The Middle East conflict is not yet over. The United States and Iran may be edging toward a diplomatic framework intended to halt the fighting, but the odds of renewed escalation remain high. Washington has continued limited strikes under the banner of self-defense, while Iran has responded with missile attacks on U.S. military facilities in Kuwait.
Yet the more important question is this: Why does the United States, still the world’s most powerful military power, appear so uncertain and hesitant? Why has Washington failed to decisively resolve the two central issues at the heart of this conflict — the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear ambitions?
Many observers explain this simply as the results of the impulsive and unpredictable personality of U.S. President Donald Trump. Certainly, Trump matters — but Trump himself is also a product of a deeper problem: The accumulated fatigue of a hegemonic power increasingly uncertain about the burdens and costs of maintaining the international order it once built and defended.
In “War and Change in World Politics,” Robert Gilpin warned long ago that hegemony is never cost-free. International public goods like freedom of navigation, financial stability, alliance systems and open trade routes survive only because someone bears the strategic burden. Over time, however, resistance inevitably grows within the hegemonic state itself. Questions emerge as people in those states ask, "Why must we continue paying the price for global order?"
To be fair, America’s allies have increased defense spending and security contributions in recent years. But after Iraq, Afghanistan and years of domestic polarization, strategic fatigue and isolationist sentiment have clearly taken root within American society. Trumpism did not arise in a vacuum.
The paradox remains unmistakable, though. The world still fears American retreat more than American power.
Hedley Bull argued in “The Anarchical Society” that although international society exists under conditions of anarchy, a certain degree of order has nonetheless been maintained through international law, shared norms, diplomatic practices and the stabilizing role of major powers. For all of America’s flaws, it remains difficult to deny that the United States is still the only country capable of managing the broader international order in any meaningful sense.
The Iran conflict has exposed how dangerous strategic miscalculation can become. Washington appears to have underestimated the Iranian regime and its capacity for endurance. As a result, the Strait of Hormuz was not addressed decisively enough in the early stages of the crisis, despite Tehran openly signaling for years that it viewed it as a strategic lever.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton recently warned that if the principle of free navigation in Hormuz is weakened, the consequences will extend far beyond the Gulf. Other strategic waterways like the Strait of Malacca, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles could eventually face similar geopolitical pressures. In that sense, this is no longer simply a Middle Eastern crisis but rather a challenge to the international maritime order itself.
Why did Washington fail to respond more decisively in the early stages of the conflict? Why was the United States unable to develop a more coherent strategy for a risk that had long been discussed and anticipated? This was not merely a military failure. It exposed how strategic uncertainty and unclear priorities can produce costly mistakes, even for the world’s most powerful state.
Source: Korea Times News
