U.S. imperialism has gone through different stages: the continental expansion of the 19th century, the overseas leap of 1898, the financial hegemony of Bretton Woods, and the unipolar moment that emerged in 1991.
This recent period, marked by "preventive wars"—the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, NATO expansion, the Washington Consensus, etc.—and the structuring of our strategies to end governments deemed "inconvenient" by Washington, began to erode after the 2008 crisis. Today, we are witnessing a multidimensional decline.
The structural causes are clear: deindustrialization reduced production from 25% of GDP in the 1960s to less than 11%, while public debt exceeds 120% and the economy is sustained by the privilege of the dollar; a financialization that Lenin would have defined as parasitic capitalism.
Meanwhile, China has gone from being the global factory to leading in 5G, artificial intelligence, and electric vehicles, shifting the center of gravity toward the Indo-Pacific.
The crisis of internal legitimacy—the Afghan debacle, polarization, and obscene inequality—and the rebellion of the Global South (BRICS, Shanghai, and the rejection of sanctions against Russia) reflect a weariness with Western hegemony.
Faced with this, imperialism is doubling down on its warmongering. Lenin already pointed out that capitalism in its highest stage is "linked to wars of conquest and plunder."
The war in Ukraine, encouraged and sustained by NATO, seeks to weaken Russia and justify record military spending: the defense budget for 2026 is approaching $900 billion, a figure that, according to SIPRI, "threatens global security and stability."
In the Pacific, the Aukus incident, the militarization of the South China Sea, and arms sales to Taiwan repeat the logic of strangling the emerging power, while the nuclear risk worsens with the modernization of arsenals and the breach of treaties.
The world order is being reconfigured. The Russian-Chinese alliance and BRICS+—with the addition of Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, and the UAE in 2024—challenge US financial dominance. Thus, dedollarization advances with agreements on national currencies, new payment systems, and gold accumulation, eroding the pillar of capitalist parasitism in the world.
There has been no shortage of warnings, political scientist John Mearsheimer notes that the international system has reached "a critical turning point, marking the definitive end of the 'unipolar moment'."
If we search in the thought of Lenin and Fidel we will find the keys: imperialism is monopoly capitalism in a parasitic and decadent phase, and its resort to war does not denote strength but structural weakness.
Only the unity of the peoples of the South, sovereign integration, and the unwavering defense of peace can avert catastrophe. It is, as Fidel insisted, a matter of achieving a second and definitive independence.
History, as the Commander-in-Chief reminded us, is not an inevitable destiny, but an urgent and open struggle where conscious action can still change its course.
Sources:
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (1916). Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. In Selected Works in Three Volumes, Volume I, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973, p. 736.
World Bank. Manufacturing, value added (% of GDP) – United States. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?locations=US
International Monetary Fund. World Economic Outlook Database, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO
SIPRI: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2024/global-military-spending-surges-amid-war-rising-tensions-and-insecurity
Mearsheimer, John J. (2019). “Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order.” International Security, 43(4), 7–50.
IMF reports and analysis by the Atlantic Council (2023): De-dollarization: The global shift away from the greenback
