New World Disorder: Emerging Division Between East And West Threatens To Plunge The Globe Into ChaosMichael Snyder The civil war in Ukraine and the crash of MH17 have created an enormous amount of tension between the United States and Russia, and many analysts believe that relations between the two superpowers are now even worse than they were during the end of the Cold War era. In addition, the indictment of five PLA officers for cyber espionage and sharp disagreements over Chinas territorial claims in the South China Sea (among other issues) have caused U.S. relations with China to dip to their lowest point since at least 1989. So could the emerging division between the East and the West ultimately plunge us into a period of global chaos? And what would that mean for the world economy? For as long as most Americans can remember, the U.S. dollar and the U.S. financial system have been overwhelmingly dominant. But now the powers of the east appear to be determined to break this monopoly. This comes at a time when both China and Russia are seeking to emphasize their own currencies and move away from using the U.S. dollar so much. Even in the Western media, it is being admitted that Chinas yuan is a growing force in global finance, and according toCNBC the use of Chinese currency in international trade is growing very rapidly And of course Russia has been actively pursuing a de-dollarization strategy for months now. Each new round of economic sanctions pushes Russia even further in the direction of independence from the U.S. dollar, and Gazprom has been working hard to get large customers to switch from paying for natural gas in dollars to paying for natural gas in euros and other currencies. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled Russia Is Doing It Russia Is Actually Abandoning The Dollar. At this point, it seems clear that Russia plans to permanently decouple from the U.S. economy and the U.S. financial system. Just today we learned that Vladimir Putin plans to make Russia less dependent on U.S. companies such as IBM and Microsoft, and any future rounds of sanctions are likely to cause even more damage to U.S. firms that do business in Russia. But potentially much more troubling for the U.S. economy is the startling deterioration in the relationship between the Obama administration and China. Some analysts are even describing this asa tipping point Most Americans could not care less about what China is doing in the South China Sea, but to the Chinese this is a very, very big deal. In fact, China justsent a surveillance vessel to Hawaii as a bit of payback for what they regard as U.S. provocations in the region. In the old days, China would have probably never have done such a thing. But China is gaining confidence as the gap between the U.S. military and the Chinese military rapidly closes In fact, the Chinese military has grown so powerful that we are now seeing headlines such as this one in The Week: China thinks it can defeat America in battle. And the Russian military has made tremendous strides as well. Putin has been working hard to modernize the Russian nuclear arsenal, the Russians now have a fifth generation fighter jet that is supposedly far superior to the F-22 Raptor, and they have nuclear submarines that are so incredibly quiet that the U.S. Navy refers to them as black holes. If Russia and China stay united, they are more than capable of providing a counterbalance to U.S. power around the globe. But even if military conflict is not in our immediate future, the breakdown in relations between East and West could still have a dramatic impact on the global economy. Over the years, the U.S. and China have developed a highly symbiotic relationship that fuels a tremendous amount of economic activity all over the planet. Each year, we buy hundreds of billions of dollars of products from the Chinese. Just imagine what our stores would look like if we took everything that was made in China out of them. And after we send them giant piles of our money, we beg the Chinese to lend it back to us at ultra-low interest rates. This arrangement has allowed China to become extremely wealthy and it has allowed Americans to enjoy a massively inflated standard of living fueled by ever increasing amounts of debt. So what happens if this relationship starts breaking down? Without a doubt, it could potentially lead to global chaos. So keep a close eye on this emerging division between the East and the West. It could end up being far more important than most Americans would ever dare to imagine. This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. 