US-Saudi and Saudi-PRC relations are a factor in continued US dollar dominance. Beijing is poised to become a major rival to the US for influence in Saudi Arabia, and this could become the hub of the launch of the renminbi as a global currency.
And what does that mean for the next era of strategic alliances? A new NATO? A new period of diminished cooperation between the US and Mexico, the US and European NATO, and so on?
Perhaps the “experiment” in universal, forced literacy, has been a failure, an historical blip. Literacy is in retreat because of technology and because inquiring minds challenge leadership patterns. Yet intellectual capacity— signified by literacy— determines strategic success. What is to be done?