The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. Part of this is ensuring regional powers are either allied (in the case of NATO countries or Saudi Arabia) or contained (in the case of Russia and Iran).

It is a fundamental rule of Geopolitics that every country assert itself to the best of its abilities with the strengths they have. One of Russia's biggest strengths is natural resources. It is advantageous to them to have Western Europe dependent on its oil and natural gas supplies.

George Friedman explains in this book [1] that Russia may attempt to assert itself to a greater extent in the next few decades, possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable, but if Russia has the off switch for Germany's economy, NATO's response is drastically weakened.

Whatever scenario may come to pass, European reliance on Russian natural resources disrupts the US's containment strategy which it needs in order to maintain its dominant position in the region. So yes, it will say something if it feels like that is under threat.

Not saying this is a good or bad thing. Depends on your perspective and what country you live in.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Next-100-Years-Forecast-Century/dp/07...

A good book on a similar topic was “The Chastening” by Paul Blustein. This was about the currency disasters of the late 90’s, which interestingly also took place at a time people thought we were in a tech bubble (we were).

This time period was also known as the “Southeast Asian Financial Crisis”. To this day there are still empty 60 story skyscrapers in Bangkok because of how bad it was.

A big lesson from that event are that foreign currency reserves are never enough.

Korea had something like $300 billion in foreign currency reserves and was wiped out in days. $3 trillion is a lot, but adjusted for China’s population, and the fact that they will need to use those reserves to last 1 year maybe 2, and they start to look much smaller.

Also this kind of a crisis would not be like a tech bubble. Tech Bubbles are bad, but they do not invoke the banking system. If the banking system falls, the general rule of thumb is a minimum 10 year recovery.

It’s worth noting that this is the position adopted by George Friedman in his book “The Next 100 Years” where he predicts the fall of China and also North Korea by 2030 at the very latest.

Also check out “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” by Carmen Reinhart from Princeton University Press.

The Chastening: Inside The Crisis That Rocked The Global Financial System And Humbled The Imf https://www.amazon.com/dp/1586481819

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691152640

FWIW, George Friedman (of STRATFOR) predicted this, except he believed the implosion of China would be on a truly catastrophic scale. So they could still be at the edge of a much deeper hole.

See: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057