I came across this brief commentary in another venue and thought it worth cutting out to share here. It is one possible answer to a question I have long wondered about, as posed in the title of this post.
I grew up during the Cold War. Anti-Russian/Soviet/Communist sentiment was both prevalent then and easy to understand. When the Cold War ended, I expected the US/Russia relationship to evolve, even, potentially, to become amicable. Instead, the relationship has hardened into the levels of outright hatred we see today.
The writer explains: “In order to maintain hegemony, the United States needs Russia to become a Western satellite before the petrodollar system collapses.” The problem is, Russia will never become a Western satellite.
Hence, the propaganda war. Maybe our propagandists can fool some of the people some of the time often enough to gain something, but hating Russia is the small game. The big game involves the Russia/China alliance.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
““In order to maintain hegemony, the United States needs Russia to become a Western satellite before the petrodollar system collapses.”
What do you think that means? Not what might happen, but rather what does the author actually say in that quote?
It sounds so erudite, but I cannot make out what he is talking about.
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RE: “What do you think that means?”
I read it this way: After WWII the U.S. was the only global superpower. We had hegemony in the sense that we held a position of “leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others” in world affairs.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hegemony
Further, we used our hegemony to establish the petrodollar-based system that underlies the current global financial system.
Broadly speaking, the writer at the link is warning that the collapse of the petrodollar system — or the use of US dollars as a reserve currency — could plunge the US into economic chaos.
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There are a lot of things that can create economic chaos.
We have one party that wants to expand the worker and social safety nets, healthcare and education to strengthen our economy and competitiveness. The same party is realistic enough to raise some taxes to cover that.
A second party wants to cut taxes and not cut spending except to anything that gives poor people steak, lobster and beer. Which is, as “everybody knows”, what poor people eat. 😇
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RE: “There are a lot of things that can create economic chaos.”
That’s very true. But notice, it is within Russia/China’s power today to willfully initiate economic chaos in the West by abandoning the use of dollars in commerce. The more the West imposes economic sanctions on Russia, the more incentive they have to do so.
If I were gaming out the current conflict, as the writer does, I would find the prospect of a retaliatory economic attack significant.
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Economic attack? Russia is a weak economy and one of the top corrupt regimes. One of the reasons the invasion has failed so far is that money that was supposed to build a modern military is, as aptly noted by a former Russian official, sitting in yachts in Cyprus.
I think the love fest with a Putin or any other strongman by the Trump version of Republicans is simply this. They don’t like democratic systems like ours. They are longing for days of old with more traditional structures that punished any deviation from European roots, Christianity, marriage, sex, etc. Trump has expressed envy of Putin, Kim and other dictators because their people feared them.
1/6 was a culmination of that insofar as trying to trash an election by violence and lies.
If that is what you want, and it sure seems so, then I think I am correct about Putin’s pockets.
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I can see that it was a waste of time sharing this interesting post and my thoughts about it.
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Because I contradict your arguments with the observation that you and others on the right are just playing into the misinformation master’s efforts to both divide us and slaughter Ukrainians?
It seems you are so jaded that the US is corrupt, has an all controlling deep state, Democrats are awful, media is conspiring to break us and nobody is trustworthy. If you go that route, which you have been, then you need to expect debate unless you want forum like Kerry where any dissension is met with rebuke without reason.
There are media from dozens of countries with reporters in Ukraine. Some are in areas under fire as well. Russia has, at best, one and it cannot even refer to the invasion as anything but a demilitarization and de-Nazification to save the Russians from genocide. Or maybe that was last weeks reason.
I’ll take the Western media. There are more of them, left and right, here and across the world, and they have not been killed or jailed in “Putin’s Gardens”.
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You hurt his widdle feelings, again.
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” I would find the prospect of a retaliatory economic attack significant.”
By China, I suppose, since Russia has almost no economy outside of fossil fuels.
No country has benefited more from what you call the petrodollar system than China. Maybe out of solidarity with the KGB man Putin they will sacrifice their prosperity by trying to become an autarky but that seems very, very unlikely.
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Whatever the odds, an autarky of the Russia/China alliance is a viable option.
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“Whatever the odds, an autarky of the Russia/China alliance is a viable option.”
Sure, if hundreds of millions of Chinese people are willing to return to living like peasants. There are benefits in being part of the international community and Chinese leaders will be very reluctant to give up those benefits to ally themselves with a loser like Putin.
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