Great powers rarely fall because they lack strength. More often, they decline because they misunderstand the nature of power itself.
Rome’s downfall was not caused by a single invasion but by structural overstretch. Rome expanded faster than it could integrate, govern and legitimize.
Britain’s decline happened when its imperial commitments outpaced its economic and political capacity. It was overextension combined with denial.
Imperial Japanese leadership mistook early successes for proof of long-term viability, underestimated adversaries’ endurance and overestimated its ability to force quick political outcomes. The result was a catastrophic collision.
They confuse reach with control, strength with sustainability and victory with legitimacy.
When capitalism defines foreign policy
The United States today remains the beacon of capitalism with the most formidable military and technological force. American capitalism is one of history’s most efficient engines of innovation and growth. But, sadly, it has also shaped the country’s strategic instincts in ways that are ill-suited to geopolitics. The United States approaches geopolitics the way it approaches business: emphasizing speed, disruption, return on investment and short-term profit. But geopolitics is not a market, and nations are not products.
You can’t A/B-test society, shift cultures and scale. Complex systems react to pressure in a nonlinear fashion and can easily generate unintended consequences. Over the years, the US has consistently shown a pattern combining the ability to enter a conflict quickly but the lack of a plan to exit effectively.
The US intervenes on a mission to make the world a safer place on paper, but accomplishes the reverse. Numerous examples such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on to the wars of Libya through the war of Syria, make it quite clear that American intervention generates motion but not any resolution; leverage but no proper legitimacy.
In Iraq, the United States entered with overwhelming force and a belief that regime change would quickly produce stability. What followed was a prolonged period of fragmentation, insurgency and regional destabilisation. The problem was not military capability but strategic imagination.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the United States showed unparalleled persistence in presence but little coherence in purpose. In two decades , the agenda shifted from counterterrorism to state-building and eventually to a withdrawal strategy without a clearly defined vision. The collapse of the US-backed state was not sudden; it was the logical outcome.
In Libya, intervention was swift and tactically successful, but strategically hollow. The overthrow of the regime was considered an end game as opposed to a new beginning. The consequences were the failure of the state, control by militias and instability extending into the North Africa and the Mediterranean region.
These were not isolated incidents.
They were expressions of a consistent mindset: Enter decisively, expect rapid transformation, and disengage once costs outweigh visible gains.
Venezuela is no different. Economic pressure, sanctions, diplomatic isolation and regime change reflect the same assumption that external pressure will quickly force political outcomes. External pressure may weaken or change a regime, but it also hardens resistance and deepens civilian suffering, eroding America’s legitimacy without producing stability.
This raises an uncomfortable question: What is the true intent – promoting democratic values or economic extraction?
Civilizational powers understand this intuitively. They invest in influence gradually through infrastructure, education, cultural ties and long-term presence. The United States, by contrast, often seeks leverage without embeddings, outcomes without ownership and influence without responsibility. This approach may deliver short-term results but put into question long-term legitimacy.
Each failed intervention compounds the next. Credibility erodes not because America lacks power, but because its use of power appears inconsistent and transactional.
Globally, American foreign policy will be perceived as intense when interests are immediate – but absent when patience is required. This is where the US risks bleeding its influence and needs course correction.
The doctrine of strategic endurance
History teaches us that every era of global order is defined less by who is strongest and more by how strength is exercised. The 19th century rewarded territorial expansion. The 20th century rewarded industrial scale and military alliances. The late 20th century rewarded institutional leadership and innovation. The 21st century seems to be drifting towards an altogether different logic, one that is employed against instinct and tradition.
Power is no longer maximized by constant action, intervention or enforcement. Instead, it will be shaped by strategic withholding, the deliberate choice of not to dominate, not to intervene, not to force even when one has the capacity to do so. The state will win not by forcing outcomes, but by absorbing pressure, outlasting volatility, remaining functional under stress and avoiding irreversible commitment.
The decisive advantage in the 21st century will be not domination but strategic stamina. That’s about exercising power wisely and patiently, rather than constantly demonstrating strength. This is why civilizational powers appear calm throughout history.
The clash of Stalin under Russia and Hitler under Germany in WWll is a prime example. Stalin’s USSR faced severe initial setbacks, immense pressure and near-collapse and yet prevailed. While Hitler’s Germany was aggressive, conquering territories and moving fast, constantly imposing it’s will on the world, that was a case of domination without strategic stamina, the lack that ultimately contributed to failure.
Empires rarely collapse from one action. They decline when each action reduces future options, and each victory costs more in loss of legitimacy than it gains in leverage. History is unforgiving to empires that confuse motion with direction, leverage with legitimacy.