The Gap Between Ambition and Capability
The United States remains committed to global primacy. That’s been a longstanding ambition that cuts across party lines inside the Beltway. Its security doctrines, diplomatic rhetoric and military posture continue to project the image of an indispensable nation whose umbrella guarantees the survival of allies from Europe to Asia. Yet beneath this facade, a widening gap has emerged between Washington’s strategic ambitions and its material capabilities.
This gap is reshaping international politics. Nations long subordinated to U.S. “leadership” are beginning to recognize both the dangers of dependence and the opportunities created by American retrenchment. What emerges is a world of fluidity and uncertainty. This world is dangerous because the erosion of U.S. credibility coincides with pressures for accelerated nuclear proliferation. Yet, from within these dangers there are promising possibilities. Spaces are emerging for new regional security architectures not defined by Washington.
The U.S., meanwhile, along with diminishing military capacity, has lost much of its ability to “win friends and influence people.” Its diplomacy increasingly leans on coercion, financial extraction and destabilisation. Its dependability, once the cornerstone of alliance systems, is now widely questioned as erratic and capricious policy making becomes de rigueur in Washington. The erosion of trust is not simply a perception problem; it is the natural outcome of Washington’s belligerence, capriciousness and inability to reconcile ambition with material limitation.
Tactical Retrenchment vs. Strategic Primacy
All that said, the U.S. is not retreating strategically. It continues to pursue primacy - containing China, deterring Russia, and sustaining global military projection. But it is retrenching tactically. That’s what the leaked draft defence strategy speaks to.
Material constraints are real. Hardheaded analysts like Michael Vlahos know just how decrepit the U.S. military industrial system has become. America’s industrial base struggles to replenish munitions. The so-called “12 day war” between Israel and Iran saw over 25% of US-made THAAD missiles spent, equivalent to 5-8 years of production. Even basics like 155mm shells cannot be ramped up, with production realities falling well short of ambitions. Supply chain vulnerabilities in terms of upstream dependencies (intermediate components and rare earth elements, in particular) is a real handbrake on capacity.
Political fatigue grows among a public skeptical of forever wars. These pressures push Washington to shift responsibility and risks onto allies. NATO members are pressed to spend more; Seoul, Tokyo and Canberra are asked to finance expanded basing arrangements; and Gulf partners amongst others are squeezed for economic concessions. All of this coercion delivers the public theatre of concessions, which ring hollow when scrutinised. Agreements are derided as “napkin trade deals”.
At the same time, Washington is turning to lower-cost instruments of influence. In Southeast Asia, it amplifies protests and civil society tensions, as seen in Indonesia and Nepal, to buy time and space without committing large-scale military resources. Similar dynamics have been in play in Georgia and elsewhere in Europe. This tactic may delay strategic erosion, but it deepens instability and mistrust.
America still wants to lead, but it no longer has the material capacity to guarantee stability or bear costs as it once did.
The Loss of Dependability
Dependability has always been the currency of U.S. alliances. During the Cold War, the nuclear umbrella was the ultimate reassurance: an American guarantee that deterred adversaries and anchored allies. But credibility is fragile. It requires that allies believe Washington will risk its own survival for theirs.
That belief is evaporating. In Asia, publics in South Korea and Japan increasingly doubt the U.S. would sacrifice Los Angeles or New York to defend Seoul or Tokyo. Taiwan, despite heavy American political and military courting, harbors similar suspicions. The experience of Ukraine reinforces the point: proxy wars are precisely that, where local populations pay the costs while sponsors calibrate involvement to avoid escalation. No Asian state wants to play the role of “the Asian Ukraine.”
The erosion of dependability creates new uncertainties for those previously dependent. As the nuclear umbrella fades in practical terms, states are driven to seek their own alternatives. For some, that means pursuing indigenous nuclear capabilities. For others, it means hedging with new partners. Either way, the world drifts toward proliferation and fragmentation.
Proliferation as a Rational Response
From the Middle East to East Asia, the logic of sovereign deterrence is gaining ground. Saudi Arabia has secured nuclear protection from Pakistan. Iran edges closer to its own nuclear capability under pressure. South Korea and Japan openly debate nuclear options.
These moves are not reckless but rational. They reflect the understanding that U.S. guarantees are conditional and capricious. Nuclear weapons, by contrast, provide certainty. The Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, once underpinned by U.S. leadership, is losing traction because Washington itself has undermined the trust on which it depended.
A paradox is starkly evident. While claiming to lead global non-proliferation, the U.S. is fueling proliferation by signaling unreliability, imposing transactional demands and recalibrating commitments. The result is a dangerous spiral in which nuclear weapons are increasingly viewed as the only reliable guarantor of sovereignty.
Asia as the Critical Test Case
Nowhere is this dynamic more consequential than in Asia. The region is home to some of the most volatile flashpoints - the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea - and to the most rapid rebalancing of global power, centered on China’s rise.
Recent developments on the peninsula illustrate the changing dynamics. North Korea’s abandonment of reunification as a policy goal opens the door to a new détente based on the recognition of two sovereign Koreas. But for such a détente to hold, Seoul must also relinquish its own reunification dream. This is politically and emotionally difficult, but it may be the precondition for building a new, stable order.
At the same time, Pyongyang enjoys formal defense treaties with two nuclear powers: China and Russia. By contrast, Seoul and Tokyo rely on a U.S. umbrella increasingly seen as porous. The asymmetry is obvious and destabilizing. It creates strong incentives for both South Korea and Japan to pursue sovereign deterrents or alternative arrangements.
If Washington cannot restore credibility, Asia may move toward a reconfigured security architecture that does not depend on the U.S. This could take many forms: bilateral accords, multilateral regional compacts or new nuclear-sharing arrangements. The key is that the region is no longer locked into a U.S.-centric framework.
Windows of Opportunity: Incremental Strategic Autonomy
For nations long subordinated to Washington, the current moment unleashes fear and anxiety for some while offering openings for strategic autonomy for others. These opportunities do not come in the form of dramatic breaks but in incremental steps.
South Korea debates nuclear weapons. Japan expands conventional strike capabilities and pushes the envelope in terms of remilitarisation. Saudi Arabia leverages Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Iran pursues enrichment despite sanctions. Across the Global South, states diversify partnerships, build indigenous capabilities and hedge against U.S. unpredictability.
These choices, once made, are path dependent. Small moves accumulate into irreversible trajectories. Washington may later attempt to reassert dominance, but it will find that allies no longer wish - or need - to return to full dependence.
America’s Self-Inflicted Weakness
The loss of dependability is a consequence of American behavior and a reality of diminishing material capability. This is cold hard reality asserting itself over figments of Beltway bellicosity.
In Washington, belligerence and capriciousness have replaced the subtle art of behind closed-doors persuasion. Washington has grown adept at coercion but inept at building trust. Allies see a partner that demands tribute, destabilises societies and shifts burdens while keeping the rhetoric of primacy intact. The U.S. is less a dependable ally and increasingly a bully with territorial ambitions. Just ask Greenland, Panama, Gaza and now Afghanistan.
This is why U.S. retrenchment, even if tactical, is interpreted as unreliability. Washington may intend to sustain primacy, but its methods alienate allies. Some respond with panic and fear, working desperately to keep Washington deeply engaged. Others see the writing on the wall, and are shaping towards alternative possibilities. In effect, America is accelerating the erosion of the very order it seeks to preserve.
Toward a Post-American Security Architecture
The world is in a period of fluidity and uncertainty. The gap between American ambition and capability cannot be bridged by rhetoric or coercion. As the U.S. retrenches tactically under material constraints, allies and client states gain openings to pursue autonomy. They are in many regards compelled to act. The space is an affordance that demands a response. Not doing so amplifies risk. These decisions, however small at first, reshape the strategic landscape in ways that Washington will find difficult to reverse.
In Asia, this is already visible. The credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella is eroding. New opportunities for détente and alternative security architectures are emerging. The risk is proliferation and instability; the opportunity is regional self-determination beyond Washington’s orbit.
Globally, the story is similar. From Riyadh to Seoul, from Tokyo to Tehran, nations once dependent on the U.S. are learning that survival cannot be outsourced. The U.S. has lost the art of winning friends and influencing people.
What comes next is not yet clear. But what’s certain is that the era of unquestioned American primacy is over. The future will be shaped not by Washington’s ambitions but by the choices of nations who, freed by the cracks in U.S. dominance, seize the chance to chart their own strategic paths. And underpinning these choices is the material reality of production systems and real resources.
