The US is rapidly reaching the limits of imperial over-reach. It is all downhill from here

This is the way the world ends 

This is the way the world ends 

This is the way the world ends 

Not with a bang but a whimper.

- TS Eliot in his poem, The Hollow Men

The world may, at some point, end either in a bang or a whimper, or not end at all if wisdom prevails, but if one were to substitute the word “world” with “imperialism”, it would be perfect. All imperialisms, whether of the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, British, Arab or Persian kinds, have always ended in a whimper for one simple reason: the imperial powers don’t understand the limits of their own power. They die not because they lacked power, but because they thought their powers were endless. And, of course, they also arrogantly presumed that they were too big to fail.

What we have been seeing in slow motion, starting from the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11 to the 2008 global financial crisis to the ongoing Iran war, is the steady decline of America power (after a brief rise), thanks to imperial over-reach. The Americans failed in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya – unless you think sparking off local civil wars is somehow a victory for American imperialism– and they are certainly not winning either in Ukraine or West Asia. In the latter case, they decapitated the Iranian leadership (which has grown new, unseen heads). What they have imperilled is the remaining parts of the Gulf kingdoms and sheikhdoms, and if these Sunni states start feeling the economic pain caused by Iran’s missile and drone attacks, even the Arabs will seek the ouster of America from the region. The Sunni Arab civilisation may seek to loosen ties with America and find a way to fight or compromise with their Persian Shia civilisation.

It is worth recalling that Islam itself owes its rise not to its intrinsic strengths, but the clash two other empires, the Byzantine and the Persian. The Arab tribes that allied with one or the other, ultimately found both these empires weakening to the point where they could create their own empire. The rise of Islam is partially the result of two imperial powers exhausting each other to the point of mutual defeat. Imperialism always dies due to endless wars, many of them pointless.

As Fareed Zakaria tells us in this CNN show, the British empire failed because it saw its role as trying to keep the peace in spaces like West Asia and Africa where it had no idea about what it was fighting. And once the world wars depleted its economic strength, it had to let go of empire. The same is the case with the US now, which thinks it can paper over the atavistic antagonisms of the Jewism, Sunni and Shia monotheisms of West Asia and even north Africa.

Beyond the immediate protection of Israel and its borders, which the USA could reasonably commit itself to, it did not need to get into every war in the Muslim world. It should not have been sucked into a wider war by Israel, thanks to its unending obsession with Iranian nukes. Nobody can stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, just as nobody could stop the Pakistanis or North Koreans from doing so. Any country of a significant size will beg, borrow or steal to get the kind of bombs it wants.

The US imperial over-reach is not facing a challenge only because of its involvement is wars that should not concern it. In Ukraine, it sought to eviscerate Russian power by egging the Ukrainians against them. The US repeatedly crossed Russian red lines on Nato expansion. And once it managed to get the Russians provoked enough to launch a war against Ukraine, it shot itself again in the foot by sanctioning the world’s third military superpower. Like the Germans in World War II, the USA forgot that Russia has huge endurance capabilities. The only thing it achieved by encouraging the Ukrainians to be intransigent with Russia was to drive the latter into China’s arms. Exactly the opposite of what is in US interests.

But sanctions have their own costs. When the US sanctioned Iran, the latter not only went into China’s arms, but also developed a huge drone and missile capability which now threatens the whole world by sending oil prices skywards. Having correctly understood that Israel and America would try for a regime change by killing its top leaders, Iran decentralised power among 31 groups of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps). These independent power centres are each capable of running their own wars even without a supreme leader at the helm. Worse, Iran’s oil also gets paid for in yuan, not dollars.

After the start of the Ukraine war, when the US froze billions of dollars of Russian sovereign assets, the world noticed. Every country realised that if this can happen to a military superpower, it can happen to anybody who disagrees with the US.

Between December 2024 and December 2025, the big trading partners of the US – China, India and Brazil – sharply cut down on US dollar treasury assets, China from $759 bn to $ 683 bn, India from $219 bn to $183 bn and Brazil from $201 bn to $168 bn. However, the US’s allies and partners like UK, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Canada, South Korea and others tanked up on US T-bills – showing that a strong preference for dollar reserves is now limited to countries heavily reliant on US military support or its economy (see latest US treasury data here). Most others boosted the share of gold in official reserves – which is why gold prices have hit the stratosphere.

The problem is not that the world is becoming anti-America, but the world certainly does not see the US as a reliable military or economic partner. India, for example, does not want to abandon the dollar system, but it feels threatened by unilateral US actions against it by the Trump administration. When the US imposes sanctions against those it considers (even temporary) enemies (say, Iran or Russia), it effectively sanctions even those who trade with them.

A third indicator of imperial over-reach is debt. To be a superpower without limits, you must be able to borrow endlessly at cheap rates to finance war and other ingredients of power extension. US internal debt is heading towards $39 trillion, and sooner than later, it will drag the US power down. (See this US debt clock here and the rate at which it is growing every minute).

What we have seen so far is US imperial over-reach in two areas: military and economic. If this continues, US power will fade away faster through imperial over-reach. If Uncle Sam wants to slow this down, it has to earn the friendship and partnership of potential allies, not demand it through coercive action.