Has the United States overextended itself? Could the Iran war be the inflection point that marks the beginning of the end of US global hegemony, as WWII marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire? – Minhaz Merchant
The Second World War brought the British Empire to its knees. Exhausted and in deep debt, a colonial empire built over three centuries unravelled within three decades. India, plundered for 190 years, was the first major British colony to win freedom in 1947. By the 1970s, the British Empire was disbanded, barring a few islands in the Atlantic and Pacific.
The Soviet Empire suffered a similar fate. In 1979, its 21 internal and satellite states—from Ukraine and Kazakhstan to Poland and Hungary—lay at the doorstep of Western Europe. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 ended in disarray and defeat in 1989. By 1991, the Soviet Empire had collapsed, the victim again of war, shrinking from 21 states to just one: the Russian Federation.
Are we seeing history repeat itself in the United States? America inherited the mantle of the British Empire. Just as Britain had waged ceaseless colonial wars, the US has waged ceaseless neo-colonial wars. It built a formidable military machine to inflict conflicts globally, from Latin America and the Middle East to the Balkans in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
Has it overextended itself? Could the Iran war be the inflection point that marks the beginning of the end of US global hegemony, as WWII marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire?
To answer that question, examine the second ingredient of a declining empire: debt. US public debt crossed $40 trillion in August 2026. America’s six-month-long war in Iran is not the only—or even the principal—reason for this debt. It is a result of the accumulation of debt caused both by multiple wars and playing global hegemon that has doubled US debt from $20 trillion to $40 trillion over the past 10 years. Donald Trump has been president for nearly six of those 10 years.
Trump shrugs off the debt as part of the role the US plays in the world. But he realises that the cost of servicing the debt, now $1 trillion a year in interest payments, is unsustainable. It is more than the US defence budget. Worse, the federal budget deficit at $1.8 trillion is over 25 per cent of the $7 trillion US annual budget. The argument that the US Treasury can simply print dollars, the world’s reserve currency, to pay debt raises the spectre of inflation, making the policy unworkable.
As a businessman who bankrupted the real estate empire he inherited from his father during a disastrous 40-year career, Trump knows the fatal consequences of debt. His trade tariffs were an early indication that Trump knew America’s finances were precarious. But import tariffs hurt US businesses and consumers, not other countries, as the refunds mandated by the Supreme Court have highlighted. Trump has recognised the problem—national debt—but, as in his business career, he has used the wrong remedy to fix it.
By cutting down on military exercises with South Korea and making NATO members, in effect, subsidise US contributions to the alliance, Trump is trying to save money by scrimping instead of undertaking a wholesale reduction of America’s global military role. The US has over 750 large and small military bases in 80 countries. By withdrawing America’s only aircraft carrier, USS George Washington, from the South Pacific last month, Trump sent a clear message: America can’t police the world anymore—just as Britain realised 80 years ago it couldn’t run a colonial empire any longer. Its treasury had been emptied by the war with Germany and its old colonial revenue was running out, leaving Britain in deep debt.
By restricting the US military role largely to the Western hemisphere—North, Central and South America—as well as keeping a presence in the energy-rich Gulf, Trump hopes to cut expenditure in Western Europe and Southeast Asia. That gives Russia a free pass in Europe and China a free pass in the Indo-Pacific. It effectively shrinks America into a continental power. That, however, doesn’t solve America’s debt problem. Shifting resources from South Korea to the Middle East won’t make a material difference to the US budget deficit of $1.8 trillion or its public debt of $40 trillion.
In 1776, when America became independent, it had just 13 colonial settlements in the northeast. It expanded to 30 states by 1850, adding California as the 31st state in 1850, and finally to the 50 states that make up the United States today.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan warned America against foreign wars and profligacy. US debt then had just crossed $1 trillion. Its GDP was $4.5 trillion. The debt-GDP ratio had climbed to 22 per cent. President Reagan said in a televised speech: “If we as a nation needed a warning, let that be it.” Today, on $40 trillion debt, US GDP is $32 trillion. The debt-GDP ratio is 125 per cent.
According to Euronews, “The US federal budget deficit is projected to reach $1.9 trillion in 2026, equivalent to 5.8 per cent of GDP. However, an August update shows that the deficit had already reached $1.8 trillion in the first 10 months of fiscal 2026, which runs from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned in February 2026 that the US fiscal trajectory is unsustainable. According to its forecast, gross federal debt will reach approximately $64 trillion by the end of 2036.”
That could be the inflection point when, as the British Empire did a century ago, the American Empire begins to unravel. – Firstpost, 27 August 2026
› Minhaz Merchant is an editor, author and publisher.
Filed under: USA, world | Tagged: donald trump, US budget, US hegemony ends, US imperialism, US public debt |
BHARATA BHARATI 