The sight of the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln retreating eastwards in the Arabian Sea was not merely an isolated military event. For students of imperial history, it represented a dramatic moment of exposure, almost a visual representation of a process of erosion that may no longer be reversible.
The United States, as the latest maritime empire in a succession that included the Dutch and British empires, built its post-Second World War dominance on one essential pillar: control of the high seas and strategic waterways.
Washington understood the importance of this principle as early as 1790 and eventually rose to global supremacy through two major advantages: a financial system that exercised enormous influence over the world economy through the petrodollar, and overwhelming technological superiority.
Both pillars, however, have begun to shake. The first is being challenged by threats surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and their implications for the petrodollar system, while the second faces the rapid technological rise of China.
Empires share governing patterns similar to the human life cycle. Decline and mortality are built into their existence. Ibn Khaldun described the stages through which states pass, and only a few have historically succeeded in renewing themselves, as the Chinese and ancient Egyptian civilisations sometimes did.
The American empire is no exception. Since inheriting leadership of the Western order after the Second World War, internal forces of erosion have accumulated within it like autoimmune diseases. The Hormuz war has exposed them with unusual clarity.
The Military-Industrial Complex: Eisenhower’s Warning Realised
In his historic farewell address on 17 January 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the “unwarranted influence” of the military-industrial complex in “every city, every state house, every office of the federal government”.
He warned that “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists”, adding that Americans must “never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes”.
That warning has been fully realised in the war on Iran, where acute shortages of advanced munitions exposed a damaging transformation in the United States: the abandonment of state-run military production in favour of private companies whose profits increasingly shape the business of war.
Between April 2025 and February 2026, the United States lost 89,000 manufacturing jobs. The sector shed more than 90,000 jobs during 2025, marking its third consecutive year of contraction.
The US share of global industrial output has fallen to just 17%, compared with around 25% in 1990.
This inability to match Iran’s low-cost, state-produced munitions, deployed in overwhelming quantities, forced Washington to confront a reality it recognised too late: it had become dependent on an industrial complex that drains national resources rather than protecting them.
The Zionist Factor: A Parasite Draining the American Body
The Zionist factor is the most dangerous of all.
It is not a mutually beneficial dependency, but a systematic force of extraction that exploits the American state in the interests of “Israel”.
Documented reports indicate that “Israel” has conducted covert influence campaigns inside the United States and funded American influencers to attack politicians opposed to the war.
The more serious dimension, however, is the less visible financial drain.
Beyond annual US assistance, Israeli influence networks have pushed federal bodies, municipalities and American institutions towards purchasing Israeli treasury bonds with repayment periods extending as far as 50 years. The value of this financing is described as being roughly twice the scale of official assistance.
In January 2026, reports revealed that Palm Beach County in Florida had become the world’s largest municipal investor in “Israel” bonds, holding investments worth $1 billion, equivalent to 16% of its investment portfolio.
Florida’s state pension fund invests $350 million, while New York’s fund has committed a similar amount.
By July 2026, Palm Beach County’s investment had risen to $1.035 billion, with expected interest returns of $47.2 million over three years.
Florida is not alone. At least 35 US states and numerous smaller municipalities have invested billions of dollars in “Israel” bonds.
Arkansas invested $24.9 million, while under Florida law, “Israel” bonds are among the limited investments specifically authorised for public entities.
This largely unpublicised flow of financing makes the United States a financial partner in “Israel’s” wars, which have cost it more than $205 billion across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. It represents a concealed drain on the American economy that ultimately channels money into the treasury of a foreign state.
Within this context, US Vice President JD Vance’s position can be seen as evidence of a belated awakening.
On 16 July 2026, Vance publicly attacked “Israel”, accusing it of seeking to sabotage negotiations with Iran and of influencing US policy.
Vance also revealed Jeffrey Epstein’s links to Israeli intelligence and said figures within the Israeli government were “manipulating American public opinion and trying to steer American policy towards continuing the war indefinitely”.
His remarks reflect a fracture in the wall of unconditional US support for “Israel”, a fracture that could carry profound consequences.
Globalisation: The Collapse of the Middle Class and the Rise of Trump’s America
The globalisation model was not simply a mechanism for wealth accumulation by a narrow elite at the expense of the middle class. It also drove the relocation of American industry to South-East Asia, particularly China, producing deep social transformations inside the United States.
Heavy industry had once been concentrated across the “Rust Belt”, stretching through Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Between 2000 and 2010, those six states alone lost 1.8 million manufacturing jobs.
According to the World Trade Organization, the Rust Belt accounted for almost half of US exports in 1970. By 2020, southern states had overtaken it.
Over the past two decades, the United States has lost around six million factory jobs.
Manufacturing employment, which accounted for more than 30% of jobs in 1950, had fallen to below 15% by the late 1990s.
This transformation was intensified by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which contributed to the displacement of 683,000 jobs.
The result was an increasingly polarised American society: a diminished middle class, rising unemployment, illiteracy and the spread of Anglo-Saxon Protestant religious intolerance.
These are the states that now stand strongly behind Donald Trump, who appealed to their frustrations through the slogan “Make America Great Again”.
Rising Eurasian Powers: Brzezinski’s Warning Comes True
In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski warned of what he called “the most dangerous scenario”: a grand coalition involving China, Russia and perhaps Iran, an “anti-hegemonic” alliance united less by ideology than by complementary grievances.
That warning has now materialised.
China, Russia and Iran benefited significantly from American-led globalisation to develop their own scientific, intellectual, economic and military projects capable of challenging Western dominance.
Fareed Zakaria, in his 2008 book The Post-American World, argued that US supremacy was no longer guaranteed and that the international system was moving towards multipolarity.
Today, that transformation has become a tangible reality.
The Hormuz war was not simply a military confrontation. It revealed that the United States is no longer able to impose its will without serious resistance, and that rising Eurasian powers now possess the tools necessary to challenge Western hegemony.
The Moment of Truth: An American Admission of Defeat
On 22 July 2026, US intelligence assessments reportedly concluded that the latest wave of attacks on Iran had “done little to change Iran’s behaviour”.
Trump’s aides acknowledged that the administration was “in a bind”, facing two choices: escalate the conflict and risk depleting ammunition stockpiles, or withdraw and leave Iran in a “stronger strategic position than it has been in for decades”.
A US military officer said the administration was “refusing to admit defeat” in the hope that continued pressure would produce a better result.
But, he warned, “hope is not a strategy”.
Lessons Empires Fail to Learn
The erosion of the American empire is not merely a theoretical proposition. It is increasingly visible on battlefields, in economic data and within the fractures of domestic politics.
From Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex, to Brzezinski’s warning of a Eurasian coalition, to Fareed Zakaria’s account of a post-American world, influential voices repeatedly warned that US supremacy was not inevitable. It was a project that required constant renewal.
History, however, teaches that empires rarely learn their lessons before it is too late.
Just as the sight of the Abraham Lincoln withdrawing from Hormuz may remain etched in memory as a symbol of declining power, one question remains: will Washington recognise that the time has come to accept a new global reality based on multipolarity and shared power, or will it continue clinging to illusions of hegemony until the end, repeating the mistakes of the empires that came before it?
