRICS payment platform capable of real-time cross-border settlements without Western oversight.
Energy Trade: Petroyuan, Ruble-for-Gas, and Gold-Backed Settlements
Energy trade is the lifeblood of geopolitics — and BRICS+ is rerouting it.
Russia now sells natural gas to China in yuan and rubles. Iran settles oil exports in rupees, yuan, and barter deals. Saudi Arabia is finalizing yuan-denominated long-term contracts with Asian buyers. China-Saudi oil pricing talks in yuan signaling an irreversible currency diversification in global energy.
Some BRICS economists even propose a gold-backed BRICS settlement instrument to anchor oil and commodity pricing outside of the dollar system — a concept that’s gaining traction as inflation and trust in fiat currency erode in the West.
Tech and Telecom: Breaking US Surveillance Monopoly
Beyond finance, BRICS+ is rapidly building digital independence. China’s Huawei leads 5G infrastructure across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, replacing Western telecom monopolies.
Russia and China are co-developing secure alternatives to Google, AWS, and Microsoft for data storage and cloud infrastructure. Iran, meanwhile, has built a national internet backbone — a firewall against US cyber intrusions.
Together, these nations are pursuing a “Digital Sovereignty Doctrine”, ensuring that data, AI models, and critical tech systems are not surveilled or manipulated by Silicon Valley.
Intelligence and Cyber Coordination
Western intelligence-sharing is dominated by Five Eyes — the Anglo alliance of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In contrast, BRICS+ nations have begun discreetly coordinating their own cyber-intelligence exchanges.
In 2024, the SCO launched a proposal for an interlinked cyber monitoring grid among BRICS+ states to detect Western information warfare and foreign interference in domestic elections. This system will include AI-powered disinformation tracking and cross-border digital forensics.
This is not just data defense. It’s the birth of a non-Western digital intelligence alliance.
Trade Corridors: The New Silk Roads
The geopolitical arteries of the world are changing. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Iran’s Chabahar Port, Russia’s Arctic trade route, and India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEEC) all represent a future where infrastructure connects East-South bypassing the West.
These projects are not just about asphalt and rails. They are about geoeconomic realignment, securing supply chains, and ensuring that no single power — least of all the US — can choke global commerce again.
A Sovereign Internet. A Sovereign Finance System. A Sovereign World.
What BRICS+ is building is not a copy of the Western order. It is its antithesis: a multi-nodal, decentralized, civilizational ecosystem where no one nation dictates, and no external capital holds your economy hostage.
The West insists it has values. BRICS+ is building value systems — in finance, in culture, in code, and in connectivity.
“If the dollar was our chains, and SWIFT was our prison, BRICS+ is our escape tunnel.”
— Statement from an African central banker during NDB summit 2024
And they’re not just escaping. They’re designing what comes next.
The Post-Western World Is Here — What Comes Next?
The headlines in Washington and Brussels may still pretend otherwise, but history is no longer being written by them. It’s being rewritten — in Beijing, Moscow, Riyadh, Pretoria, Tehran, Brasília, and Jakarta.
This is not speculation. This is not theory. This is the lived reality of 2025.
The Western world order — forged in the ashes of World War II, enshrined in the dollar, militarized through NATO, and moralized through institutions like the IMF and World Bank — is fracturing in real time. Its pillars are crumbling: economic dominance, media credibility, ideological universality.
In its place, a parallel architecture of power is rising: multipolar, sovereign, civilizational, unapologetic.
From the New Development Bank to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, from China’s Belt and Road to Iran’s cross-border digital finance networks, BRICS+ is laying down the hardware, software, and soulware of a world that doesn’t need Washington’s permission — or London’s praise.
The United States can still wield tremendous military and technological might. But in the emerging global reality, coercion loses to cooperation. And cooperation no longer needs a Western middleman.
Even former allies are starting to hedge. France’s President Macron warned Europe against being Washington’s satellite. African leaders are kicking out foreign troops.
Gulf nations are aligning east. India is mastering strategic ambiguity. Latin America is slipping out of Monroe Doctrine shadows.
“This is not the end of the West. But it is the end of the West as the world’s center of gravity.”
— Fareed Zakaria, CNN Global Public Square
So What Comes Next?
The future is not yet fully written. But several truths are now unavoidable:
- De-dollarization is irreversible.
- Soft power has shifted — permanently.
- Multipolarity is not a forecast. It’s a fact.
- The Global South is no longer passive. It’s defining the terms.
- BRICS+ is not a club. It’s an alternative operating system.
And if the West refuses to adapt — if it insists on lecturing, sanctioning, invading, and moralizing — it will not lead the future. It will become irrelevant to it.
For the first time in two centuries, the world is not Western — and it no longer wants to be.
From the streets of São Paulo to the corridors of Tehran, from African fintech labs to Asian energy summits, the message is clear:
The post-Western world is here.
And it’s not asking for permission.
