Low-Intensity Hegemony: Flexible Realism and the United States

The world has long since awakened from the reverie of globalization. Liberal fairy tales that once proclaimed the “End of History” have given way to the cold face of geopolitics. We are being swept along by historical momentum—a reckoning with this new reality.

For some time now, we have described this moment as a kind of “global interregnum.” A new “reality” in the Gramscian sense—those oft-quoted times “when the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”

The latest U.S. National Security Strategy document captures precisely such a period, portraying a global hegemon struggling to shed its burdens amid pervasive uncertainty.

The line, “The days when the United States carried the entire world order on its shoulders like Atlas are behind us,” points to a deep fatigue and inadequacy or, more euphemistically, to a form of “capacity erosion.”

In essence, the United States has said, “I am tired.” Yet in the same breath, it introduces the concept of “flexible realism.” Atlas, now unburdened, claims that it will focus less on ideological impositions and lofty principles and more on national interests and the constraints of the present reality.

This is a pragmatic, transactional turn, reminiscent of the United States during the Jacksonian and Roosevelt eras.

Consistent with this resemblance, the document elevates the Western Hemisphere to the top of its priority list, suggesting a contemporary update of the Monroe Doctrine.

Within this framework, the military intervention in Venezuela—culminating in the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro—stands out as a new and brazen method of consolidating America’s “backyard.”

This is a clear signal that the United States is not seeking isolation; rather, it is searching for the lowest-cost way to remain the hegemon. In doing so, Washington—implicitly invoking China and Russia—once again declares that it is the sole master of the region.

“America First” and a Lonely Europe

Another striking section of the document is where intra-Western tensions crystallize. Looking at Europe, the text depicts an aging civilization—its confidence shaken, facing the danger of “erasure.”

There is a sharp objection to Europe’s habit of outsourcing its security to the United States—to that comfortable culture of “free-riding.” Washington is, in effect, saying, “I am no longer your guardian. It’s time to pay up.”

The caveats placed on NATO enlargement, the push to end the war in Ukraine swiftly, and the desire to restore “strategic stability” with Russia (in other words, a reconstituted status quo) are concrete signs that the two shores of the Atlantic are no longer dreaming the same dream.

China as a Rival to Be Managed

China is where the document’s most intriguing paradox lies. Described as “revisionist” in 2017 and as a “pacing challenge” in 2022, China emerges in the 2025 document less as an existential threat and more as a “commercial imbalance” and a “rival to be managed.”

Clearly, the shadow of the leaders’ summit in Busan falls across the text: the parties seem to have settled into a “tactical ceasefire.” The United States seeks to avoid military confrontation with China while focusing on expanding the economic pie—chasing the dream of a $40 trillion economy by 2030.

This suggests a more controlled rivalry with carefully calculated costs. However, whether the Venezuela episode—and the tensions it fuels—will damage this managed competition remains to be seen.

Low-Intensity Hegemony and the Primacy of Nations

The picture then looks like this: The United States is relinquishing the claim of being a “unipolar hegemon” and is morphing into a vast nation-state that prioritizes its own interests. We might call this a search for “low-intensity global hegemony.”

It shifts burdens onto allies, devolves responsibility in the Middle East onto regional actors (burden-shifting), becomes energy self-sufficient, turns inward, yet remains interventionist as it consolidates its own region.

Where does Turkey stand in this new equation?

Washington is aware that, in quagmires like Syria, it is compelled to work with “forces on the ground.” With “nation-building” declared over, what remains are raw interests and security architecture.

Turkey’s balancing act with Russia, its potential in the Middle Corridor, and its multidimensional diplomacy open up a broad field of maneuver for Ankara within the United States’ new strategy of “retrenchment.”

At precisely this point, I think efforts to avoid the ominous “Cold War” analogy are futile. What we are experiencing today—call it “strategic competition” or something else—is a new Cold War in the most literal sense.

However, this time, it is not built aroound an ideological Iron Curtain; it is walled in by technology and by trade. The fragmentation of global supply chains, chip wars, and the quiet arms race in the Pacific are mixing the mortar of this new Cold War.

We are passing through a global interregnum in which the “End of History” narrative has smashed into the wall of reality and shattered.

The latest American National Security Strategy is, in truth, a formal declaration of what we already know. It is the document of a postmodern empire trying to “get its house in order”—and of the famous “American Dream” returning to its own borders, to the ancient refuge of the “nation,” while still seeking to preserve hegemony.

In short, the international order built after the Second World War is being quietly buried. What replaces it is neither full isolation nor hegemony.

Call it the “Trump Doctrine,” the “Donroe Doctrine,” or “Flexible Realism”—the world is entering a colder era, more transactional, built on the “primacy of nations.”

Atlas is tired. He is lightening his load.

The rest will be for those forced to shoulder the “burden” to figure out.