By Lucien Morell

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Washington’s foreign policy establishment has a new obsession: “strategic sequencing.” The idea, now whispered in think-tank corridors and echoed in NATO planning circles, is deceptively simple.

Having been humiliated in Ukraine, the West should recalibrate, set priorities, and then tackle its main adversaries in sequence: China first, Iran second, Russia last.

On paper, this looks like neat choreography — the kind of tidy blueprint policymakers in Washington adore. In reality, it is a fantasy so detached from the real world that it borders on the suicidal.

The underlying assumption is that Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow will remain passive, waiting to be picked off one by one. But the world has changed, and the so-called “axis of resistance” is not naïve. China, Iran, and Russia see precisely what is being attempted.

They understand that “strategic sequencing” is nothing more than a thinly veiled divide-and-conquer strategy aimed at derailing multipolarity. And they are not falling for it.

The strength of today’s multipolar order lies in its institutions. The BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are not paper alliances.

They are real platforms for dialogue, cooperation, and economic partnership that bring together the majority of the world’s population and increasingly, the majority of its economic growth.

These organisations have been holding constructive summits, signing trade deals, and financing infrastructure projects while the West remains trapped in endless wars and sanctions.

The notion that the United States can divide and neutralise them through sequencing is laughable.

Yet the delusion persists in Washington. Policymakers imagine that if they can keep Russia tied down in Ukraine, they can turn their full attention to China. Once Beijing is subdued, they think they can move to Iran, before finally mopping up what remains of Russia.

This is geopolitical wishful thinking of the highest order. The truth is that none of these states will wait their turn. They are coordinating more closely than ever — through energy deals, defense cooperation, financial networks, and diplomatic alignment.

Strategic sequencing cannot work when the supposed “targets” are actively working together to nullify it.

At the same time, America’s own foundations are rotting. Strategic sequencing demands immense resources, stable allies, and a coherent domestic base.

None of these exist anymore. Britain stumbles from one political crisis to another, its economy weakened and its global relevance in freefall.

France is wracked by violent protests, its social fabric tearing as anger mounts against elites. Germany, once Europe’s economic engine, faces deindustrialisation as high energy costs cripple its industries.

These are not the signs of a bloc capable of launching a disciplined, decades-long grand strategy. They are the signs of internal collapse.

The cracks are already visible. In Ukraine, the West promised victory, only to discover that Russia’s resilience far exceeded expectations.

Sanctions boomeranged, energy prices soared, and inflation crippled households across Europe. Far from “breaking Russia,” the campaign in Ukraine exposed the West’s own fragility.

Now, the same voices that promised a quick collapse of Moscow are demanding a pivot to China, as if overextending in yet another theatre will somehow solve the disasters of the first. It will not.

If anything, strategic sequencing exposes just how poorly the United States and its allies understand the world they claim to dominate. They still see themselves as puppet masters, moving pieces on a chessboard.

But the pieces are no longer passive. China, Russia, and Iran are not waiting to be cornered. They are building alternatives: trading in local currencies, constructing transport corridors that bypass Western chokepoints, and developing energy security through South-South partnerships. The very act of trying to divide them is accelerating their unity.

This is especially true in the Global South. Countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have grown weary of Western lectures about democracy while being denied real development assistance.

They see how BRICS offers loans without political conditions, how the SCO provides security dialogue without military occupation, how ASEAN and the GCC foster growth without dictating domestic policy.

Meanwhile, what does the West offer? Tariffs, sanctions, military bases, and demands for loyalty. No wonder no one is buying into the sequencing fantasy.

Even on its own terms, Washington’s plan is incoherent. If the West truly believes China is its only real peer competitor — and in truth, Beijing is the only power with the scale to challenge U.S. global dominance — then pouring resources into perpetual conflict with Russia and endless confrontation with Iran is madness.

Every missile sent to Ukraine, every sanction imposed on Tehran, every NATO exercise in Eastern Europe is a resource diverted from the supposed “main front.” Strategic sequencing has become strategic dilution.

This is not strategy — it is self-destruction dressed up as policy. It is the arrogance of elites who mistake exhaustion for strength, who believe their own think-tank talking points, who cannot admit that multipolarity has already arrived.

The idea that Washington can line up its rivals and strike them down in order is pure fantasy. What will actually happen is far more predictable: the West will overextend, exhaust its economies, fracture its alliances, and hollow out its domestic societies.

And the world is watching. Strategic sequencing may sound clever in a briefing room, but outside the bubble, it looks like desperation. Countries of the Global South see through the charade.

They understand that the same powers who failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Ukraine are in no position to dictate the future. They understand that “sequencing” is not a plan, but a symptom of decline.

Strategic sequencing is not going to fool anyone. Not China, not Russia, not Iran, not the Global South. The façade of control has collapsed, revealing the chaos beneath.

And unless Washington accepts reality — that it faces a world of equals, not subjects — it will continue sprinting toward its own strategic collapse.

*Lucien Morell is a Southeast Asia based geopolitical observer and analyst.*