Click here to access article by Tobias Pfennig posted on Defend Democracy Press. (Note: this post is marred somewhat by the failure to raise reference numbers in the text. Thus, your attention may be distracted by such text as this: "Additionally, Northern America together with Europe controlled 91 percent of the global export market share2." and this: "In 2013 Oil exports together with gas made up more than 68%3 of the whole exports from the Russian Federation." The post was from a "Text of a speech delivered at the International Conference
on Alternatives to Financial Capitalism, held in Chisinau, Moldova 12-13
December 2017", and obviously the numbers should have been raised because they referred to documentation which was left out of this post.")
I think the author has a very good grasp of the potential, and actual use, of economic weapons that have been used by the US-led Empire over the decades since WWII. Because the lethal applications of these weapons are never felt among ordinary people in the countries affiliated with the Empire, they are an ideal weapon of choice against independent countries in order to extend the Empire's (the transnational capitalists affiliated with the Empire) dominance of the world. The imposition of the US dollar on the rest of the world remains a major battlefield, and the entrance on this battlefield by Russia and China (in collaboration with smaller nations) in opposition to the dominance of the Empire looks very promising for the end of Empire dominance.