The empire of doubt, ally of convenience: America at 250, seen from India
US@250: Peer-to-peer primus
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg: Twelve hundred years ago, the founders of a fledgling republic brought forth a new nation founded on Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. They could not have imagined that he would remake the modern world in his image. But for how long? That is the question.
The United States is the most powerful country in the world. Its military is the most advanced in the world, and its defense spending far exceeds that of its rivals. Its forces can remove a head of state from his palace at the president’s request; its jets can bomb any country back to the “stone age”.
The US economy is huge: about $32 trillion at the 2025 exchange rate, still easily larger than China’s and its per capita income many times higher. The dollar remains the anchor of global trade and finance.
Then there are the Magnificent Seven: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. These are the most valuable technology companies in the world. When it comes to AI chips, Nvidia plays in a league of its own. The leading AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google’s Gemini) are all American. And there’s Elon Musk, the world’s first trillionaire, who could possibly establish human settlements on Mars. But still, America’s superiority no longer feels inevitable. While there is self-doubt at home, there are questions abroad: Can America still lead? Does he even want to?
Many of the world’s problems are caused by the whims of the current administration. Washington has erected tariff walls on allies and rivals alike, cast doubt on its own NATO commitments, courted strongmen and bullied its democratic friends. Allies who once worried in private are now making backup plans in public.
America at 250: The numbers behind its global standing
The American dream: The ultimate soft power
The American dream has done what American diplomacy could not for decades. You didn’t have to love Uncle Sam to love Hollywood, jazz, jeans, the NBA, Apple or Google. America’s deepest strength was its ability to make strangers imagine themselves inside its story.
For much of the world, and certainly for India, the United States has never been just another country. This was where an engineering degree could turn into a green card and a small-town student into a Silicon Valley founder. America not only attracted foreign talent; He gave ambition a geography.
Yale historian Odd Arne Westad, writing in Foreign Policy, calls the United States “the first empire that was also a global nation.” For him, its appeal was based on the idea that “anyone can become an American, whether through consumption, culture, or immigration.”
Milestones that shaped America’s global leadership
When the dream starts to wear out
None of this eroded overnight. Iraq damaged America’s credibility. The 2008 crisis pierced the air of financial mastery. The endless war in Afghanistan ended not in victory, but in the return of the Taliban to Kabul. Mass shootings have made American freedom seem like a terrible bargain from the outside. And January 6 showed that even the world’s strongest democracy can be shaken from within.
Donald Trump’s return increased uneasiness. The Iran war further undermined US credibility. The jury is still out on who exactly received “unconditional surrender”: the United States or Iran.
The dragon in America’s mirror
China is in the US’s rearview mirror. So can Beijing do to America what Moscow has never been able to do? It is certainly a more serious rival: economically integrated, technologically ambitious, industrially huge, diplomatically engaged. There is a DeepSeek for every ChatGPT; A BYD for Tesla; TikTok for Instagram; WeChat for WhatsApp.
None of this means China will replace America. It brings with it demographic stress, debt pressure, youth unemployment, property residue and an increasingly securitized political system. His model is attracting the attention of some governments; It doesn’t inspire people. Few parents dream of sending their children to China for higher education. Many still dream of American universities.
But China has done enough to end America’s psychological monopoly. It showed that capitalism can grow without democracy, that productive power still matters, that infrastructure can be diplomacy, and that countries tired of Western lessons have somewhere else to turn. Even governments wary of Chinese dominance want China’s influence, if only to drive a harder bargain with Washington.
Love is over for India but the relationship continues
The India-US relationship is one of the greatest strategic transformations in modern diplomacy. Throughout the Cold War, the two democracies were estranged: non-aligned India was seen in Washington as too cozy with Moscow.
Then came the long unraveling: the civil nuclear deal, defense cooperation, the diaspora, the China factor, technology ties and the bipartisan consensus in Washington that India matters. Over two decades, suspicion has turned into strategic comfort.
The past year has shown how fragile that comfort is. In the summer of 2025, the Trump administration inexplicably freaked out about India buying Russian oil and imposed a 25 percent penalty on top of the existing 25 percent tariff. India’s exports suddenly faced a 50 percent wall; No major economy has been treated so harshly, and even China has had better terms. Weeks later, a new rule came down requiring $100,000 for each new H-1B visa. Indians receive about seven-tenths of these visas. Whatever the expression, everyone knew who the policy would hit the hardest.
An ally of convenience, not faith
The tariffs were wrapped in insults. President Donald Trump has called India’s economy “dead”, warmed to Pakistani army chief Asim Munir and took credit — repeatedly — for the May 2025 ceasefire, which Delhi insists was implemented directly between the two countries. Commentators who had celebrated the “defining partnership of the twenty-first century” for decades watched it collapse in a matter of months.
The paradox is that the relationship is strategically necessary and at the same time politically fragile. Defense cooperation advances as trade rows erupt. As visa concerns increase, technology ties also deepen. While leaders tout shared values, domestic politics in both capitals rewards nationalist suspicion. This relationship is too important to give up and is no longer innocent enough to be romanticized.
The lesson for India is clear. The United States is not a benevolent elder of the democratic family; It is a great power with its interests, internal obligations and shortening attention span. India, on the other hand, is a rising power with its options, markets, capabilities and geopolitical weight. What happens next will depend less on emotional talk about shared democracy and more on whether the two sides can manage the asymmetry without humiliation.
Is America over? not so fast
America’s obituary has been written before, always ahead of its time. Political scientist Samuel Huntington enumerated several waves of American decline before 1990—after Sputnik, after Vietnam, after the oil shocks, at the height of the Japan panic—and each was followed by renewal.
What’s different this time is that the wound is self-inflicted and the whole world can see it.
The 250-year-old USA is not a collapsed empire. A superpower in a crisis of self-doubt and legitimacy: unmatched in capacity, weak in credibility, rich in alliances and surrounded by anxious allies.
The world is learning to live with an America that is still powerful but no longer sure that it wants to lead the world it created.
