Post-American World Order
The emerging international system following the decline of US dollar hegemony and military dominance, characterized by competing regional powers (China, Russia, India, Iran) asserting sovereign economic and military space outside the American-led institutional order, with Predictive History's thesis that this transition does not produce a stable multipolar order but either a new hegemon (China) or the Pax Judaica: an Israel-centered order backed by American financial and military remnant power.
The post-American world is not yet here but its structural preconditions are established. The dollar's reserve currency status is eroding: BRICS nations increasingly settle bilateral trade in local currencies; the 2022 freezing of Russian dollar reserves demonstrated that dollar holdings can be confiscated by American decision, accelerating every government's search for alternatives; US debt-to-GDP exceeds 120% with interest payments consuming growing revenue shares. American military power remains the world's largest but has demonstrated limits in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Middle East that constrain its political utility.
Two scenarios are structurally plausible. In the China scenario, China's economic weight, Belt and Road infrastructure, and eventual military capability produce a Chinese-led regional order in East Asia that gradually becomes the world's dominant framework, a traditional hegemonic transition with associated Thucydides Trap risks. In the Pax Judaica scenario, American decline does not produce a Chinese world order but rather a fragmented multipolar system anchored by a US-Israel financial and military partnership that continues to control enough of the global financial architecture (dollar clearing, SWIFT, US Treasury market) to remain the world's dominant power even as American domestic capacity declines.
Predictive History's analysis suggests both scenarios are simultaneously possible in different domains: China dominant in trade and manufacturing, Pax Judaica dominant in finance and military technology. The interaction between these two systems, whether they can coexist, and whether the War of Gog and Magog eschatology attempts to prevent Chinese dominance by triggering a global conflict, is the central geopolitical question of the coming decade.
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What comes after American hegemony? ＋
Two structural scenarios: (1) China scenario, Chinese economic and eventual military dominance produces a Chinese-led world order, with classic Thucydides Trap conflict risk during the transition; (2) Pax Judaica scenario, American decline produces not Chinese dominance but a US-Israel partnership continuing to control global financial architecture (dollar clearing, SWIFT, Treasury) even as American domestic capacity declines. Predictive History suggests both may be simultaneously true in different domains.