By Karan Bhatia

NEW DELHI, US: The U.S. is rapidly losing its grip as the global hegemon. The unipolar order that took shape after 1991 is not simply in decline — it is finished, dead and buried.

What is left is the flailing shadow of a superpower that has squandered its credibility, hollowed out its own economy, and now survives by resorting to coercion, sabotage and outright theft.

The roots of this collapse lie in Washington’s own arrogance. For decades it abused its “exorbitant privilege” as the issuer of the world’s reserve currency.

The dollar was weaponised against friend and foe alike: sanctions piled high, sovereign assets were frozen at will, and entire economies were reduced to bargaining chips in America’s endless geopolitical games.

Washington cloaked this predation in sanctimonious talk of “democracy” and a so-called “rules-based order”, but the reality was simple gangsterism.

Now that privilege is slipping away. Across the Global South and even among traditional allies, de-dollarisation is advancing with a speed few imagined possible just a decade ago.

Settlements in national currencies are expanding, digital payment systems are proliferating, and BRICS members are openly designing mechanisms to bypass the dollar entirely.

Every act of American economic warfare has accelerated this process, proving to the world that the dollar is not a safe haven but a weapon aimed at their sovereignty.

Confronted with this self-inflicted decline, Washington has not sought reform or partnership. Instead, it has embraced a rent-seeking and parasitic strategy: inserting itself as an unwanted middleman into global supply chains.

If it can no longer force the world to trade in dollars, it will force the world to trade through America. Countries are warned not to deal directly with Russia, China, Iran or any state that refuses U.S. diktats.

Instead, they must buy those goods via American firms, paying a premium for the privilege — or face the blunt instruments of tariffs and secondary sanctions.

The farce is most visible in Europe. Under pressure from Washington, the EU has cut itself off from cheap Russian energy, and now limps along by importing vastly overpriced American liquefied natural gas. The consequences have been catastrophic.

German industry, once the beating heart of European manufacturing, is hollowing out before our eyes. Factories close, production shifts abroad, and competitiveness evaporates — all while U.S. exporters laugh their way to the bank. This is not alliance; it is daylight robbery disguised as solidarity.

India, by contrast, has shown what defiance looks like. New Delhi continues to buy cut-price Russian oil, refine it domestically, and even sell the products back to Western markets — sometimes directly to the same countries that swore off Moscow’s supplies.

This exposes the absurdity of Washington’s middleman scheme: the supposed “sanctions regime” is riddled with holes, and the only real losers are those slavishly obedient to U.S. pressure, such as Europe.

Elsewhere, the Global South is learning the lesson quickly. Nations in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia see clearly that dependence on the U.S. only invites blackmail.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has already supplanted Washington in much of the developing world, while energy, technology and infrastructure ties with Russia, the Middle East and BRICS states are flourishing.

Washington is being left behind — not because its rivals have “cheated”, but because it has transformed itself into a spoiler, a parasite feeding on disruption rather than creating value.

This strategy carries immense risks. By inflating costs, blocking access to cheaper supplies, and attempting to reroute global trade through itself, the U.S. is driving the world into fragmentation.

It is not stabilising markets but destabilising them, turning supply chains into battlegrounds. And in the process, it is undermining its own foundations.

Investors see that dollar assets can be seized at the stroke of a pen; foreign banks and sovereign funds are already diversifying away. America’s colossal debt requires constant inflows of foreign capital, yet its own weaponisation of finance has made it toxic.

The comparison with colonialism is unavoidable. Once, empires forced their colonies to buy overpriced goods from the metropole, destroying local industries in the process.

Today Washington attempts the same, but on a global scale — not through conquest of territory, but through financial blackmail and trade coercion. It is rent-seeking at its most blatant, an empire reduced to pimping out its dwindling leverage while contributing nothing of substance.

Europe, tragically, is marching itself to economic suicide. Locked into ruinous energy deals and stripped of industrial competitiveness, it is being sacrificed to extend U.S. hegemony by a few more years. But even this is unsustainable.

The longer Washington squeezes, the greater the incentives for others to break free. De-dollarisation is no longer a question of “if”, but of “how fast”.

The U.S. may imagine it can bluff its way into relevance by sowing chaos, inserting itself as the world’s compulsory middleman. But this gambit will fail.

It accelerates multipolarity, deepens resentment, and exposes America’s desperation. What was once the world’s dominant power is now revealed as a parasite clinging to its hosts, draining them dry while offering nothing in return.

History is clear about what happens next. Empires that resort to extraction and blackmail are already on their way out. The U.S., having squandered its post-Cold War unipolar moment, is now lashing out in decline.

Its dollar dominance is fading, its credibility is shot, and its allies are waking up to the reality that they are little more than clients in a racket.

The unipolar order is gone. The world is moving on. And as de-dollarisation gathers speed, Washington’s desperate attempt to play the unwanted middleman will only hasten its irrelevance.

*Karan Bhatia is a political observer of South Asian and Indo-Pacific affairs based in New Delhi.*