Is the American Century, as the italian economist and essayist Geminello Alvi once described it, coming to an end?
In any domain of analysis, the United States remains hegemonic over all other players. It is even the only major power experiencing demographic growth—aside from India, which remains a power in potentia.
However, the U.S. is increasingly challenged by the demands of managing a vast and interconnected global system.
It must confront the rise of China and of Asia more broadly, just as it once did in Europe. New variables are emerging: the difficulty of navigating a world of generalized multi-alignment with the outdated logic of divide et impera; the burden of excessive debt required to sustain its military machine; and a host of serious internal issues.
As for the Dollar—delusions aside—no real threat looms on the horizon. The Euro, once considered a challenger, has been scaled down. The only viable alternative to traditional finance today is domestic: the digital Dollar and Trump-style hyper-privatization.
Yet on this front—as in the realms of Artificial Intelligence and resource-differentiated economies—the U.S. must contend with its Achilles’ heel: an outdated and fragile power grid requiring trillions in investment to be truly transformed.
That’s the United States.
And then there are the supposed “alternatives” that, in reality, don’t exist
What we see are mere competitors—not true alternative models.
Only the Chinese model could be partially considered such: a hybrid of American-style capitalism and obsessive individual control to the point of disintegration.
The rest? Crude copies of Americanism. India has Bollywood. Russia is saturated with fast food and a Cyrillic version of the American way of life. In Europe, we’ve synthesized a culture that has absorbed American “values” and reinterpreted them through a form of humanism—laudable perhaps, if it hadn’t veered into weak thought and flaccid living.
Those who reject the American model are, by and large, the underdeveloped countries—yet even there, people dream of America, and of the West in general, yearning to migrate en masse.
If one fails to grasp the central point—that the U.S. dominates not through coercion, but through soft power, in which it is dangerously masterful—and instead indulges in fantasies of a global liberation front, they are simply shooting blanks.
This is not a matter of geopolitical blocs. It is a matter of civilizations.
Those who long ago identified the carcinogenic nature of the American way of life have often confined their critique to intellectual or, worse, ideological spheres. This has led them to assume the existence of widespread anti-Americanism—when in fact, it barely exists—and to aim their critiques poorly.
While millions have fled communist regimes, Venezuela, or Iran, no similar exodus has occurred from American-controlled territories.
This does not validate Americanized systems, but it does mean that no viable alternatives exist today that are not perceived as worse by the people themselves.
Those who have resisted the U.S. have been peoples directly attacked by its military (the Vietnamese, the Afghans), or populations mobilized by regimes that needed to invent an Enemy to forge internal consensus—just as the West did with the USSR.
Even in the Middle East and North Africa, the countries most aligned with the U.S. (Morocco, Jordan) are among the most compliant.
Only Iran stands out, having overthrown the Shah—but that rebellion stemmed from Islamic outrage over modernization and vaccinations.
Only in Latin America is anti-American sentiment deeply rooted, precisely because U.S. intervention there predated its soft power strategies.
Aside from the silent and deep Japanese resentment following Hiroshima and Nagasaki—carefully contained within diplomatic norms—anti-Americanism amounts to little more than popular resentment toward the powerful: a sterile antipathy that, like in every other human context, soon turns into submission and deference.
Failing to recognize this means wandering—once again—through fog.
America’s true crisis is spiritual and psychological.
American ideology, forged in the 17th century, is rooted in symbolic parricide and the myth of the Promised Land. It is inseparably tied to moralism and the Old Testament’s messianic fervor—refracted through a superficial and crude materialism that is, nonetheless, effective and accessible.
A subtle triumph of vulgarity.
This is the real issue—much more than simple imperialism.
If we fail to reason on this level, and instead shout aimlessly—on American servers!—then we’ve already lost.
You don’t fight one cancer with another—especially one compounded by leprosy—while claiming to be a healer.
To believe that the standoff between Americans and their failed imitators (tyrannies like Russia, Iran, or Venezuela, incapable of soft power) is decisive, is to fall into pathos. These regimes are deeply dependent on their respective overlords—hardly the foundation of a serious challenge.
The most revealing example of this flawed mindset is the growing obsession with NATO’s role.
I’m not just referring to NATO’s actual mission—which was never to threaten Russia (a more-than-convenient counterpart), but to preempt and suppress European autonomy.
I mean the notion that the U.S. dominates us through military bases.
Absurd.
We signed a treaty of surrender that still binds our defense policy to American decisions. The bases would be here regardless—NATO or not.
They are not intended to suppress hypothetical anti-American uprisings in Europe (where would you even find them?), but to serve American strategic interests in the Mediterranean—and perhaps to block a resurgence of British influence.
Being “anti-American” in the current form is as laughable as being a cartoonish anti-Semite.
It’s not only meaningless—it creates deranged, unfocused extremists shouting at the moon, always missing the target.
These caricatures are convenient—for both Americans and Israelis—depending on who’s the object of their distorted hatred. And because the hatred is so unfocused, it always has the opposite effect.
It’s not impossible that this kind of distorted “anti-Americanism” was deliberately encouraged—for precisely that reason.
One could argue that America has simply institutionalized and consolidated our own decline—giving formal shape to what we now call the West: “The place where the sun sets.”
But while America played an active and decisive role in our fall, it is our own decadence that dragged us downhill.
And we won’t rise again simply by blaming those who helped us collapse.
Even the very act of defining oneself as “anti-” is a major handicap.
We must become something real, something authentic—so that others define themselves as “anti-us.”
That’s how the Antifa operate.
If we create sound political and cultural expressions, Americans will necessarily oppose us, and our incompatibility will be natural and inevitable. So let’s do that.
You don’t oppose the American system by romanticizing gulags, veiled women, or the executioners of protesters.
That’s not anti-Americanism—it’s parody.
Only by becoming ourselves again—by returning to Europe, by defeating the poison within our own souls—can we offer a true alternative to the great gray fog that now envelops everything, and which has found its most complete expression in the United States.
Even if America were to disappear, that fog could persist for centuries, simply donning new garments.
No real revolution is possible unless it is rooted, creative, spiritual, and cultural—one that gives form to something new. Only verticality can oppose flattening.
So stop, once and for all, searching far away for the treasure buried in your own garden—beneath the roots of the tree of life.
