Jaziba Naaz and Ahmed Saeed (December 27, 2024)

The dissolution of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s laid bare the finite durability of US-dollar ascendancy, prompting a multipolar counter‑revolution spearheaded by Russia, China, and Iran. The People’s Republic of China began to outline grand strategic alternatives with the launch of its Belt & Road Initiative (2013) and creation of the AIIB to bypass traditional Western‑dominated mechanisms. In 2015, China and Russia deepened the post‑Bretton Woods project, formalising dedollarisation via BRICS and SCO initiatives. Iran joined the SCO in July 2023 and concluded a landmark 25‑year strategic partnership with China the previous year, entrenching military, economic, and financial integration. Russia simultaneously advanced its Primakov Doctrine by strengthening Eurasian unity via the EAEU while opposing NATO expansion through the SCO frameworks. These developments underscore a concerted strategy to institutionalise resilience against Western financial coercion and encourage local currencies for intra‑regional trade. Furthermore, Russia and China agreed at the 2024 summit in Astana to gradually eliminate all external military presence in Eurasia, explicitly targeting US bases. This multipronged approach leverages economic corridors, military cooperation, and institutional expansion to reshape the regional order. Iran reinforces the trilateral alliance via its strategic corridors—most notably INSTC—integrating Central Asia with Persian Gulf and Eurasian markets. Collectively, these actions signpost a post‑Bretton Woods schema that privileges regional autonomy, currency pluralism, and geopolitical rebalancing.

Karaganov interprets these manoeuvres as crystallisation of Russia’s civilisational mission: a rejuvenated Eurasian counter‑hegemonic bloc that rejects Western liberalism. He regards the partnership with China and Iran as an organic manifestation of Eurasian identity, cementing a narrative of shared sovereignty and cultural solidarity. Karaganov would emphasise that SCO expansion and BRICS monetisation initiatives reaffirm Russia’s ideological commitment to multipolarity, echoing the Primakov Doctrine. According to his worldview, the move away from dollar hegemony is not only pragmatic but an existential necessity for preserving Russian dignity and autonomy. He views the SCO’s insistence on depoliticised trade and secularised governance frames as moral rebukes of Western interference. Karaganov would also regard Iran’s inclusion in these corridors as the final piece in a civilisational jigsaw—uniting Orthodox, Islamic, and Confucian sensibilities in outsourced resistance to American primacy. He would applaud dedollarisation and local currency trading as symbolic fractures in the edifice of Western economic imperialism. For Karaganov, military‑economic tools such as the China‑Russia “Power of Siberia 2” pipeline and AIIB-backed projects are as much ideological markers as they are infrastructure. These initiatives align with his preference for sovereignty‑based internationalism and for economic integration to buttress geopolitical independence.

Conversely, Keir Giles assesses these activities through the lens of deterrence, signalling theory, and hybrid warfare tactics. He would caution that dedollarisation and currency swap networks serve a dual purpose: to undermine Western sanctions and to create alternative economic shock absorbers, thereby complicating Western coercive levers. Giles sees the SCO’s collective security model as an example of “institutional balancing” — harnessing existing regional blocs to safeguard against external pressures without provoking direct confrontation. He would note that Iran’s strategic alignment, notwithstanding economic sanctions, enhances resilience and signals strength through its inclusion in the BRICS and SCO frameworks. Giles would scrutinise the extent to which these initiatives can deliver economic autonomy and whether Iran’s OSC membership translates to tangible deterrent capability. When evaluating Russia’s plans to remove foreign military presence from Eurasia, Giles would focus on the psychological impact on Western audiences rather than the immediate force posture. He would interpret pipeline diplomacy as a soft-skill extension of Russian statecraft—embedding influence via economic leverage rather than overt military pressure. Giles would also highlight that while these strategies project multipolar intent, they remain compensatory vis‑à‑vis sanctions‑induced isolation. For Giles, the post‑Bretton Woods orchestration is fundamentally disorder‑engineering—redrawing the mechanics of global power rather than destroying them outright.

Karaganov applauds China’s AIIB and BRI endeavours, viewing them as civilisational infrastructure linking Russia, Iran, and Central Asia in integrated advancement. He interprets the emergence of BRICS+ as evidence of a broader diasporic Eurasian coalition rejecting Western economic sovereignty. The 2024 Kazan Summit’s promotion of alternative payment mechanisms is characterised by Karaganov as “raining mortar onto the foundations of the dollar kingdom”. He would frame Iran’s trade growth with China in 2022 as proof of diplomatic and financial resilience. The activation of INSTC in July 2022 would be viewed by him as a geopolitical milestone sealing over the Black Sea and Persian Gulf routes. He sees the military drills between Russia, China, and Iran as physical expressions of post-Bretton Woods solidarity, enabling force projection outside Western control. For Karaganov, pipeline and currency strategies are geopolitical statements, less about profit and more about autonomy. These initiatives echo his conviction that economic sovereignty is a prerequisite for political freedom on the global stage. Ultimately, they reinforce his vision of Eurasia as an integrated, multipolar cradle of anti-Western solidarity.

Giles, on the other hand, would examine these energy and infrastructure strategies through the lens of coercive economics and forceful signalling. He would underline that pipelines like Power of Siberia 2 and INSTC are both economic arteries and deterrent mechanisms, making Russian and Chinese influence more deeply entrenched. Giles would also note that Iran’s membership in both the SCO and the BRICS enhances its avoidance of Western financial isolation but places it within networked attention from U.S. intelligence. He would be sceptical of whether these projects can sustain alternative financial flows without systemic Western pushback. Giles would frame the combined military exercises and economic corridors as components of “grey-zone” diplomacy—a hybrid toolkit short of war, but potent enough to degrade Western resolve. He would highlight the symbolic rather than solid displacement of Western systems, cautioning that the dollar still dominates despite new systems emerging. Giles would argue that these tactics are adaptive and defensive, not revolutionary. Rather than signalling a post-American collapse, they reflect a strategic mindset calibrated to survival under pressure. According to Giles, the true test lies in whether these systems can function under severe stress, economic or geopolitical.

Karaganov perceives the military‑economic synchrony of the tripartite as the embodiment of Primakov’s vision: Russia, China, and India (plus Iran) converging to thwart a unipolar future. He identifies recent summits—Astana 2024 and Kazan—as psychological and strategic inflection points that legitimise multipolar order. Karaganov would view the advocacy at SCO for a Eurasian collective security concept open to NATO members as a key moral triumph. He values the insistence on resolving internal disputes peacefully, as emphasised since the SCO’s founding, as a progressive alternative to interventionism . He would further interpret Iran’s accession to the SCO as a validation of Russia’s strategic patience and cult of sovereignty. Karaganov sees Russia’s facilitation of local currency trade agreements and pipeline diplomacy as sovereignty in practice. He considers the dedollarisation narrative sweeping through BRICS and SCO as part of a cohesive long‑term strategy. He also believes that such coordination exerts psychological pressure on Western policymakers, signalling the emergence of an effective counter‑architecture. For him, this tripartite synergy in financial, security, and energy domains crystallises a civilisational coalition in opposition to Western norms.

According to Giles, these combined strategies represent a resilient, adaptive architecture of regional autonomy, but with considerable limits. He denounces the overestimation of multipolar efficacy, pointing to the entrenched nature of Western financial and military power. Giles recognises the hybrid nature of the tactics—economic and military, symbolic yet functional—as tactically intelligent but selectively effective. He warns that Western entities working in tandem—like FATF and SWIFT—may circumspectly neutralise new systems. Giles sees SCO and BRICS as critical, but ultimately contingent, instruments shaped more by pressure than by choice. He views Iran’s role within the trilateral order as a test case—it expands influence but also invites global strategic hostility. Giles, therefore, concludes that while the strategy is bold and evolving, it remains inchoate—its success measured by its resilience to Western countermeasures. He emphasises that the psychological warfare—a battle of perceptions and long-term framing—is at least as important as the physical restructuring of finance and security.

Hence, Karaganov and Giles both acknowledge the transformative potential of post‑Bretton Woods strategies advanced by Russia, China, and Iran—but diverge in emphasis. Karaganov reads these developments as ideological victories for Eurasian sovereignty rooted in civilisational commonality. Giles, in contrast, frames them as pragmatic, defensive adaptations—useful in resisting Western pressure, but far from dismantling the Western-led order. Both concur, however, that these initiatives mark one of the strongest coordinated efforts to recalibrate global finance, diplomacy, and security in the 21st century.