By INS Contributors

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: For decades, the United States has wrapped itself in the rhetoric of shared values, liberal order, and mutual defense. But beneath that glossy surface lies a far uglier reality: Washington fights to the last drop of other people’s blood, depletes its allies’ economies, and then demands gratitude for the privilege.

From the plains of Ukraine to the ruins of Gaza, and now toward a looming confrontation with Iran, the pattern is unmistakable. To be America’s enemy is dangerous, as Henry Kissinger once quipped. But to be its ally? That has become fatal.

Consider Ukraine. The Biden administration framed the war as a noble defense of democracy, and Congress shoveled tens of billions of dollars eastward. But the true strategic outcome has been the deindustrialization of Europe.

Cheap Russian energy—the lifeblood of German manufacturing, French industry, and Italian supply chains—was severed not by Moscow’s whim but by Washington’s insistence on sanctions and pipeline sabotage. European factories have closed or relocated to the United States, which now exports liquefied natural gas at four times the domestic price.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s fighting-age men are pressed into a war of attrition, denied negotiation off-ramps by a White House that fears any ceasefire would look like weakness. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded. And for what? To grind down Russia, yes—but also to burn through America’s own surplus weapons stockpiles.

Those stockpiles are now dangerously thin. The U.S. has rushed to Ukraine more than two million 155mm artillery shells, thousands of Javelins, hundreds of HIMARS launchers, ATACMS missiles, and even Abrams tanks. Production lines are running at max capacity, yet the Pentagon admits it would struggle to fight a major conflict elsewhere. That “elsewhere” has now arrived.

The Middle East is bleeding America’s arsenal dry even faster. Since October 7, U.S. forces have fired Tomahawk missiles at Houthi positions, deployed JASSM-ER stealth cruise missiles against Iranian-backed militias, and emptied Patriot and THAAD interceptors to protect Israel—a country whose own war has flattened Gaza and destabilized Gulf allies.

Precision-guided munitions, the crown jewels of American firepower, are being expended at an unsustainable rate. And the infrastructure of America’s supposed partners—UAE ports, Saudi oil facilities, Qatari energy fields—has been degraded by Iranian proxies, with Washington offering little more than rhetorical support.

Enter Donald Trump. Whatever one thinks of his predecessor, the current administration has accelerated every self-defeating trend. Trump’s public demands to “buy” Greenland were a diplomatic slap across NATO’s face.

His refusal to commit to Article 5’s mutual defense clause unless European members “pay up” has shattered the alliance’s credibility. Most alarming, Trump has reportedly urged NATO allies to join him in a preemptive war with Iran—a conflict that would close the Strait of Hormuz, trigger an energy catastrophe, and leave Europe and Asia scrambling for fuel.

Japan, Washington’s quiet Pacific anchor, has already seen the writing on the wall. With the Strait of Hormuz threatened, Tokyo is discreetly reopening talks to purchase oil and gas from Russia’s Sakhalin-2 project—sanctions be damned. Japan’s energy security cannot depend on a superpower that treats allies as disposable tactical assets.

And Japan is not alone. Across Europe, capitals are recalculating. If America’s first instinct is to bleed Ukraine to the bone, bankrupt European industry, and then bully Denmark over Greenland, what kind of partner remains?

The erosion of American deterrence is no longer theoretical—it is happening in real time. Consider Russia’s recent resupply of Cuba. The tanker Anatoly Kolodkin delivered Russian oil to Havana with little more than a shrug from Washington. Other vessels carrying humanitarian aid have followed, effectively reestablishing a Russian logistical foothold just ninety miles off Florida’s coast.

A generation ago, such a provocation would have triggered a naval blockade or a crisis. Today, the U.S. offers only diplomatic notes. The reason is simple: the Pentagon no longer has the bandwidth or the credible threat of escalation to police its own hemisphere.

Even more telling is the lesson emerging from Iran. Through asymmetric strategies—low-cost drones, swarming boat tactics, and proxy missile barrages—Tehran has demonstrated that a determined adversary can exhaust America’s high-tech military without ever meeting it in a conventional battle. Every Tomahawk fired at a Houthi radar site costs $2 million. Every Patriot interceptor launched against an Iranian drone costs $4 million.

The math favors the attacker. And the world is watching. From North Korea to non-state actors in the Sahel, America’s adversaries are now studying the Iranian playbook and beginning their own arms build-ups—not to match the U.S. tank-for-tank, but to bleed it slowly, asymmetrically, and irresistibly.

The United States has long believed its geography—two vast oceans, friendly neighbors north and south—makes it invulnerable. From that bunker mentality, it provokes conflict after conflict, confident that the blood and treasure will be someone else’s.

But the world is rapidly changing. Hypersonic missiles erase distance. Cyberweapons ignore borders. Economic decoupling fragments the dollar’s dominance. And when the final bill comes due, America will find itself isolated—no reliable allies, no trusted partners, only a graveyard of broken promises.

The U.S. still has time to reverse course. It could push for genuine peace in Ukraine, rebuild its own industrial base, treat NATO as a partnership not a protection racket, and stop threatening Iran with war for domestic political points.

But that would require admitting a hard truth: Washington’s strategy of fighting through others has left it militarily overstretched, diplomatically bankrupt, and morally exposed. The world is watching. And it is beginning to walk away.