Original by Andy Guangzhou
Civilian Expert on China–Middle East Affairs
All Rights Reserved. No media may reproduce or translate without authorization.
As the long river of history surges into the third decade of the 21st century, the once-overwhelming American hegemony is visibly sinking into its twilight. This is no accidental turbulence, but a total rotting of the empire’s body, from marrow to skin; this is no temporary low tide, but the inevitable last glimmer before the global hegemonic system collapses entirely. From the fragmentation of its internal society, to the militarism of its external hegemony, to the steady retreat of its global influence, the United States is burying itself in the graveyard of hegemony, heading for an inevitable dusk.
I. Internal Decay: Incurable Diseases of the Empire’s Body
The decline of America originates first in the total collapse of its internal order. This nation, which boasts of being a “city upon a hill” and a “beacon of democracy,” has long had its foundations hollowed out by layers of social ills, reduced to a quagmire of contradictions, division, and confrontation.
Drug abuse has become a national plague. From the urban slums on the East Coast to the rural towns on the West Coast, drugs have spread like a plague everywhere. The abuse of opioids has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives; drug trafficking breeds violent crime; countless families have been torn apart. Yet the government, held captive by capital, is helpless, allowing drugs to erode the physical and mental health of its people—a festering sore that will never heal on the nation’s body.
Gun violence is the Sword of Damocles hanging over every American. Campuses, supermarkets, churches, streets—nowhere is safe from potential shootings. Innocent children fall in classrooms, ordinary people die in daily life. Frequent mass shootings are no longer accidents, but the norm under a dysfunctional system and the capture of special interests. Those in power, indulging in the influence of gun capital, disregard the dignity of life, making “safety” a distant dream for the American people.
Social division and protests have become daily life. The scars of racism remain unhealed after a century; the chasm of class solidification is unbridgeable. From “Black Lives Matter” to waves of protests in all walks of life, people take to the streets to vent their grievances, social consensus has vanished, and the so-called “democracy and freedom” have become a fig leaf for division and confrontation. The government cannot bridge differences, allowing society to consume itself in constant conflict, draining the empire’s last remaining cohesion.
Economic ills strike directly at its roots. Inflation remains high, living costs keep rising, and the purchasing power of ordinary people continues to shrink. Unemployment is rampant; the bottom strata struggle to survive; the middle class shrinks; wealth is highly concentrated in a handful of oligarchs, and the gap between rich and poor has hit historic extremes. Deeper still, deindustrialization has collapsed America’s manufacturing foundation. Its real economy is sluggish, over-reliant on the virtual financial economy, creating top-heavy and fragile economic structures. Once a great industrial power, it now sees widespread rust belts, closed factories, lost jobs, and a sharp decline in national resilience. The collapse of its internal economy is the solid footnote to the decline of its hegemony.
Internal decay continues unabated, with social problems piling up and worsening. This is not partial governance failure, but fundamental decay and failure of the imperial system. When a nation cannot even guarantee the safety and basic livelihood of its own people, its so-called hegemony is nothing but a castle in the sand.
II. External Hegemony: Crimes Against Humanity Dyed in Blood
Incapable of governing its people’s livelihood at home, it resorts to militarism abroad. The United States shifts its internal contradictions onto the world, committing aggression in the name of hegemony. Its hands are stained with the blood of people worldwide, having committed countless unforgivable crimes against humanity.
For decades, under the pretext of “democracy” and “human rights,” the United States has wantonly trampled on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries, bombing civilian communities, schools, and hospitals, bringing war and disaster to countless sovereign nations. From the blatant assassination of foreign leaders to the illegal kidnapping of political figures, it has ignored the basic norms of international law and the equality of sovereign states, reduced the international community to its own “backyard,” replaced justice with power, crushed righteousness with violence, and completely torn apart the veil of international law and world order.
In the Middle East, a land long torn by war, the United States has become the greatest source of war and turmoil. Its troops are stationed there nominally to “maintain security,” but in reality, they secretly cultivate forces, sow discord, steal intelligence, and act as the hidden hand behind regional conflicts. Even more outrageous, the United States acts as a staunch shield for Israeli militarism. Ignoring international law and human conscience, it tolerates Israel’s crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people—blockades, bombings, expulsions. It turns a blind eye to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and is indifferent to the deaths of innocent civilians. Using hegemonic power to shield evil, it stands on the opposite side of justice and conscience of humanity.
America’s external hegemony has never been about “upholding world order,” but a tool to plunder global resources, control global geography, and safeguard its own self-interest. It creates refugees with war, hatred with hegemony, and division with interference, dragging countless countries into the abyss of war and displacing hundreds of millions of people. Such hegemony, built on blood and plunder, runs against the tide of human development and the common aspiration of the world’s people for peace and development. It is destined to lose its moral foundation and become a public enemy of the world, despised by all.
III. The Paper Tiger Unmasked: Powerlessness and Collapse in the Twilight of Hegemony
Once, the United States paraded itself as the world’s number one military power, arrogant and overbearing, attempting to dominate the globe through military hegemony. Today, this outwardly strong but inwardly weak military facade has been pierced layer by layer, exposing its true nature as a paper tiger.
In the Middle East, Iran, with a firm anti-hegemony stance, has repeatedly exposed the bluff of American military hegemony. From military standoffs to geopolitical games, the United States dares not easily resort to force and cannot control the situation. Its once-unquestionable military deterrence has become empty threats. Troops stationed in the Middle East are mired in quagmires, deterrence ineffective, caught between a rock and a hard place. The once-dominant military hegemony now shows only decline and embarrassment in the face of resistance and awakening of regional nations.
This is not a partial defeat, but a microcosm of the overall decline of global military hegemony. Overseas garrisons cost huge sums of money yet become triggers for regional turmoil; military deterrence no longer works; allies grow estranged and partners go their own way; militarism has drained national strength, and military expansion has created a vicious cycle with internal decay, stripping American military hegemony of its former edge. The so-called “super military power” is nothing but a paper tiger—gold-plated outside, rotten within, seemingly fierce, but actually strong in appearance only and weak in reality.
Globally, the tide of multi-polarity surges forward. Emerging nations rise, developing countries awaken, and the world’s people’s
and resistance against hegemonism have reached their peak. The United States attempts to confront multilateralism with unilateralism, and fairness and justice with hegemonic bullying. Acting against the historical trend, it is destined to be abandoned by the times.IV. The Final Chapter of History: Hegemony Buried, Twilight Ends
The wheel of history rolls forward. There has never been an eternal empire, nor an unshakable hegemony. From the total decay of internal society, to the heinous crimes of external hegemony, to the complete failure of military deterrence, America’s path of hegemony has reached its end.
This is the inevitable fate of hegemonism, the final retribution for militarism, the unavoidable end of acting against the tide of history. Internal contradictions cannot be reconciled, external crimes cannot be washed away, global resistance cannot be suppressed. The once global empire is stepping step by step into the graveyard of hegemony that it dug itself.
The afterglow of hegemony will eventually fade; the dusk of empire is destined to end. The world will not be controlled by hegemony forever. The common values of humanity—peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, freedom—will eventually replace the old order of power politics. When American hegemony vanishes into thin air, history will deliver its most just verdict: all empires sustained by plunder, violence, and hegemony will turn to dust; only forces that follow the trend of the times and benefit the people of the world can endure forever in the long river of history.
Hegemony is dead. Dusk has come. Above the graveyard of empires, a new world of multi-polarity, fairness, and justice is rising.