What if Ukraine's situation escalates?

[specuvestor]

I see in the short to medium term the russian ruble could again come under intense attack and manipulation perhaps related to sanctions but out in the longer term there's big potential that the ruble could one day be the new preferred mode of payment for oil.

Why is oil not traded in Saudi Riyal?

We have to go back history to understand the 70s gulf crisis and the US role in it, from Saudi to Petro$. Then we have the Iraq/Iran war where US is buddies with Saddam and provided them with weapons. Hence when US say Iraq has WMD we better believe it. Oops...

From that war came Osama which is CIA trained and was the operative into USSR controlled Afghanistan. Remember the Mujahideen that Rambo 3 was dedicated to? That's more or less the Taliban after a civil war. Thats why again makes a lot of sense why Taliban harbouring Osama makes sense. Oops again...

Then of course we have the breakup of USSR and downfall of communism and the dissolution of Warsaw. Russian interest is greatly diminished. US took Gorbachev's friendship and made use of Yeltsin. I don't think the proud "Soviets" will forget soon.

Fast forward to today post 911 everything changed except for the Petro$. The bipolar world during the cold war has changed to a singular dominant US New World Order. The rest of the world is not sitting still in the New World Order: EU wants their own dominant currency, China is rising with Russia wanting to regain its history. If we study the events in context of history we will understand how this geopolitical events came about and how it is likely to proceed. Each have their own national interests.

And why US need to increase their own energy independence, while China seeks to be aligned with anyone who could give them energy. But if you understand Chinese culture, historically 中原 has never been really interested in foreign affairs.