Danny Haiphong, Substack.
The current world order is full of pain and horror.
But it’s how we approach it that determines humanity’s fate in the end.
It makes sense why despair is spreading across the combined West, particularly in the United States.
I’ve received comments and messages claiming that I mislead audiences by spreading optimism incongruent with reality. They go a little something like this:
Stop promoting the notion that the US empire is dead. Stop saying it’s collapsing and has been defeated. How many times are you going to tell us that US hegemony has been destroyed when it so obviously has not?
To those asking me these questions, the US empire is flourishing and its grip on global power increasing with every act of violence. If it’s not flourishing, then at the very least it’s causing immense pain and suffering. The fact that the oligarchs in control of this system can behave in this manner at all is proof that the decline of the US empire is a questionable assertion and its collapse out of the question.
There are kernels of truth in this worldview. US empire and imperialism does possess a monopoly on violence. Its economic engine of exploitation and war has no rival. The US dollar remains the world’s reserve currency. US capitalism continues on as the world’s biggest economy and in terms of scale, its military arsenal remains the biggest in the world.
The numbers don’t lie, either. The eight richest monopolists at the head of the US’s global empire possess more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population. Genocides in Gaza and Lebanon have killed hundreds of thousands in just a few years. The human cost of these destructive wars is immeasurable. Hundreds of millions, if not more than a billion, people face down an existence of displacement, premature death, and extreme poverty every single day.
Anyone with an ounce of humanity should be angry about this. Infuriated. Devastated. Sad. Hurt. Heartbroken. All of these emotions and many others are appropriate for the Occassion. But is despair? Is the power of US imperialism in 2026 so overwhelming that we should lose hope for the future?
Nope. Not at all. In fact, the unmasking of the US empire’s brutal and naked force is a major sign of weakness. US soft power is virtually extinct. So too is the faulty legitimacy that its rule rested upon for decades following the US’s ascendency to number one “super power” after World War II.
The majority of the world’s countries now view China, one of the US and West’s favorite targets of endless propaganda, more favorably than the United States. That means the propaganda isn’t working. But why? Because the US empire has lost enormous ground on ALL fronts: militarily, politically, economically, and in the battle of ideas.
Militarily, the US possesses the largest militarily in the world replete with an arsenal capable of facilitating Israeli genocide in Gaza and the murder of thousands of people in Iran. But this military is not built to “win” wars. Iran and Russia have laid the biggest blows to US military in its history, draining US stockpiles of critical weapons such as air defense interceptors and stand off munitions. These losses only compound the very real military defeats suffered against smaller opponents such as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.
Whatever ground US intelligence operatives and agencies made in shaping the world in the US image has been significantly eroded. The terror of US military and intelligence operations cannot strip Iran of its control over the Strait of Hormuz or its newfound status as a regional super power following the successful destruction of fifteen military bases. It cannot collapse the Russian government or stop its ascendence to the top of the military food chain, particularly in hypersonic missile technology. It cannot stop China from economic superpower status with the capacity to massively expand its technological prowess and increase connectivity through infrastructure development projects. These are things neither money nor state violence, the foundations of US empire, can stop.
The US empire’s economic foothold has reduced dramatically since its peak in 1945 at around half of all global Gross Domestic Product (GDP)”). While the US’s nominal GDP share of the world economy is about 20 to 25 percent, this falls to just14 percent when adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). China has surpassed the US by a full five percent in PPP terms at 19 percent of world economic output. The US possesses over 40 trillion in debt and sluggish GDP growth at an average of just two percent per year. Furthermore, while China is the top trading partner for over 150 countries, the US is just top trading partner to 57.
Politically, the US empire’s mask has fully come off. Over the centuries of its existence, this mask had to be powerful enough to provide cover and legitimacy to an economic system rooted in slavery and genocide. No longer. The ascendency of Donald Trump and his openly dehumanizing rhetoric is the byproduct of the American exceptionalism and its mythology withering away. Distrust in the US of both the government and its corporate-owned, military-aligned media is at all time high (as opposed to China, which has seen public trust in government rise to levels exceeding 90 percent). People both in the US and around the world no longer buy that Washington is an arbiter of universal values such as freedom, liberty, and democracy. Democracy for the few & exploitation and war for the many is the bare naked reality.
All of this has led to a shift in the balance of power. While the US’s control over global finance and trillion dollar military albatross can facilitate mass violence and suffering, it cannot stop the inevitable endgame of decline. The world is starving to be free. Whether it’s the unstoppable advance of the Yemeni people against US-backed Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rise to regional (and arguably global) power, or China & Russia’s leadership toward a more integrated and prosperous Eurasia, there is reason to believe that US hegemony is becoming a thing of the past.
We should not be naive and pretend that the last phase of US empire will be easier. The crises stemming from its decline are imposed the harshest on the most exploited and oppressed among us. They endanger the entire planet and the existence of humanity itself. This is not a time to dive into despair. It’s a time to stand up and confront the crisis before us. Along the way, we can and should appreciate the efforts that billions of people are making to build a new and better world.
And find ways to harness our abilities and skills to get involved in these efforts, too.
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.