The Twilight of the West: Why 2026 is the Year the Asiatic Order Takes Over.
How the 2026 Shift in US Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Asiatic Pluralistic Order are Ending Western Global Dominance.
For centuries, the West has defined an international rule-based order grounded in Christian Eurocentric beliefs and values. Western powers, Europe, and later, the United States, set the parameters and the agenda for the rest of the world.
That was particularly true after World War II, when the US, the new hegemon, used its economic, military, and “moral” pillars to ensure Western dominance in global affairs.
But in 2026, that world is quickly fading as new powers, particularly Asian, use the West’s own actions and their growing power to redefine the international order.
The shift, not necessarily the result of a single catastrophic event, like the invasion of Iraq by Bush or Trump’s recent attack on Venezuela, is the cumulative weight of three structural failures that have permanently ended centuries of Eurocentric rules-based system that have defined the international community.
Thanks to an economic system cannibalized by war, repeated military shortcomings, and a moral authority shattered by its own double standards, there is a rise of a new multipolar world, defined by Asiatic global-led world.
For almost a century, the US dominated the monetary system of the world. Even the 1929 crash didn’t permanently drop American economic power. Yet, the past two decades have allowed the emergence of non-Western, non-Eurocentric powers to dominate the international economic system.
Be China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which entails owning or leasing 78 to 95 strategic ports, including the “crown Jewels’ of Gwadar in Pakistan and Piraeus in Greece, India becoming the world’s 4th largest economy, or Singapore becoming the “Switzerland of Asia,” Asia is redefining the international economic power status.
For the first time in over a century, for example, the combined GDP of “Emerging Asia” has surpassed that of North America. In the case of the BRICS + nations, for example, they have replaced the G7 by accounting for the larger share of global outputs by Purchasing Power Parity, or PPP.
This massive economic shift, however, isn’t just because of Asian nations’ strategic policies alone, but rather the West’s self-inflicted stagnation. Twenty-five years of “Forever Wars” have acted as a massive tax on the future. Since 2001, the U.S. has spent or obligated over $8 trillion on conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. By 2026, the interest payments on this war-related debt have reached a staggering $1 trillion annually.
While Asia focused on transformative development—such as building high-speed rail networks, pioneering 6G telecommunications infrastructure, and establishing dominance in green energy sectors, the West—especially the United States—directed much of its resources toward military presence and ongoing foreign conflicts, at the expense of domestic growth and innovation. Consequently, the Western economy, particularly the US has become more debt-laden and faces growing difficulties in maintaining basic infrastructure, while Asian economies have been at the forefront of technological and infrastructural advancement.
The strategy of military ventures and nation-building, however, weakened the very military pillar the US needed to remain a hegemon. For the US, the 21st century began with the myth of Western military omnipotence, where, within 14 months or so, the US had attacked two Islamic nations, Iraq and Afghanistan, and ended in 2026, with the reality of strategic exhaustion and an ill-equipped Western military model for the modern age.
At the start of the 21st century, the United States operated under a powerful myth of military omnipotence that was reinforced by the rapid succession of two military interventions in just over a year. These swift actions created an aura of unchallenged capability and global influence.
However, that perceived invincibility ultimately gave way to a very different reality by 2026. More than two decades of failed and brutal military interventions exposed the limits of American military power in dealing with today’s military and security challenges. Years of death, failed missions, and civil conflicts led to a depletion of resources and exposed the weaknesses in Western military models.
Even the West’s billion-dollar platforms—aircraft carriers and stealth jets—have been challenged by low-cost drones and decentralized networks. All culminating in what can only be described as strategic exhaustion.
However, as the West faces military challenges, including internal dissent within many Western nations and organizations, including NATO, new security architectures are emerging. Be it organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or alliances, like the CIR alliance, Chinese-Iranian-Russian, nation-states are beginning to manage Eurasian security independently, where stability and sovereignty are preferred over the West’s “regime change.”
But as devastating as the loss of economic and military influence has been on the West, nothing has had as much of an impact as the loss of its “moral high ground.”
For much of the world, especially nations in the Global South, Western ideals such as universal human rights and democratic principles have come to be perceived as nothing but instruments of colonization and destruction. For many, the West’s so-called “moral compass” is seen more as a tool of intervention and dominance than as upholding justice and international law.
That became very clear with the West’s condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine but its approval of Israel’s war in Gaza, where it would appear that there was one law for the West and one law for everyone else. For the world, particularly Asia, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza were nothing but the ultimate form of Western hypocrisy.
Even the recent American military intervention in Venezuela, which has been condemned by major powers like China, India, and Brazil as “armed aggression” and a violation of the UN Charter, has been justified by many in the West.
Thus, this perceived hypocrisy, where the West violates the very international law it claims to protect, has not only eliminated its moral authority but, more importantly, it has allowed for the replacement of an Asiatic order that offers a different principle of international law: a Pluralistic world order. One where different political systems can coexist without the “moral” interference of a distant, declining hegemon.
For the West, especially the US, the longstanding political and economic Western principles that define international order are now being challenged by a rising Global Asiatic order. This shift will have massive economic and military implications not only for the Western-based order but also for the United States as a hegemon. The question, however, becomes whether the West, especially the US, can prevent or even survive this shift.