Washington still sets the tempo, but the Iran standoff and stalled Islamabad track expose a hegemon that can pressure but not finish. The scaffolding holds; conversion is slipping.
Coercive instruments (strikes, sanctions, naval coordination) work as advertised, yet Iran, North Korea, and the Taliban all show that resolve outlasts firepower when Washington cannot decide between regime change and a deal.
The alliance system is quietly reorganizing around uncertainty about Washington: Japan-Australia building autonomous depth, Canada courting Brussels, Italy and Spain refusing basing. The hedging pattern echoes the late-Vietnam loss of allied confidence more than any post-9/11 cycle.
China is gaining ground not by matching American power but by absorbing American pressure without conceding ground, letting tariff cycles play out, consolidating standards work, financing where US development money has retreated, and walking into the Beijing summit with the asymmetry of a distracted superpower in its favor.
Allies are now formalizing arrangements that route around Washington: the Tokyo-Canberra security framework, Carney's European Political Community entry, Rubio's repair mission to Rome. Israel's strike on Iran's Caspian naval command opens a theater US power cannot reach. The Trump-Xi summit is being scheduled into a calendar where Beijing holds more cards than it did six weeks ago.
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