The Self-Destruction of American Power

Foreign Affairs  |  Fareed Zakaria

The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 initiated a brief era of American global hegemony that has since dissolved into a fragmented international system. This systemic decline accelerated as Washington repeatedly overreached, squandering its unprecedented post-Cold War geopolitical advantage through unilateral military interventions across the Middle East that ultimately triggered a slow, self-inflicted demise.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq served as the critical inflection point, exposing the limits of unilateral military force and undermining the international legitimacy of the United States. Subsequent domestic political polarization and economic crises further eroded the institutional foundations of American global leadership. Consequently, rising powers like China and a revisionist Russia have successfully capitalised on this vacuum to assert regional spheres of influence. This shift has permanently dismantled the post-1989 liberal international order, forcing Washington to navigate a highly competitive, multipolar landscape where its unilateral authority is no longer recognized.

Comment

The transition of the US Army from Field Manual 3-24 counter-insurgency doctrine to Field Manual 3-0 multi-domain operations reflects the structural shift away from unipolar expeditionary policing. This doctrinal pivot abandons the assumption of uncontested air and electromagnetic dominance that characterised operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pentagon planners consequently focus on contested environments where peer adversaries deploy sophisticated anti-access and area-denial networks. This doctrinal evolution signals that the era of discretionary American interventions has been replaced by the demanding requirements of peer-level, large-scale combat operations.

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