The empire of doubt, ally of convenience: America at 250, seen from India
America at 250 remains the world's pre-eminent power, but growing doubts over its leadership, alliances and credibility have raised questions about whether it can sustain
America at 250 remains the world's pre-eminent power, but growing doubts over its leadership, alliances and credibility have raised questions about whether it can sustain the global order it created. US@250: Primus inter pares America at 250: The numbers behind its global standing The American dream: The ultimate soft power The milestones that shaped America’s global leadership When the dream began to fray The dragon in America's mirror For India, the romance is over but the relationship remains An ally of convenience, not conviction Is America finished? Not so fast The United States turns 250 as the most powerful nation on earth. The story of its rise was written in treaties, dollars and aircraft carriers. The story of its perceived decline is being written in tariffs and the “quiet quitting” of old friends.To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg: Twelve score and ten years ago, the founders of an upstart republic brought forth a new nation conceived in Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. They could not have imagined that it would go on to remake the modern world in its own image. But for how long? That is the question.The United States is the most powerful country on earth. Its military is the most advanced anywhere, its defence spending far beyond any rival's. Its forces can pluck a head of state out of his palace at the president's pleasure; its jets can bomb any nation back to the "stone age".The US economy is enormous: About $32 trillion at 2025 exchange rates, still comfortably bigger than China's, with a per capita income many times higher. The dollar remains the anchor of global trade and finance.Then there is the Magnificent Seven: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla.These are the most valuable technology companies in the world. In AI chips, Nvidia plays in a league of its own. The leading AI labs — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google's Gemini — are all American.
And there is Elon Musk, the world's first trillionaire, who may yet plant human settlements on Mars.And yet American pre-eminence no longer feels inevitable. There is self-doubt inside the country, and questions outside it: Can America still lead? Does it even want to?Much of what troubles the world comes down to the whims of the current administration. Washington has thrown up tariff walls against allies and rivals alike, cast doubt on its own Nato commitments, courted strongmen and bullied its democratic friends. Allies who once worried in private are now making backup plans in the open.For decades, the American dream did what American diplomacy could not. You didn't have to love Uncle Sam to love Hollywood, jazz, jeans, the NBA, Apple or Google. America's deepest power was its knack for making foreigners imagine themselves inside its story.For much of the world, and certainly for India, the US was never just another country. It was the place where an engineering degree could become a green card, and a small-town student a Silicon Valley founder. America did not merely attract foreign talent; it gave ambition a geography.Yale historian Odd Arne Westad, writing in Foreign Policy, called the United States "the first empire that is also a global nation". Its appeal, he argued, rested on the idea that "anyone could become an American, whether through consumption, culture, or migration."None of this eroded overnight. Iraq damaged American credibility. The 2008 crash punctured the aura of financial mastery. The forever war in Afghanistan ended not in victory but with the Taliban back in Kabul. Mass shootings made American freedom look, from the outside, like a terrifying bargain. And January 6 showed that even the world's most powerful democracy could be shaken from within.Donald Trump's return has sharpened the unease. The Iran war has chipped away at US credibility further. The jury is still out on who, exactly, made an "unconditional surrender": The US or Iran.The US has China in its rearview mirror.
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