In several articles, we have followed the development of the war step-by-step. Today, as negotiations — with uncertain results — begin toward a ceasefire in Islamabad between the United States and Iran, we have another objective in mind: to attempt a provisional strategic assessment. It is not a matter of reconstructing tactical episodes, but of evaluating their structural consequences.
Far from confirming the omnipotence of Washington, the conflict in Iran serves as a brutal revelation of its limits. It is not only about tactical errors or debatable decisions: what emerges is a crisis more profound, that combines military exhaustion, strategic disorientation, and internal fragility.
The Limits of American Military Power
The war has shown the extent to which the military power of the United States tends to be overestimated. In Washington — in particular in Donald Trump’s entourage — the idea persists that a show of force is enough to discipline adversaries and intimidate powers like China. The conflict with Iran demonstrates the limits of this premise.
Far from a demonstration of strength, the United States has been forced to fight with growing restrictions: unstable markets, volatile public opinion, and a fragmented political structure that makes it difficult to sustain prolonged conflicts without clear objectives. Indeed, the most significant aspect has been weak domestic support for the war.
This is not a temporary phenomenon. The legacy of “endless wars” after 9/11 weighs heavily, leaving a profound distrust toward new interventions; similarly, the political and moral impact of the genocide in Gaza has reopened a deep questioning of the United States’ alliance with Israel, especially among young people and progressive sectors. The traditional “closing ranks” effect in times of war thus appears to be eroded.
Added to these factors is a crucial element: the accelerated depletion of America’s material capabilities. The rate of arms consumption — precision missiles, defense systems, naval platforms — reveals a military machine designed for short wars, not for protracted conflicts against resilient adversaries. In the first month of fighting, the U.S. Navy reportedly launched more than 850 Tomahawk missiles — nearly a quarter of its stockpile. The use of extremely expensive systems, such as the Patriot, to intercept cheap and easily reproducible drones exposes a reverse asymmetry that erodes the U.S. technological advantage.
All of this points to a central problem: the absence of strategy. As Ukrainian military advisors have noted, the Americans are “firing without thinking.” The accumulation of firepower does not translate into victory. Without clear objectives or a theory of victory, military superiority becomes attrition.
Even more serious, the war has intensified the growing malaise within the armed forces themselves. Although the Pentagon denies structural problems, various organizations report an increase in inquiries from service members seeking to leave the service, including through conscientious objector status. Demoralization, ethical doubts, and a lack of strategic clarity are fueling a crisis of cohesion that could have lasting effects on the military institution.
The Crisis of the United States’ Maritime Empire
One of the most significant effects of the war is the crisis of American maritime dominance. For decades, Washington legitimized itself as the guarantor of the “global commons”: trade routes, energy flows, and strategic nodes of world trade. This role, inherited from the British Empire, constituted the core of its hegemony.
Today, that principle is in question.
Iran has demonstrated that a regional power can deny a global power access to its own neighborhood. The Strait of Hormuz — a critical point in the global energy system — is no longer under effective American control.
The consequence is historic: the United States can no longer guarantee the security of the main bottlenecks of global trade. What is in crisis is not just military capability, but the very principle upon which its hegemony has been built since 1945.
The American “maritime empire,” based on naval projection and control of shipping lanes, shows clear signs of weakening. The Navy, for decades a symbol of supremacy, now appears incapable of imposing order in key scenarios.
The Erosion of U.S. Deterrence
War also undermines deterrence. This is the central mechanism of American power: its allies’ confidence in its protection and the adversaries’ fear of challenging it.
A long, costly war with no decisive results sends the opposite message to the one intended.
For allies, it implies uncertainty: if the United States cannot guarantee stability in the Gulf, to what extent can it uphold its commitments in other regions? For adversaries, on the other hand, it opens a window of opportunity: the hegemonic power no longer appears invulnerable, but rather as a constrained and exposed actor.
In this context, potentially destabilizing dynamics are activated: an arms race, energy diversification, and the pursuit of strategic autonomy. The international system thus begins to reorganize itself not around American hegemony, but in relation to its weakening.
Most significantly, Washington, far from acting as a stabilizer, begins to operate as a factor of global disorder, eroding the very foundation of its international legitimacy.
A striking example of this shift is the conversion of neoconservative Robert Kagan, a prominent advocate of American supremacy and once a fervent supporter of the Iraq War. In a recent article for The Atlantic, he argues that “America Is Now a Rogue Superpower,” stating:
Whenever and however America’s war with Iran ends, it has both exposed and exacerbated the dangers of our new, fractured, multipolar reality — driving deeper wedges between the United States and former friends and allies; strengthening the hands of the expansionist great powers, Russia and China; accelerating global political and economic chaos; and leaving the United States weaker and more isolated than at any time since the 1930s.
A Leap in the Atlantic Rift
The war against Iran not only eroded the United States’ global deterrence but also accelerated the internal fracturing of the Atlantic alliance.
For the first time since the post-war period, a conflict instigated by Washington was met with active opposition from its main European allies. This is a significant leap, of a different nature compared to the sharp disagreements surrounding Ukraine or the trade disputes during Trump’s second presidency. Countries like Spain, France, and Italy did not simply distance themselves: they blocked the use of bases, restricted airspace, and refused to participate in operations. Even traditional allies like Poland established explicit limits on their involvement.
This is not a tactical disagreement but a strategic redefinition. Unlike in Afghanistan or even Iraq in 2003 — when only France and Germany opposed the conflict — Europe no longer automatically perceives itself as part of American wars.
This decoupling stems from multiple factors: the perception of a unilateral war, the fear of its economic and energy consequences, and the deterioration of the political relationship with Washington. The result is an alliance riddled with structural uncertainty, where the automatic nature of mutual commitment — the core of its deterrent power — is beginning to crumble.
Faced with this reality, the various European bourgeoisies and governments feel strategically adrift, deprived of the principal factor of European security and stability since the wars of the early 20th century, which had Europe as their epicenter, thus increasing a sense of helplessness.
China’s Advantages
In this scenario, China emerges as the major structural beneficiary of the conflict. While Washington consumes resources, strains alliances, and erodes its legitimacy, Beijing advances with a long-term strategy based on economic expansion, control of supply chains, and the accumulation of industrial capabilities.
Its logic is clear: keep U.S. forces away from its strategic perimeter, avoid direct confrontation, and, at the same time, capitalize on the adversary’s attrition. In classic terms, it is about “winning without fighting”: turning U.S. overextension into its own strategic resource. In the words of former Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar in 2020: “For the last 20 years, the United States has been fighting but not winning in the Middle East, and China has been winning but not fighting in the Middle East.” The current war has been the prime example of this pattern.
China now dominates key sectors of energy and technological transition — renewable energy, batteries, rare earth elements, and electronic components — giving it a privileged position in a context where war is accelerating the demand for critical resources. This productive centrality not only reinforces its economic weight but also its capacity for global influence.
At the same time, the conflict strengthens its international narrative. Faced with a United States perceived as a destabilizing power, Beijing presents itself as a prudent actor, focused on stability and development.
Washington’s relative strategic retreat also allows China to gain space to concentrate on its own internal challenges — economic, social, and military — without the immediate pressure of a direct confrontation. For Xi Jinping, the need to consolidate the “rebirth of the Chinese nation” is crucial in the lead-up to the Communist Party Congress in 2027, which could determine his re-election as leader of the People’s Republic, and then the elections in Taiwan in 2028, a potentially decisive step toward unification, according to his plans.
An Inspiration for the “Global South”
The war is also redefining strategic visions in the so-called “Global South” and repositioning Iran as a key player.
Far from appearing weakened, Iran is emerging as an example of effective resistance against a superpower. Its capacity to sustain a prolonged war, absorb blows, and maintain its operational state structure demonstrates that it is possible to challenge a superior adversary.
Its strategy combines accessible technologies — drones, low-cost missiles — with an asymmetric warfare doctrine geared toward attrition. The result is a reversal of the balance of power: it forces the United States to expend disproportionate resources to neutralize relatively inexpensive threats.
This military capability rests on an economic base built over decades: a “resistance economy” designed to withstand sanctions, substitute imports, and maintain relative productive autonomy. Paradoxically, far from collapsing it, decades of embargo have given rise to one of the most diversified and industrialized economies in the region. Despite its structural limitations, the Iranian economy has retained the modernizing momentum of the 1960s and 1970s, reappropriating the industrial base built by the Pahlavi monarchy for the benefit of the new regime. This productive framework helps explain its strategic resilience.
In several respects, the war has legitimized this model. Iranian technology, proven in combat, is becoming attractive to countries with limited resources but aspirations for autonomy. More than an alignment with Tehran, what emerges is a new point of reference: the possibility of resisting, negotiating, and repositioning oneself in a more fragmented order.
In an international context where unconditional alliances with the United States no longer guarantee the benefits they promised during the unipolar phase, the Iranian experience suggests that there is room for more autonomous strategies. In this sense, the outcome of the war is a direct challenge to governments like Milei’s and other far-right governments that have strategically aligned themselves with Trump.
However, a question of greater historical significance remains open. Are we witnessing the beginning of a new cycle of nationalism in the Global South, fueled by the relative weakening of U.S. hegemony? Unlike previous stages, this potential process would unfold in far more urbanized societies and with a massive working class presence, introducing new kinds of tensions and limitations.
In Iran itself, the strategic failure of the U.S.-Israeli operation has likely granted the Iranian theocracy a new opportunity to survive. However, we must not forget that the 1979 Iranian Revolution, unlike its 20th-century historical precedents where the weakening of the state — generally the result of military defeat or foreign invasion — was the prerequisite, left the Shah’s army intact. It went on to act as a successful regional policeman that enjoyed U.S. support until the very end.
These factors must be considered within the context of the impact of the attacks inside Iran. According to some left-wing observers, imperialist aggression did not foster passive support for the regime, but rather spurred a high degree of social self-organization, visible in both large cities and rural areas, where broad sectors of the population — with women playing a prominent role — acted autonomously. Apparently, rather than a people aligned with the government, what emerged was a regime forced to rely on this grassroots mobilization, the sustainability of which now becomes one of the main challenges for consolidating a truce after the hostilities.
The First Post-Hegemonic War?
The preliminary assessment of the war points to a clear trend: the United States faces not only external constraints, but also a deeper crisis of its own superpower status.
Military exhaustion, a lack of strategy, and internal fragmentation are not temporary shortcomings, but symptoms of a structural problem. The war against Iran does not create this crisis, but it accelerates and exposes it. Despite Trump’s verbal acrobatics, in the eyes of allies and adversaries, and also for the masses of the entire world, the result is undoubtedly a humiliation for the United States.
At the same time, it reveals something more unsettling for Washington: while its power model shows signs of exhaustion, others are beginning to gain legitimacy. Iran has not defeated the United States in classical terms. But it has demonstrated something strategically more relevant: that it is possible to resist the United States, to wear it down, and to limit its capacity for action.
In that sense, the war does not inaugurate a new order, but it does accelerate the end of the old one. The fundamental question is no longer whether other powers will replace the United States, but whether it can sustain the material and strategic foundations of its primacy. Washington is obsessed with when and how China will supplant U.S. global hegemony, but the real question is something else entirely. As Anatol Lieven writes, “what the U.S. foreign and security establishment should be asking itself is not whether China aims to take away U.S. primacy, but whether the U.S. deserves to keep it.” In this sense, the Iran war could usher in the era of post-American hegemony. It does not mark the end of U.S. power, but it does expose something more decisive: that its supremacy can no longer be imposed without cost, without resistance, and, above all, without encountering increasingly evident and difficult limits.
This article was originally published in French on April 11 in Armes de la Critique.
The post The War Against Iran Accelerates the Crisis of U.S. Hegemony appeared first on Left Voice.
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