The Hindu Editorial Analysis
17 December 2025
The three revolutions reshaping American power
(Source – The Hindu, International Edition – Page No. – 8)
Topic : GS Paper-2: International Relations, Global Governance, Foreign Policy | GS Paper-3: Global Economy, Trade, Economic Sovereignty
Context
The editorial analyses a profound ideological and structural shift in U.S. statecraft, triggered by the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS), proposals to restructure the G-20, and the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint “Restoring America’s Promise: 2025–26”. Together, these developments signal a departure from post-war liberal internationalism toward a hierarchical, exclusionary, and conditional global order, fundamentally reshaping how American power is exercised internally, externally, and economically.
Core Issue
The core concern is that American power is undergoing three simultaneous revolutions—internal, external, and economic—united by a common logic of institutionalised exclusion and normalisation of unequal burdens.
This transformation replaces rule-based multilateralism with selective dominance, moral universalism with ideological conformity, and shared global responsibility with asymmetric cost-shifting.
First Revolution: Shrinking of Civic Space (Internal)
The first revolution is domestic and moral in nature.
- Traditional norms of institutional restraint, civic responsibility, and public accountability are dismantled.
- Political transgression is reframed as authenticity, while erosion of democratic norms becomes a political asset.
- The 2025 NSS formalises this shift by treating:
- Cultural cohesion,
- Ideological alignment, and
- Demographic stability
as national security imperatives.
Independent institutions are no longer safeguards but are portrayed as obstacles to sovereign political will. Hardships arising from administrative purges, regulatory overreach, and civic suppression are treated not as policy failures but as acceptable collateral.
Second Revolution: Conditional Foreign Policy (External)
The second transformation reshapes U.S. foreign policy.
- Alliances are redefined as transactional and conditional arrangements, justified continuously rather than assumed.
- The Indo-Pacific replaces Europe as the primary theatre, reviving elements of the Monroe Doctrine.
- Migration is securitised, and multilateral institutions are framed as constraints on sovereignty rather than amplifiers of power.
The Heritage document provides ideological justification by portraying multilateral bodies as infringements on sovereignty and demanding ideological conformity from allies. The result is selective dominance—assertion where leverage is high and withdrawal where obligations are costly—leading to fragile alliances and global fragmentation.
Third Revolution: Hierarchical Economic Order
The third revolution restructures global economic governance.
- Proposals to restructure the G-20 signal a move toward a tiered global economy, dominated by rule-makers and peripheral rule-takers.
- Decision-making on:
- Debt relief,
- Trade standards,
- Climate finance
becomes concentrated within a narrower circle of powerful states.
The NSS reinforces this through reshoring, tariff leverage, and industrial sovereignty, particularly in North America. Globalisation is reframed as a strategic vulnerability, while economic pain is unevenly distributed across weaker economies.
Return of Imperial Logic
Across all three revolutions runs a common imperial logic:
- Not territorial colonialism, but structural hierarchy.
- The strong impose costs; the weak absorb them.
- Economic suffering is not accidental but integrated into governance as a stabilising mechanism.
The NSS provides bureaucratic vocabulary, while the Heritage framework supplies ideological grounding. Together, they institutionalise cruelty as an organising principle of power.
Global Implications
The consequences are global and domestic:
- Countries with limited bargaining power face harsher debt conditionalities and restricted market access.
- Supply chain diversification becomes politicised.
- Democratic erosion spreads as courts and institutions are repurposed to serve executive dominance.
Ironically, the effects are not confined abroad—they circle back to American society itself, affecting workers, consumers, and democratic institutions.
Conclusion
The editorial warns that the U.S. is moving toward a world order defined by hierarchy, exclusion, and conditionality, replacing shared governance with coercive alignment. The three revolutions—civic, strategic, and economic—signal a return to imperial logic under modern bureaucratic and ideological garb.
This transformation poses serious challenges for global governance, multilateralism, and developing countries like India, which must navigate a fragmented order while safeguarding strategic autonomy.
Cruelty, once normalised as policy design, reshapes not only global power but the moral foundations of democracy itself.