There is a certain tragedy in watching an empire die. The slow decay, the creeping irrelevance, the quiet acceptance of diminished circumstances. And then there is the American way - a flailing, desperate lurch toward violence, a refusal to accept that the party is over, a determination to burn down the house rather than admit it's time to leave.
What we are witnessing across the globe, from the torching of Russian energy infrastructure to the kidnapping of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, from the torpedoing of an unarmed Iranian frigate to the bombing of Iranian schoolgirls is not a coherent strategy for peace or security. It is the death rattle of a hegemon that cannot conceive of a world in which it is not number one.
When you zoom out, when you stop getting distracted by the daily outrages and look at the pattern, the picture becomes unmistakable. The United States is engaged in a multifront war not against terrorism, not against nuclear proliferation, not against any of the noble-sounding justifications it offers. It is engaged in a war against the future itself. A war against the simple, unbearable fact that other powers now exist, and that their existence necessarily diminishes American dominance.
As analyst Brian Berletic notes, since China assumed superpower status in the late 2010s, it has become US enemy number one, just by existing. Not by invading anyone. Not by threatening anyone. By existing. By succeeding. By demonstrating that there is another way to organize human society, another path to prosperity, another model of global engagement that does not require bombing schools and torpedoing unarmed ships.
This is the unforgivable sin. This is what the American empire cannot tolerate.
To understand what is happening now, one must understand the document that has guided American strategic thinking for more than three decades, a document so nakedly imperial in its ambitions that its authors initially tried to hide it from public view.
The 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by then-Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and his team, laid out a post-Cold War vision that would shape American foreign policy for a generation. Its core premise was simple and terrifying: the United States must prevent the emergence of any rival power anywhere in the world. Not just hostile powers. Any power. Allies included. The goal was permanent, unchallengeable American primacy - a unipolar world with Washington at its center, forever.
When the document leaked, there was outrage. The language was too blunt, the ambition too naked. So it was revised, softened, sanitized. But the core never changed. Every subsequent National Security Strategy, every Pentagon planning document, every major foreign policy initiative has carried the Wolfowitz DNA. The names change - George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, but the imperative remains: no rivals. Ever.
This is the religion of American foreign policy. This is the unspoken assumption that drives decisions from the Situation Room to the deck of a submarine in the Indian Ocean. And like all religions, it demands sacrifices. The girls of Minab. The sailors of the IRIS Dena. The civilians of Fallujah and Gaza and a dozen other cities whose names most Americans cannot pronounce.
If you look closely at the pattern, you will see the true target of American aggression. It is not Russia, though Russian blood is being spilled. It is not Iran, though Iranian children are being buried. It is not Venezuela, though its democratically elected president has been effectively kidnapped by the United States.
The target is China.
China is the world's largest importer of oil. It has no path to superpower status without energy security. And the United States, with its control of the world's sea lanes and its ability to project power into every corner of the globe, has spent decades building the architecture to strangle that energy security whenever it chooses.
Consider the geography:
- The Straits of Malacca, through which 80% of China's oil imports pass, are controlled by the US Navy.
- The Strait of Hormuz, through which 15% of China's crude oil flows from Iran, is now a war zone of America's making.
- Venezuela, once a reliable supplier to China, now has its oil exports effectively controlled by the United States following Maduro's kidnapping.
- Russia, which supplies as much as 20% of Chinese oil, has seen its energy infrastructure systematically attacked by Ukraine using US intelligence and US weapons, far beyond the front lines.
The pattern is unmistakable. The United States is methodically dismantling every node of China's energy supply chain. Not through blockade, not yet, but through proxy wars, through economic warfare, through the strategic creation of chaos in every region that matters to Beijing.
This is not about democracy. This is not about human rights. This is about oil. It has always been about oil. The names change - Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Iran - but the prize remains the same.
But here is where the analysis becomes truly damning: this strategy is not the product of strength. It is the product of panic.
The United States is not acting from a position of confident dominance. It is acting from the desperate realization that its window of unipolar control is closing. The BRICS economic alliance grows stronger. China's Belt and Road Initiative weaves a web of relationships that bypass American-dominated institutions. Russia, despite sanctions and war, continues to supply energy to global markets. Iran, despite decades of pressure, remains standing.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly acknowledged that the US could lose its ability to effectively sanction within five years. Five years. The primary tool of American economic warfare—the weaponized dollar, the exclusion from the SWIFT system, the threat of secondary sanctions, may soon become obsolete as targeted nations build alternative financial architectures.
When you cannot sanction, when you cannot economically isolate, when your soft power has evaporated and your moral authority lies in ruins, what remains?
Brute force.
The polite face of American hegemony, the "rules-based international order", the democracy promotion, the humanitarian interventions has been discarded. What remains is simple, naked violence. The torpedo in the Indian Ocean. The bomb on the girls' school. The kidnapping in Caracas. The pipeline sabotage in the Baltic Sea.
The empire no longer cares that everyone can see it for what it is. It knows it has already lost the war of global public opinion. It is fighting now for survival, and survival justifies anything.
Which brings us to the question that hangs over everything: What happens when China and Russia decide to retaliate?
Not if. When.
Because empires that lash out in their death throes do not go unanswered. They may win battles. They may sink ships. They may bomb schools. But they cannot win a war against the future itself. And the future belongs to the multipolar world they are desperately trying to prevent.
Force Design 2030, the US Marine Corps' restructuring specifically intended to prepare for direct conflict with China and Russia. The Pentagon is not hiding its intentions. It is building the forces it believes it will need for the war it sees as inevitable. A war to neutralize the "nucleus of the threat". A war to prevent the BRICS economic alliance from permanently displacing American dominance.
But here is what the Pentagon's war planners seem not to understand: when you spend decades building the architecture to strangle your rivals, you should not be surprised when those rivals build the architecture to fight back.
Lets consider what coordinated retaliation might look like:
In the South China Sea, Chinese naval forces, supported by Russian intelligence and perhaps even Russian vessels, could begin actively challenging US naval dominance. Not through direct confrontation, not yet, but through exercises, through expanded patrols, through the steady erosion of the assumption that American warships can go anywhere and do anything without consequence.
In the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian naval forces, backed by Chinese satellite intelligence and Russian anti-ship missile technology, could make the passage of US vessels a genuinely risky proposition. The IRIS Dena was unarmed and returning from a diplomatic mission. The next Iranian ship might not be so accommodating.
In the energy markets, China and Russia could coordinate a response that makes the current oil price spikes look modest. If China decides to weaponize its position as the world's largest importer, if Russia decides to throttle European energy supplies even further, if OPEC+ decides to align with the emerging multipolar order rather than the declining unipolar one, the economic consequences for the United States and its allies could be catastrophic.
In the financial system, the BRICS nations could accelerate their development of alternative payment systems, alternative reserve currencies, alternative institutions that render American sanctions irrelevant. Rubio's five-year window could shrink to two. Or one. Or now.
In the military domain, the United States could find itself facing coordinated opposition in multiple theaters simultaneously. A conflict in the South China Sea. A conflict in the Persian Gulf. A conflict in Eastern Europe. The American military, for all its might, was not designed to fight three major powers at once. No military was.
And then there is the question of alliances.
The United States has spent decades building a network of military alliances - NATO in Europe, bilateral treaties in Asia, bases and partnerships across the globe. But those alliances were built on the assumption of American invincibility, on the promise that Washington could protect its partners from any threat.
What happens when that assumption cracks?
What happens when Japan and South Korea, watching the chaos in the Middle East and the rising power of China, begin to hedge their bets? What happens when European NATO members, exhausted by the Ukraine war and facing energy crises of their own, decide that American leadership is no longer worth the cost? What happens when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other Gulf states conclude that their long-term interests lie with Beijing and Moscow rather than Washington?
The US no longer cares that everyone can see it for what it is. But it should care. Because when your allies see you for what you are - a declining power lashing out in desperation, they begin to make other arrangements.
Let us do the arithmetic that Washington seems unable or unwilling to perform.
China's economy, even accounting for current challenges, is on track to surpass that of the United States within the next decade or so. Russia, despite sanctions and war, remains a nuclear superpower with vast energy resources and a population that has demonstrated extraordinary resilience in the face of pressure. Iran, despite decades of hostility, has developed indigenous military capabilities that make a US invasion prohibitively costly.
Together, these three nations represent:
- A combined population of nearly 1.7 billion people
- Some of the world's largest reserves of oil, gas, and critical minerals
- Nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the United States many times over
- A growing web of economic, military, and diplomatic relationships that bypass American-dominated institutions
- And, perhaps most importantly, the conviction that they are fighting for a just cause, not for dominance, but for the simple right to exist and prosper in a world that Washington insists must remain unipolar
The United States, by contrast, is fighting for the preservation of a status quo that benefits primarily itself. It is fighting to maintain the ability to sanction, to blockade, to bomb, to control. It is fighting to keep the world arranged in a hierarchy with Washington at the top.
That is not a cause that inspires sacrifice. That is not a cause that holds alliances together. That is not a cause that can survive the first serious defeat.
That torpedo fired at the IRIS Dena was more than a weapon. It was a message.
The message was: we will kill you even when you are unarmed. We will kill you even when you are returning from a diplomatic mission. We will kill you even when you are in international waters. We will kill you and then we will leave you to drown, and we will boast about fighting "without mercy", and the American people will shrug and move on with their day.
But messages have consequences. And the message sent to Tehran was also received in Beijing, in Moscow, in New Delhi, in Brasília, in Pretoria, in every capital of the Global South.
The message was: the United States cannot be trusted. Its promises are worthless. Its treaties are scraps of paper. Its commitment to international law is a fiction. Its wars are not about democracy or human rights or any of the noble words it deploys. Its wars are about control. About oil. About the desperate, increasingly violent attempt to preserve a dominance that is already slipping away.
And the message received in those capitals was: we must build a world in which the United States cannot do this anymore. We must build institutions, alliances, and capabilities that make such behavior impossible. We must accelerate the transition to a multipolar order, not because we want conflict, but because the alternative is to live forever under the threat of American violence.
Some will read this and think it is speculation about a future conflict. It is not.
The conflict is already here. It is happening now, in the waters off Sri Lanka where 150 Iranian sailors are still missing. It is happening now, in the graves of Minab where 168 schoolgirls lie buried. It is happening now, in the energy infrastructure of Russia being systematically destroyed by US-supplied weapons. It is happening now, in Venezuela where a democratically elected president has been effectively kidnapped by a foreign power.
The only question is whether the conflict remains a series of one-sided attacks, the empire striking at will while its targets absorb the blows or whether it escalates to something more symmetrical. Something more dangerous. Something that the American people, lulled into complacency by decades of fighting wars that happen somewhere else to someone else, are entirely unprepared for.
China and Russia face a series of difficult choices in the coming months and years.
They can continue to absorb blows, hoping that American aggression will eventually exhaust itself or that the international community will intervene. But the evidence suggests otherwise. The empire does not exhaust itself. It feeds on conflict. And the international community, as currently constituted, lacks the will or the capacity to restrain the United States.
They can accelerate their military preparations, building the forces and capabilities needed to deter American aggression. This is already happening. With The Force Design 2030 comes the corresponding Chinese and Russian force modernization efforts the hypersonic missiles, the anti-ship ballistic missiles, the electronic warfare capabilities, the space-based surveillance systems, all designed explicitly to counter American military advantages.
They can deepen their economic and military cooperation, creating a counterweight to American power that is more than the sum of its parts. The BRICS expansion, the growing ties between Chinese and Russian militaries, the joint exercises, the technology sharing, all of this points toward a coordination that did not exist a decade ago and that will only grow stronger in response to American pressure.
Or they can decide that the moment for restraint has passed. They can decide that the torpedoing of an unarmed Iranian ship, the bombing of Iranian schoolgirls, the kidnapping of Venezuela's president, the systematic destruction of Russian energy infrastructure, that these acts demand a response. Not a proportionate response, proportionality is for legal briefs, not for empires in their death throes but a response designed to make clear that the costs of American aggression now exceed any conceivable benefit.
The tragedy -:for Americans, for the world, for everyone, is that the empire cannot see what is coming.
The same arrogance that led the USS Vincennes to shoot down an Iranian passenger airliner in 1988, killing 290 civilians, and then claim it was a "legitimate military target" leads the United States today to torpedo unarmed ships and bomb girls' schools and expect no consequences.
The same exceptionalism that allowed American leaders to invade Iraq on false pretenses, killing hundreds of thousands, and then express surprise that the Iraqi people might resent it, allows American leaders today to boast about fighting "without mercy" and expect the world to applaud.
The same delusion that convinced Washington it could wage endless war without cost, without consequence, without end, convinces it today that China and Russia will simply absorb blow after blow forever.
They will not.
The Long Story Short: The United States is a dying empire, lashing out in desperation. Its target is not terrorism or nuclear proliferation or any of the other justifications it offers. Its target is China - specifically, China's energy security, and thus China's ability to continue its rise.
It is attacking Russia to weaken Chinese energy supplies. It is attacking Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz. It is attacking Venezuela to control its oil exports. It is attacking everywhere and anywhere that might supply the future with the resources it needs.
And it is doing all of this while boasting about fighting "without mercy", while abandoning drowning sailors to their fate, while bombing schoolgirls and then promising to "investigate".
The empire believes it can do this forever. It believes its victims have no choice but to accept their fate. It believes the American people will never wake up, the international community will never act, and the rising powers of the world will never unite to stop it.
It is wrong.
The torpedo that sank the IRIS Dena did not just kill 150 Iranian sailors. It sent a signal to every nation that might one day find itself in America's crosshairs. And that signal was: prepare. Prepare now. Prepare together. Prepare for the day when the empire's lunge meets something that does not give way.
That day is coming. It may be months away. It may be years. But it is coming.
And when it arrives, the American people will finally learn what the people of Minab already know, what the families of the IRIS Dena already know, what the world has known for decades: that empires do not die quietly. They die violently, taking as many with them as they can. And the only question is whether the world they leave behind will be better than the world they tried so desperately to control.
The long story, for now, is that we are living through the final act. The shape of what comes next depends on choices being made in Beijing, in Moscow, in Tehran, in capitals across the Global South. And in Washington, where the empire's leaders continue to boast about winning, without mercy, as the walls close in around them.
The torpedo is in the water. The school is in rubble. The sailors are drowning. And the empire, blind and desperate, cannot see that it has already lost - not the war, not yet, but the argument. The moral argument. The argument about what kind of world we want to live in.
And that, in the end, is the only argument that matters.