Global Resource Remobilisation, Trust, and Bullion in a Reordered World
Feb 25, 2026
The global remobilisation trend continues to accelerate, and a large part of it comes down to collapsing trust in the old-world order. What’s clear now is that certainty itself is gone. Force matters again, and smaller players feel it first. That nervousness is real, regardless of the noise and posturing from smaller players claiming they can stand up to the US.
For all the huffing and puffing, there are very few countries that can realistically stand up to the United States. There isn’t a single country in Europe that can do it on its own, and one could argue that Europe as a bloc would struggle as well. The same logic applies across the Americas, north, south, and central. Almost on cue, an article appeared in which Mark Rutte essentially echoes the same view.
That backdrop shows up in the 2026 National Defence Strategy under the current US administration. The focus shifts inward, protecting the homeland and the Western Hemisphere comes first. Russia is framed as a persistent but manageable threat. China remains a strategic competitor, but the tone is more controlled than confrontational. The emphasis is deterrence, balance, and containment, not escalation.
Russia has, at least tacitly, signalled acceptance of the United States taking whatever steps it deems necessary with respect to Greenland, while expecting similar latitude regarding Ukraine. At the same time, there are visible signs of the Donald Trump administration softening its posture toward Russia. This shows up in reports that the US may drop the 25% tariffs imposed on India for purchasing Russian oil, and more importantly, in continued pressure on Ukraine to move toward a negotiated peace.
Against that backdrop, the US push to reshore large portions of semiconductor and memory production begins to make more sense. It suggests preparation for a scenario in which Washington may eventually signal, indirectly, that it will not interfere with China’s efforts to integrate Taiwan into its sphere.
It appears, with emphasis on the word “appears”, that some form of understanding may be forming among the United States, China, and Russia, one in which each consolidates influence closer to home.
All of this upends the old-world order and replaces it with a cruder one. You either have big guns or you have friends with big guns who are willing to protect you. It’s a gangster-era framework, and it makes everyone nervous. That nervousness shows up in capital flows. Money keeps flowing into bullion and commodities of all kinds. Central banks continue buying gold even at these elevated prices.
The pace is what stands out. The trend hasn’t just continued, it has accelerated, fast enough to surprise even us, and that takes a lot. We expected the trend to gain traction, but we did not expect this kind of velocity. We never thought we would see a point where the resource super trend could seriously challenge the AI super trend, yet here we are, an inch and a half away. To put that in perspective, there wasn’t even a faint signal of this 12, or even 9 months ago. That alone tells you how quickly this trend has evolved and gathered force.
Conclusion
It would actually be better if the resource remobilisation trend does not supersede the AI trend. That kind of crossover would introduce too much chaos. We’ll expand on it if and when it happens. Until then, it’s just adding unnecessary heat to an already overheated world.
The healthier setup would be for it to equalise with the AI trend, to sit in the same league rather than overpower it. Too many supertrends running at the same time is never a good thing, and it’s significantly worse when they all accelerate together.
And once again, the underlying reason for the deterioration in quality of life, rising polarisation, and many of the problems weighing on the West comes back to debt creation. Pull up a long-term chart, and the pattern becomes obvious, across countries and across time. Periods of low debt tend to line up with stability and productivity. Do the same exercise with the Roman Empire, and you’ll see the same thing play out. Distress set in when the coffers ran dry, and money started being created out of thin air.
In short, peace and prosperity tend to align with low or at least manageable debt levels. High debt produces the opposite. That’s why the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even the early 2000s were broadly manageable; debt levels were contained enough to keep the system functioning. The other explanations people point to aren’t entirely wrong, but they’re symptoms, not the disease.
