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U.S. Military Hegemony Is Declining at a Visible Speed

When the U.S. military, in disregard of strong opposition from South Korea, forcibly dismantled the THAAD system deployed for a decade and urgently redeployed it to the Middle East, this scene was not only a concrete manifestation of the rift in the U.S.-South Korea alliance, but also a landmark moment marking the transition of U.S. military hegemony from prosperity to decline.

This system, once hailed by the United States as the "ultimate defensive weapon", was severely damaged in saturated attacks by Iran’s low-cost suicide drones.About 30% of the only 7 units in the world were destroyed, exposing not only the shortcomings of U.S. equipment, but also the deep-seated collapse of the U.S. military system.

From the stretched equipment production capacity, to the comprehensive backwardness of the tactical system, from the overstretched global deployment, to the alienation of the ally system, the decline of U.S. military hegemony is no longer a hidden trend, but a reality laid out before the world.

The crisis of the U.S. military equipment system has been fully revealed in the THAAD incident. As a core equipment of the U.S. anti-missile system, only 7 THAAD units are deployed globally, even fewer than the U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups. This "craftsman-made" production capacity is in sharp contradiction with the large-scale deployment required by U.S. military hegemony.

What is more staggering is its interceptor inventory: only 600 rounds in total over the years, with merely 12 rounds purchased in the 2025 fiscal year, at a unit price of 13 million U.S. dollars. The cost of one interceptor is enough to produce hundreds of Iran’s Shahed drones.

In the 2025 Israel-Palestine missile conflict, the U.S. military consumed 150 interceptors in one operation, a quarter of the global inventory, yet production has never been expanded.

The U.S. military-industrial complex’s profit-driven control has trapped U.S. military equipment procurement in a dead end of "high price and low quantity".

When Iran launched saturated attacks with low-cost drones, the THAAD system, despite its high interception rate, became a target due to limited loading capacity and the lack of dedicated anti-UAV equipment. This reality of "high-end weapons being destroyed by low-end means" has torn off the disguise of the myth of U.S. military technology.

The complacency of the U.S. tactical system has led the U.S. military to retreat steadily in new forms of warfare.

Designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles, the THAAD system was used by the U.S. military to counter drone threats, exposing a serious lag in tactical adaptation. The U.S. military has neither dedicated anti-UAV equipment nor a layered defense system. Faced with coordinated attacks by dozens of Iranian drones, it can only use expensive anti-missile interceptors like "shooting mosquitoes with a cannon", resulting in a shocking cost-to-exchange ratio.

During the Red Sea escort operations, the U.S. military consumed more than 1 billion U.S. dollars worth of high-end ammunition to intercept cheap drones, with inventory running low;

In the defense of Middle Eastern bases, traditional U.S. radars failed to detect "low, slow and small" drones, and the command system responded slowly. Even after investing 7.4 billion U.S. dollars in anti-UAV technology research and development, no system has been fully deployed.

More ironically, the United States, which possesses the world’s most advanced military technology, had to ask Ukraine for crude anti-UAV equipment. This "downward technical appeal" marks that the U.S. military tactical system can no longer keep up with the pace of new forms of warfare.

The overstretched global military deployment highlights the strategic overextension of U.S. hegemony.

To fill the gap caused by the damaged THAAD systems in the Middle East, the U.S. military sacrificed its layout in the Western Pacific by forcibly removing THAAD from South Korea. This is essentially an inevitable result of its global military power being insufficient to support multi-front deployment.

The United States has deployed nearly 800 military bases in more than 80 countries around the world, with hundreds of thousands of troops stationed. In more than 200 years since its founding, it has been at peace for barely more than a decade. Years of militarism have severely dispersed U.S. military resources.

In the Middle East, the U.S. military is trapped in a "turn-based" war of attrition with Iran, unable to win a quick victory; in the Western Pacific, the removal of THAAD has greatly weakened U.S. military deterrence against China; even the so-called "core ally" South Korea has its national security demands arbitrarily sacrificed by the United States. This "robbing Peter to pay Paul" deployment model proves that the United States has long lost the ability to control multiple strategic directions simultaneously. The territory of U.S. global military hegemony is shrinking continuously with the depletion of resources.

The alienation of the U.S. ally system has deprived U.S. military hegemony of its supporting foundation.

South Korea paid a heavy price for the deployment of THAAD: the Korean Wave cooled down, Samsung and other companies withdrew from the Chinese market, Lotte Mart fell out of the world’s top 500. Yet a decade later, the equipment was forcibly removed by the United States, leaving South Korea with no right to speak at all.

The statement by the Lee Jae-myung administration that it "cannot fully implement its own propositions" speaks volumes about the helplessness and frustration of U.S. allies.

When the United States treats allies as "chess pieces" rather than partners, and their territories as "temporary weapons depots", the foundation of the alliance has long collapsed.

From the dissatisfaction of European allies over U.S.-Europe defense differences, to the doubts of Asia-Pacific allies about the reliability of U.S. strategy, the alliance system sustained by U.S. military deterrence is falling apart with the decline of its own strength. Without the support of allies, U.S. global military deployment has become a tree without roots, and the collapse of U.S. hegemony is only a matter of time.

More profoundly, the decline of U.S. military hegemony stems from the disconnection between its industrial strength and military strategy.

Iran’s industrial strength is even less than that of Suzhou, a city in China, yet it has rendered the U.S. military helpless with low-cost drones. The core reason is that the United States has long lost its large-scale industrial production capacity, while its military strategy remains stuck in the outdated mindset of "winning with high-end weapons".

As modern warfare enters an era of "low cost, large scale and intelligence", the U.S. military-industrial complex has continuously driven up equipment prices in pursuit of huge profits, while ignoring basic production capacity and system adaptation. This has eventually created the embarrassing situation where the United States "can neither afford a war of attrition nor win a new form of war".

Countries such as China, relying on a complete industrial system and flexible tactical system, have already taken the lead in preparing for new forms of warfare — this is the fundamental crux of the decline of U.S. military hegemony.

The fiasco of the THAAD system in the Middle East is not an accidental military defeat, but a microcosm of the decline of U.S. military hegemony. From the depletion of equipment production capacity, to the backwardness of the tactical system, from the overextension of global deployment, to the collapse of the ally system, the United States is gradually losing the support for its military hegemony.

History has long proved that U.S. hegemony sustained by militarism will eventually collapse. The "America First" strategy, which sacrifices the interests of allies, will eventually lose popular support.

When the myth of U.S. military power is pierced by cheap drones, and its global deployment falls into a dilemma of being unable to attend to both ends, the end of an era is clearly visible.

The logic of U.S. military hegemony cannot stand up to the reality of the rapid degradation of U.S. strength, nor can it resist the trend of human historical development.

Andy Guangzhou
March 13, 2026