[Column] In an era of waning US hegemony, NE Asia needs the status quo

all > International[Column] In an era of waning US hegemony, NE Asia needs the status quoPosted on : 2026-07-29 10:33 KST Modified on : 2026-07-29 10:33 KSTFacebook 페이스북Twitter 트위터Add as preferred source on GoogleThe shift toward a multipolar world order doesn’t necessarily signify the end of American hegemony — and we should take pains not to conflate the two US President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference during the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on July 8, 2026. (EPA/Yonhap) It has become fashionable of late for pundits to predict the end of American hegemony.The essential feature of hegemony is having the power, whether tangible or intangible, to bend other countries to your will.

But the US has failed to force Iran to accept its terms for ending the war. It has also failed to convince its allies to join operations in the Strait of Hormuz. Indeed, several NATO member states have rejected US requests to use their bases and fly through their airspace.

At the beginning of his second term, US President Donald Trump glibly pledged to bring Russia’s war against Ukraine to a swift end. But the fighting has dragged on.These are all signs that the US’ global hegemony is weakening.

But we may be mistaken to conflate that with the end of American hegemony.The US’ current predicament is less due to a shortage of hard power than to blind faith in that power, as well as unrealistic assumptions and greed that lead to its misuse.We’ve seen such behavior before.

After jumping on dubious claims about an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin as an excuse to join the Vietnam War, the US believed it could force North Vietnam to yield through its overwhelming military force and the threat of nuclear weapons.There were also fears that letting South Vietnam fall to communism would set the stage for communists taking over one Southeast Asian country after another under the so-called domino theory. But even after the defeated Americans left Vietnam, the dominoes never fell.

Fast forward three decades. In 2003, the US, aided by the UK, launched its invasion of Iraq. The US justified its attack with the claim that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction — a claim that soon proved false.

Nevertheless, the US sought to use its occupation to install a friendly government. Despite the US’ quick declaration of victory in the Iraq War, defiant rebels mounted a fierce insurgency that dragged the US into a military quagmire.That was actually a second quagmire for the US, given the prolongation of the war in Afghanistan, which the US had invaded prior to Iraq.

The Vietnam War and the Iraq War had something in common: the US had initiated them both unilaterally, trampling on international norms and disregarding international opinion. Neither of those wars was authorized by the UN Security Council.As a result, a substantial number of American allies turned their backs on the US.

The US was saddled with the massive cost of prosecuting those wars and the potential collapse of its network of alliances, prompting many to predict American decline.An instructive comparison can be made with the Gulf War in the early 1990s. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the US guided the debate in the UN Security Council and mobilized its allies to push Iraq out of Kuwait.

Furthermore, the goal of the Gulf War was not occupying Iraq and deposing Hussein, but liberating Kuwait, driving back the Iraqi forces, and weakening the Hussein regime through powerful economic sanctions.Given the war’s clear rationale and limited goals, the US was able to convince numerous allied countries to stand with it. It was after the Gulf War that many proclaimed that the world was entering an American era.

As this suggests, the US was able to achieve victory in the Gulf War not solely through its strength, but also because it set limited goals and paid heed to international norms and opinion.In contrast, the US’ failure in the Iraq War was the self-inflicted result of making the opposite choices.When the Great Recession struck just a few years later, some commentators spoke of the end of American hegemony, but that didn’t happen.

Numerous countries in the global community still needed the US, and after Obama became president, the US demonstrated its resilience.But the outbreak of two major wars — Russia’s war against Ukraine and the current crisis in the Middle East — is once again leading some to declare the end of the American era. At the heart of both these wars is American avarice and misjudgment.

The US continued to expand NATO, breaking pledges made to Russia at the end of the Cold War. NATO even made unmistakable overtures to Ukraine.While that was not an inevitable casus belli for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it certainly stoked Russia’s concerns over its strategic environment.

When the Russian invasion was imminent, the US explicitly ruled out direct intervention, in effect acting as a bystander. That reflected the US’ strategic calculations about weakening