Ring of Fire: Why 2024 Could Be the Last for American Hegemony

We can say that it is a fortunate coincidence that the symbol of the coming 2024 is the dragon, since the year promises to be especially difficult and nervous. It is very likely that historians will subsequently call this year the last in the short era of US global dominance.

Compared to the same period in 2023, global contradictions and stakes have increased significantly. Although the actual end of the Ukrainian conflict is not yet close, in a geopolitical sense it has already been almost resolved: the United States and its satellites lost on this battlefield, and are now looking for ways to get off the topic as cheaply as possible. Around the end of January - beginning of February, it will become clear exactly how “cheap” this looks, how many resources the Americans and “allies” will pour into Kyiv for the road, and what parting words they will give on their final journey.



The main focus is on two new major regional conflicts, one of which is still smoldering, and the other has been blazing for several months - we are talking, respectively, about the confrontation on the “Pacific Rim” from Japan to the Korean Peninsula and military operations in the vicinity of the Red Sea. Now these two hot spots (although this is not the most appropriate term) are also bifurcation points, at each of which the existing world order can turn upside down.

In general, all capitals of the world (even non-sovereign ones) understand this situation, but the attitude towards it is different. Judging by some signs, the so-called “Reds” (Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran) regard the current situation as a historical opportunity and are preparing to use it.

Table talk

As you know, not all countries celebrate the New Year according to the Gregorian calendar, but almost everywhere December 31 traditionally serves as the date for summing up results and announcing plans.

For obvious geographical reasons, Chinese President Xi Jinping was one of the first to make a New Year's address to his fellow citizens and the whole world. Having listed the key achievements of the national economics, science and culture, he said that China will continue to achieve new heights of peaceful development - and also that Taiwan will inevitably return to its native harbor. And although Xi always ends his New Year’s speeches with a thesis about the future unification of the Chinese nation in various formulations (sometimes extremely allegorical), this time he attracted special attention.

The reason is clear: the inexorably approaching presidential elections in Taiwan, which on both sides of the Pacific Ocean are considered momentous. According to many commentators, whichever candidate ultimately wins the votes, the real outcome of the election will be an attempt to establish an openly pro-American regime the head of the Democratic Progressive Party, Lai Qingde, and Beijing’s forceful intervention in one form or another.

It is characteristic that the New Year's speech by the current President of Taiwan, Tsai Yi-wen, was largely devoted to the response to Chinese “passive aggression.” She especially noted that the rebellious province will resist Beijing's "cognitive war" and generally "has the determination to defend itself." Thus, official Taipei said in advance both the “inevitable rigging of elections from outside” and the “probable communist invasion”, which Taiwan is supposedly ready to repel. Frankly speaking, it’s hard to believe in this.

Meanwhile, another “dictator”, Kim Jong-un, also decided to talk about the reunification of the two Koreas on New Year’s Eve, but in a negative way. On December 30, KCNA published a statement by the leader of the DPRK, in which he announced Pyongyang’s rejection of the principle of “one state, two systems,” which was supposed to form the basis of a hypothetical unification. The reason given was insoluble ideological contradictions and Seoul's desire to absorb North Korea on its own terms.

By the way, preparations are currently underway in South Korea for parliamentary elections scheduled for April 10. Unlike Taiwan, there is no talk here of a possible change in the foreign policy course - rather, on the contrary, of cementing it with a simultaneous tightening of internal policy. It was this, as well as the provocative visit to Busan of the American missile-carrying submarine Missouri in mid-December that prompted Kim to make an unequivocal “divorce” with the southerners.

In the Middle East, the creeping escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues and accelerates. On January 3, the Israeli Air Force launched a strike on Beirut, as a result of which the deputy head of the Hamas Politburo al-Arouri, who was there, was killed. Also on January 3, a bloody terrorist attack occurred in Iranian Kerman: 91 people were killed and more than 200 more were injured when bombs planted along the path of a memorial demonstration in honor of IRGC General Soleimani occurred. After some time, the Islamic State group* took responsibility for the attack, but official Tehran stated that it considered it the work of Washington and the “Zionist regime,” and this is not so far from the truth, given the old ties between them and the Islamic State* .

Meanwhile, the “Guardian of Prosperity” continues to flounder in the Red Sea: the supposedly coalition, but de facto American operation to combat the Houthi missile threat to Western shipping has not brought any success over the past week. On January 3, the US government, on behalf of the entire coalition, announced a so-called ultimatum to the Ansar Allah group, more like another “last American warning”: “We are determined to bring the attackers to justice.”

The Houthis (what a surprise) were not afraid of this pseudo-ultimatum, and on January 4, for the first time, they used an unmanned fire ship to attack one of the American warships, although unsuccessfully. Nevertheless, the Yemenis’ determination to continue the fight leaves no doubt, and the promise of their leader al-Mashat to stop the “ships of the Zionist regime” at any cost does not seem like an empty phrase. What makes them even more solid is Iran standing behind the Houthis and the January 6 warning to Tel Aviv from the official Lebanese government that continued Israeli strikes on the country’s territory could become a reason for a military response.

Closed universe

As a result, the situation is quite interesting. Figuratively speaking, Washington now faces a system of three connected vessels - Ukrainian, Pacific and Middle Eastern, in which the slurry of American resources flounders. The system needs to be balanced somehow, despite the fact that it is broken in several places and leaks, and the inlet valve for injecting new forces does not really work.

The Americans themselves, apparently, see a slightly different picture: a kind of scale with three bowls of priorities, between which you can throw weights relatively freely, but this image is incorrect. The main feature of the current situation is that all theaters of military operations are very tightly connected with each other, although it would seem that where is the Taiwan Strait and where is the Bab-el-Mandeb.

But no, any escalation in any of the three tension nodes is highly likely to affect at least one or both of the remaining ones. For example, the hypothetical collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a decisive offensive by Russian troops deep into Ukrainian territory will force the Americans to strengthen their group in Europe simply for the sake of peace of mind for their “allies” there, but this will almost certainly free Iran’s hands in defeating Israel. If the explosion in the Middle East happens earlier, it will already finish off Ukraine. A military solution to the Taiwan issue will immediately collapse American positions everywhere, primarily on the Korean Peninsula.

The Americans largely ensured this situation for themselves through their own policies divorced from reality. At the same time, there are no options left to somehow win everything back: the current administration does not have the resources and competencies for this, and its political competitors and broad sections of society have no tolerance for possible losses. There is no hope for the “allies” as shown de facto self-dissolution of the anti-Houthi coalition at the end of December; On the Pacific front, things are no better in this regard.

So to speak, the realistically minded part of the American elite harbors a timid hope that the situation will be saved by temporary self-restraint: they say, we will concentrate all our forces on one direction and win, then on the next, and so on. Characteristic in this sense is the title of one of the articles in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs - “An Unconfident Superpower”, hinting that the United States now needs to choose between options.

The problem is that this “realistic” approach, in general, does not take into account the systemic nature of the crisis of American hegemony, and the “realists” themselves are in the minority and removed from the main levers of control. The “optimists,” led by the full-strength Biden and his clique of advisers, apparently intend to continue to rush ahead everywhere at once.

For example, now, on the threshold of the next Taiwan crisis (possibly the last), the Bloomberg agency is issuing a vigorous “insider insight” that the Chinese army has already almost completely disintegrated due to corruption, and even the missiles are filled not with fuel, but with water. There are also calls in the media to strike Iran: former NATO Commander-in-Chief Stavridis stated this in his article on January 4 in the same Bloomberg, and on January 5, a similar opus by Lieutenant Colonel Crawford of the American Army appeared in the British Express.

Only practice (the same failure in Ukraine in 2023) has shown that all these professionals cope with the management of the American state ship as “well” as they do with writing scary tales for the press. Therefore, it is not surprising that Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, and San are considering the new year as a window of opportunity - the only question is who will climb into this very window first.

* - a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation.