America’s Future: A Prosperous, Peaceful Nation, or a Bankrupt, Violent Empire?

May 7, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - The US is at a juncture faced with two choices. It can either manage a transition from global hegemon to a prosperous, peaceful nation working together as equals with all other nations, or it can double down on its continuation as a bankrupt, violent empire seeking continued control over all other nations. 

To answer the question as to which path the US will take requires understanding the structural features that underpin US hegemony in the first place. 

A System Built on Domination 

The current US system is predicated on global domination. 

The US dollar as the global reserve currency is what has allowed the US to accumulate a multi-trillion dollar debt and still maintain immense power and wealth not only within its borders but far beyond them. 

This resulting hegemony allows the US to set “global norms” regarding global trade, human rights, and the development of and control over key technologies - especially in terms of exercising immense hypocrisy and selective enforcement while doing so. 

It has also allowed the US to create a network of what it calls "security guarantees” in which US military forces occupy nations around the globe, from Europe and the Middle East, to Southeast and East Asia - predicated in principle on ensuring the security of these “allies,” but in practice simply serving as cover for what the US calls “power projection” - the ability of the US to exercise military aggression virtually anywhere on Earth at a moment’s notice.

Often this US “power projection” comes at the cost of the security of nations hosting US troops. 

The threat or use of US military aggression around the globe is essential for maintaining the US dollar as the global reserve currency and thus American hegemony overall. 

US military aggression serves to degrade or eliminate potential rivals and the alternative financial and monetary systems they inevitably seek to create to work their way out from under subordination to Wall Street and Washington. 

This has been US policy spanning decades - including from the end of the Cold War to today. 

The growing power of alternative systems across what many call the emerging multipolar world has forced the US to embark on not only unprecedented wars of aggression around the globe including wars and proxy wars against Venezuela, Russia, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran, but also unprecedented military spending with the current US military budget hovering around 1.5 trillion US dollars and growing. 

While at face value this appears to be unsustainable and irrational - there are several reasons why the US refuses to adopt a more rational course of policy. 

The US military industrial base is composed of immensely wealthy and influential corporations.  The US dominance stemming from the military aggression worldwide they enable, helps establish and expand monopolies across other US industries including big-oil, big-agriculture, the auto industry, big-pharmaceutical corporations, big-tech and many more. 

These industries together serve as the foundation of US economic, military, political, and informational power. Each corporation’s trajectory is guided by shareholder primacy - meaning each and every one of these corporations are required by law to constantly expand profit for its shareholders. 

Because perpetual growth is both irrational and unsustainable in a finite world, with a finite population, and finite resources - this creates structural necessities to constantly expand markets and growth at any cost - including through war, exploitation, predatory lending, and many more toxic practices. 

While this economic system drives the pursuit of US primacy around the globe, ideology serves as structural reinforcement - this includes the notion of “American exceptionalism” which insists the US is not only inherently superior to all other nations, but that it has a moral and even “divine” duty to assume global hegemony. 

Not only is perpetual growth within a finite system irrational and unsustainable - there are other external reasons the US pursuit of hegemony is dangerously unrealistic. 

China’s rise is driven by several core realities the US cannot readily change including the fact that China has a population over 4 times greater than the US thus a vastly larger workforce, a vastly larger industrial base, better infrastructure, deeper and better developed supply chains, a better education system producing millions more graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and growing military power - both conventional and nuclear - that make the application of US military aggression less and less likely to succeed in coercing or containing China. 

“What if…”

What if the US were to decide to abandon this irrational and unsustainable pursuit of global hegemony? 

Analysts imagine the US could achieve this by retreating to the Western Hemisphere, reshoring industrial capacity, auditing and cutting the US “defense” budget, shifting from global “power projection” to investing in domestic infrastructure, and rebuilding the strength of the US dollar on productivity rather than global military aggression. 

The US War for Energy Dominance Leads to Dominance Over Europe and Asia

May 3, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - The US war on Iran - at face value - appears to be a catastrophic tactical and strategic US failure demonstrating the limits of its military power and further exposing the limits of its military industrial capacity. 

However, just as with its still-ongoing proxy war on Russia in Ukraine, its inability to overwhelm targeted nations with outright military power distracts away from the many ways the US is still advancing its geopolitical objectives by other means. 

In Ukraine, the US has categorically failed in defeating Russian forces through its support of its Ukrainian proxies. However, it has used the war to lock Russia into an expensive, prolonged, high-intensity conflict that has demonstrably compromised Russian interests beyond Europe - especially regarding the 2024 collapse of Syria.

The war has also succeeded in cutting Europe off from cheap, reliable, and plentiful Russian energy and is placing Europe under increasing, and likely irreversible energy dependence on the United States. 

This energy dependence on the US obviously benefits US-based energy corporations financially but also enhances Washington’s strategic leverage or even outright control over Europe. This control is being used to successfully create a united front across Europe against Russia. 

In a similar manner - the US is using its war on Iran to strangle energy exports from the entire Middle East to Asia to decouple Asia from cheap, reliable, plentiful gas and oil and place it under US energy dependence, thus providing the US strategic leverage over Asia to create a similar united front against China. 

Decoupling Europe from Russian Energy Through War Was Planned 

In the 2019 RAND Corporation paper titled, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground,” a number of “economic” and “geopolitical” measures were laid out, designed to “extend” Russia and possibly precipitate a Soviet Union-style collapse like that which ended the Cold War.

Under “economic measures,” the paper lists “hinder petroleum exports,” “reduce natural gas exports and hinder pipeline expansions,” “impose sanctions,” and “enhance Russian brain drain.”   

The paper first argues that one of the main methods of implementing these measures is to expand US oil and gas production and its export to Europe. 

However, under a section titled, “likelihood of success," the paper explicitly admits:

“Reducing European peacetime consumption of Russian gas has a medium to low likelihood of success. Diversifying away from Russia is expensive, and projects might be difficult to accomplish.”  

It should be remembered that at the time, the US was already investing in LNG export facilities and even exporting LNG targeting markets in Europe - at a time US policymakers admitted it made no financial or economic sense to do so. 

However, the paper was far from finished. Under “geopolitical measures,” the paper lists first and foremost, “provide lethal aid to Ukraine.” 

The paper admits that: 

“Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.”

In other words, by providing lethal aid to Ukraine - which the US began doing under the first Trump administration - the US would be knowingly attempting to provoke a war with Russia in Ukraine. 

Not only would the resulting war generate high costs for Russia militarily, it would also obviously transform the chief obstacle to reducing/hindering Russian oil/gas exports and expanding US LNG exports - that chief obstacle being “peacetime” - into unending wartime.

Why the US is at War with Iran and Why the War Might Pause but Won’t End

April 28, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - While much discussion of the US war of aggression against Iran has focused on regional-specific factors including the myth the US is fighting Iran on “behalf of Israel,” there are far more realistic and important global factors that have led to the war and will unfold because of it.

The war on Iran is part of a decades-spanning US project to assume complete control over the Middle East and the oil and gas that is produced and exported from the region. This is not as a means of taking the energy for the United States’ own use, but to establish and enhance a US monopoly over energy production and exports from the US itself and from the nations and regions the US is assuming control over.

This includes most recently Venezuela in Latin America. The early 2026 US war of aggression against the Venezuelan state, kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, and the taking hostage of the remaining Venezuelan government led to the almost immediate cutting of Venezuelan oil exports to China and the distribution of Venezuelan oil wealth to US corporations. 

A similar war of aggression by the US against Russia through Ukraine is also quickly expanding into a war directly against Russian energy production, storage, and export infrastructure through the use of drones that - while attributed to Ukraine - the New York Times has revealed is actually overseen by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US military.

Likewise the US is encouraging its European proxies under a “division of labor” to expand maritime tracking, interdiction, and seizure of tankers carrying Russian energy exports, as well as a US campaign using maritime drones to attack the tankers. Again, the NYT has identified the US CIA and US military as having "supercharged" what are nominally claimed to be “Ukrainian” operations. 

Together with the war on Iran, a clear, global pattern emerges of what is the deliberate US disruption, destruction, and even shutting down of energy exports to Asia in general, but to China specifically. 

While the US was likely also attempting to quickly topple the Iranian government to enhance its control over the region and further isolate both Russia and China, a much wider and more global-focused objective was to cut off energy not just from Iran to Asia and specifically China, but from the entire Middle East to Asia and China.

The most recent phase of US aggression against Iran - beginning in late February and as a continuation of violence launched against Iran in both 2025 under the Trump administration and even 2024 at the end of the Biden administration - involved targeting Iranian energy production as well as strikes on Kharg Island - Iran’s key energy export facility.

US strikes on Iranian energy production led to retaliatory strikes by Iran on America's Pesian Gulf Arab state proxies including Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. 

Collectively, this violence led to reduced production across the entire region subsequently leading to lower energy exports of gas and oil from the entire Middle East to China when compared with pre-war levels.

From the late-February start of hostilities to the recent ceasefire agreement, energy exports from the entire region to China dropped from approximately 52% of China's total imported needs to around 30%, according to Reuters. 

A March 2026 Politico article makes it clear that beyond just China’s dependence on the region for energy, Asia as a whole depends on energy imports from the Middle East for between 70% to 90%+ of their total energy import needs - especially US proxies like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and the island province of Taiwan. 

Isolating China, Controlling Asia 

Just as the US had previously done to Europe through its instigation of war with Russia in Ukraine, the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, and the implementation of sanctions on all other energy imports from Russia - and now including the striking of Russian energy production, storage, export facilities and actual tankers carrying Russian energy exports - all of this forcing Europe into energy dependence on US exports - the US is now pursuing a similar policy targeting China and the rest of Asia by deliberately disrupting access to Middle East energy exports. 

Western Media Hails More Ukraine “Wonder Weapons” That Russia Also Has

April 7, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - The Western media has shifted much of its attention toward the most recently launched US war of aggression in the Middle East against Iran - but corners of the Western media remain dedicated to shaping public perception regarding many other fronts along the US’ global war on multipolarism, including the ongoing US proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. 

Familiar propaganda formulas continue to be utilized to keep these other, older wars raging as the US escalates around the globe elsewhere, including claims of new “wonder weapons” given to or developed by Ukraine. 

Ranging from M777 artillery pieces, to HIMARS, Patriot missile systems, F-16s, and ATACMS - each weapon platform was introduced as a “gamechanger” that would shift Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield despite the same media also insisting Ukraine was already “winning.” 

What many of these articles leave out, however, is even more important than what they present to audiences. 

Ukraine’s Robotic Wonder Weapons 

A recent surge in stories about Ukrainian “ground robots” is now following this familiar pattern. 

The Guardian in its article, “‘The frontline is like Terminator’: fighting robots give Ukraine hope in war with Russia,”  is just one of many articles claiming Ukraine is transforming into a “centre for the development of unmanned weapons,” implying unparalleled expertise possessed by Ukraine regarding aerial drones and now “ground” or “land robots.” 

The Guardian insists Ukraine’s expertise is so immense that it is “highly sought after” even amid Washington’s latest war against Iran - claiming Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among several Persian Gulf states that have signed a 10-year defense agreement with Ukraine “to provide them with low-cost Ukrainian interceptors.”  

What the Guardian fails to mention is the fact that the deal involves technology sharing, factory construction, and localized production in the Middle East that will take years to manifest into actual military capabilities for these Persian Gulf states, implying that Ukraine itself lacks a surplus in drone production as it struggles on the battlefield against Russia.  

The article is - however - primarily about UGVs (unmanned ground vehicles) and how they have filled every combat role along the frontline from infantry and engineering, to logistics and medical evacuations. 

Buried deep in the article, almost at the very end, it makes an admission that, “Russia also makes extensive use of ground systems.”

What the article does not say is that Russia is producing many times more unmanned weapons of all kinds, from drones to ground vehicles, in quantities the collective West’s collective military industrial production cannot match.

The US War on Iran is a US War on Multipolarism

April 3, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - The US war of aggression launched against Iran on February 28, 2026 is only the most recent US aggression launched to undermine and dismantle the multipolar world. The US has not only threatened the existence of Iran as a nation state as well as the security of the entire Middle East, but the death and destruction it has caused has already begun to radiate out across the world in terms of disrupted or destroyed energy exports and rapidly unraveling economic stability.

 

The US - being energy independent itself - has forced much of the world into an American energy monopoly - having placed sanctions on Russian energy exports and now either seizing, disrupting, or destroying all other potential competitors. 

This includes a US invasion of Venezuela just earlier this year, kidnapping the Venezuelan president and holding the remaining government hostage while openly seizing the nation’s natural resources - including oil - for the US itself. 

The current US war of aggression against Iran is not only targeting Iranian energy production but has resulted in regional conflict damaging or destroying energy production across the Persian Gulf altogether. . 

Because the US produces nowhere near the amount of oil and LNG required to make up for disrupted or destroyed energy production and exports from the Middle East, this will result in global energy shortages and subsequent collapses in both industry and consumer demand. 

The world which had been collectively rising above and beyond the reach of US primacy now faces the prospect of being deliberately destabilized and dragged down by the US. 

The US itself, incapable of competing within the very world order it created following the World Wars, has decided to use its remaining military, economic, financial, and political strength to demolish it in the hope of emerging from the settling debris once again “strongest.” 

Far from an obscure theory, this is an observation made even by Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who in a recent interview would say that, “the events in Latin America and the Middle East directly stem from the West’s attempts to preserve the remnants of its dominance,” and that, “the elites of Western countries, continue to invest whatever political and economic resources they have left in their confrontation with our country.” 

Far from a last minute plan, the US spent much of the 21st century preparing not only for the now ongoing war with Iran but also its ongoing proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and its growing encirclement of China in the Asia-Pacific region - targeting all of multipolarism’s major pillars and many in between. 

On the Path to Persia 

To encircle and weaken Iran, the US invaded Afghanistan to its east and Iraq to its west in 2001 and 2003 respectively under the Bush Jr. administration. During that same administration, the US began preparing armies of extremists to wage proxy war against Iran and its regional allies including Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the nation of Syria, and Ansar Allah in Yemen.