Bloomberg: The U.S. has entered its aging, endangered Hegemon Era

President Donald Trump promised a golden age. Instead, he has ushered in a period of pervasive strategic peril. Just 19 months into his presidency, America’s military is overtaxed, its alliances are strained, and its adversaries are emboldened. Threats of instability, even violent conflict, are surging simultaneously in several regions. The combination of Trumpian blunders with the entropy that often afflicts aging hegemons has thrust America into a danger zone it won’t easily escape, Bloomberg writes.

The first cause of that danger — a crisis of capability — comes as no surprise. For years, the gap between America’s military power and its global commitments has been expanding. Defense budgets have failed to keep up with the threats posed by revisionist actors — Russia, Iran, North Korea, and above all, China — that have intensified and coordinated their assaults. Yet if Trump inherited this condition of strategic insolvency, he has made it so much worse.

Operation Epic Fury was meant to take one adversary, Iran, off the global chessboard. Instead, it has left the Pentagon even more exposed. The war has burned through stocks of long-range weapons and defensive missiles. It has exhausted the US Navy, with no end in sight.

The Pentagon lacks the missile interceptors needed to limit damage to its forces if conflict with Tehran flares again. It lacks critical weapons it would need to wage a bigger war against Russia, if Moscow uses force in the Baltic region, let alone China, if Beijing settles scores with Taiwan. If major conflict were to erupt in the Western Pacific today, America’s overstretched, under-armed military faces a serious risk of defeat.

Trump has simultaneously heightened a second cause of danger — a crisis of credibility — through his mismanagement of US alliances. America’s friends in the Persian Gulf have been bewildered by the serial about-faces of Trump’s Iran policy and imperiled by a war that Washington started but can’t successfully end. Trump has undermined America’s European commitments, by trying to extort territory from longtime allies and threatening to abandon countries that displease him.

The signature strategic move of this administration was supposed to be a long-delayed Pacific pivot. But Trump’s policy has been incoherent. US officials urged Japan to clarify its stance in a potential Taiwan crisis — then expressed disapproval when Tokyo did just that. Trump has delayed vital arms sales to Taiwan, calling them a bargaining chip with China. He has downgraded military exercises with South Korea, citing various grievances with Seoul and his bizarre, imagined bonhomie with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Previous generations of leaders labored to convince US adversaries that America would defend its allies in a crisis. Trump often seems determined to prove that it won’t.

These two sources of danger could intersect with a third — a crisis of US political stability — as we approach high-stakes elections in 2026 and 2028. The US could well be consumed by internal traumas, if Trump tries to swing the vote through extralegal actions. Electoral upheaval could render America a wounded, distracted superpower just as threats grow more pronounced.

These problems defy easy fixes. Trump should stop tormenting US allies and detracting from the Pentagon’s efforts, through military exercises in the Baltic or Northeast Asia, to show solidarity with US friends. But he probably won’t. It’s critical to cease dissipating limited US resources with new, discretionary interventions — like the legacy-seeking campaign Trump has threatened against Cuba — and dividing the democratic world with his quixotic quest for Greenland. The prospects of the president heeding this advice are uncertain at best, even if the Democrats make gains in the midterm elections: Foreign policy is a domain the executive dominates.

America has entered a danger zone of global dimensions. It may be stuck there through Trump’s presidency and beyond.

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