Paradoxically, the US-Israel attacks on Iran that started on February 28, which were meant to bring Iran to its knees and demonstrate the superiority of America’s overwhelming military power, have ended up exposing the limits of its power in achieving its foreign policy goals.
In the face of these illegal surprise attacks in violation of the UN Charter, Iran has stood its ground despite the martyrdom of its top leadership and the enormous destruction of its military and civilian infrastructure. In the process, the US has been isolated internationally. Even its Nato allies have refused to support the American aggression against Iran.
These developments have badly tarnished America’s image and significantly lowered its moral standing in the international community. Further, Iran’s ability to defy US power despite its losses may lead to similar challenges to its authority from powers in other regions. When these developments are viewed against the backdrop of the growing challenge posed by a steadily rising China and the emergence of a multipolar world, we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of America’s global domination. The process of America’s relative decline may unfold over several decades, but it appears irreversible.
Under US President Trump, the US has turned into a predatory hegemon as elaborated by Professor Stephen Walt in a recent article entitled ‘The Predatory Hegemon’ in the Foreign Affairs issue of March-April 2026. A predatory hegemon, according to him, primarily aims at extracting one-sided concessions and short-term gains from both allies and adversaries in what it sees as a zero-sum world. In the process, it rides roughshod over rules and institutions that facilitate mutually beneficial international cooperation, thus alienating both friends and foes.
Given the US’s enormous military and economic power, such a strategy may work for some time. But, Professor Stephen Walt asserts, it is ill-suited in a multipolar world in which it will “weaken the United States and its allies alike, generate growing global resentment, create tempting opportunities for Washington’s main rivals, and leave America less secure, less prosperous, and less influential”.
By contrast, a benign hegemon recognises the value of rules and institutions that promote mutually beneficial international cooperation and are viewed as legitimate by others. Instead of taking advantage of both its partners and rivals, it welcomes positive-sum partnerships with like-minded states and promotes an international environment conducive to the realisation of its goals through cooperation rather than brute force.
The US under Trump is anything but a benign hegemon as demonstrated by its decisions to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, and the WHO, its attacks on Iran in June 2025 and February 2026 on false and illegal grounds, its disproportionate use of tariffs to secure economic gains, its attack on Venezuela to abduct its president, and its threats to annex Greenland. President Trump has made it abundantly clear that he sees little utility in the UN and international law in the conduct of America’s foreign and security policies.
Washington, sooner or later, will face the adverse consequences of such short-sighted, US-centric policies in the conduct of its foreign policy. This would be particularly true because of the radical transformation of the global security scenario driven primarily by China through the rapid accumulation of its economic, technological and military power, its inroads into the Global South through the Belt and Road Initiative and other similar undertakings, its close strategic partnership with Russia, and its rapidly growing economic, commercial and technological links worldwide.
The world may be at a point of inflexion, with the gradual ceding of global supremacy by the US to China over the next two to three decades, helped by the former’s relatively slower economic growth and its strategic overstretch. A re-assertive Russia and the emergence of powerful medium-sized states in various regions will hasten the process. The US will remain a very powerful economic and military power in the foreseeable future, but with an increasingly difficult ability to impose its will on others without let or hindrance.
America’s proclivity to get bogged down in long-drawn regional wars, as in Afghanistan (2001-2021) and Iraq (2003-2011), may slow it down further in the race for economic and technological development vis-a-vis China, which has scrupulously avoided entanglement in foreign wars and focused its energies primarily on the supreme national goal of rapid economic, technological and scientific development.
Interestingly, according to the latest figures, China has overtaken the US in allocating national resources to research and development, an important driver of economic growth and technological innovation. It is also noteworthy that China’s GDP in purchasing power parity terms, which is the true measure of the size of the national economy, surpassed the US in 2014.
Besides America’s competition with China at the global level, Washington also needs to deal with the challenges posed by major regional powers like Russia in Europe and Asia, Brazil and Mexico in Latin America, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt in Asia and the Middle East, and Nigeria and South Africa in Africa. Iran’s defiance of the US in the Persian Gulf region, despite the enormous loss of life and destruction of infrastructure suffered by it, has exposed the limits of America’s power in imposing its will on even medium-sized powers.
The Iranian tenacity in defence of its sovereignty and national interests in the face of the American military onslaught has robbed the US of the aura of invincibility. Coming in the wake of America’s ignominious defeat in Afghanistan after its longest war, its inability to bring the Iranian nation to its knees may encourage similar challenges to its authority elsewhere. Despite its formidable military power, the US will find it increasingly difficult to overcome multiple such challenges simultaneously in different regions of the world. These regional challenges will further weaken the US vis-a-vis China as it tries to grapple with them.
The foregoing analysis carries important lessons for Pakistan’s strategic planners. In the emerging multipolar world marked by realpolitik, diminishing authority of the UN and international law, shifting alliances and the growing importance of economic and technological strength in the spectrum of national power, the ultimate guarantee of a nation’s security and economic well-being lies in its national power and its judicious use.
Pakistan should, therefore, assign top priority to rapid economic, technological and scientific development while maintaining a credible security deterrent and pursuing a non-adventurist, low-risk foreign policy aimed at promoting peace in our neighbourhood.
In view of the enduring threat to Pakistan posed by India, we must also continue to strengthen our strategic partnership and cooperation with China across various fields while maintaining friendly relations with the US. In addition, the development of brotherly ties with ECO member states and countries in the Middle East should remain a top priority for our foreign policy.
The writer is a retired ambassador and author of ‘Pakistan and a World in Disorder – A Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century’. He can be reached at: [email protected]
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer’s own and don’t necessarily reflect Geo.tv’s editorial policy.
Originally published in The News
