Reasons and the Process of the U.S. Decline: Unilateralism and Endless Conflicts

The concept of American decline was for the first time used by theoreticians such as Imanuel Wallerstein. Wallerstein offered the theory of cycles of hegemony, which focused on the decline and weakening of American relative power. The core of Wallerstein’s idea was the decline of the US power vis-à-vis dollar and gold. In the post-cold war era, the US situation in global politics and economy declined more than ever. The US in the 21st century became engaged in endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and many other geographical regions. The surprise withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan under President Biden demonstrated that war and peace lacked the formations of tactical and strategic action. The said developments indicated that the US capabilities have gradually declined, making new waves of crises and conflicts in the region inevitable. The main question of the present paper is as follows: What factors have affected the gradual decline of America? The hypothesis of this paper is as follows: Unilateralism and endless conflicts of the United States in the crisis-ridden regions are among the factors that have led to an increase in strategic costs of the United States. Structural neorealism approach has been used in this paper. Merchheimer mentioned that the US role in endless regional crises led to the increase in strategic costs of this country. Data and content analysis has been used in this research.