AMERICAN SUPREMACY HAS LOST GROUND
It’s time to accept the reality of a multipolar world
Genocide or mass, indiscriminate killings has been in the forefront of America’s history since the beginning – within the founding of America in the 18th century until today. America’s firing line has sent hundreds of millions of people to their graves. Symbolized by the “eagle”, this culture of impunity based on the so-called “Manifest Destiny” and white supremacy, is not without basis.
ISSUE ANALYSIS No: 13
Bobby M. Tuazon
Director for Political Studies
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
16 October 2026
Based on the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, certain U.S. government policies and military actions explicitly constitute genocide. Cases include the state-funded militias in 19th-century California, where the state government spent over $1.5 million to exterminate local Indigenous populations, reducing their numbers from 150,000 to roughly 30,000. In at least two cases, the U.S. military targeted whole communities, including women and children, in the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) and the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890). Often cited is the call, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”, as a cultural genocide that enforced the mandatory assimilation of Native American or indigenous Indians.
“Manifest Destiny” was a 19th-century American belief that the United States was divinely ordained to expand its borders across the North American continent. Coined in 1845 by John O'Sullivan, the doctrine merged ideas of American exceptionalism, religious mission, racial superiority, and agrarian expansion. It asserted that spreading U.S. political institutions and republican liberty was an inevitable ("manifest") and certain ("destiny") duty.
Twentieth-century programs included involuntary sterilization policies that victimized some 70,000 women.
Manifest Destiny also served as the lever behind continental expansion: It drove the annexation of Texas, the Oregon Treaty, the Mexican American War (yielding the U.S. Southwest), and heavy displacement of the native nations of indigenous Indians.
Why is Manifest Destiny the driver of modern American global hegemony?
Manifest Destiny served as the psychological and geopolitical blueprint for the transition of the U.S. from a continental republic to a global superpower, with roughly 800 military bases positioned worldwide today.
Once the Pacific coast was reached in the late 19th century, the same logic pivoted outward. It fueled the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of overseas territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii – and the Philippines.
After successfully driving out the Spanish colonizers from the Philippines, the Filipinos had to contend with another invader – the Americans. In the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) and the subsequent Moro Rebellion (1902–1913), historians and scholars estimate that hundreds of thousands of Filipinos died due to combat, famine, disease, and military atrocities. Scholars and academic papers classify the systematic violence and total war tactics used by U.S. forces as an early 20th-century genocide.
In the heroic bloody war against U.S. imperialists, during the Philippine-American War (1899–1902) and related campaigns, over 20,000 Filipino revolutionaries and 250,000 Filipino civilians lost their lives. Independent reports say the total number of Filipino fatalities during the war is close to a million.
The mass deaths were due to scorched-earth campaigns where U.S. troops burned villages, destroyed crops, and killed livestock to cut off support for Filipino guerrillas, creating widespread famine. Civilians were forced into crowded, unsanitary internment camps (“hamletting” in the US war on Vietnam) where thousands died from diseases like cholera, dysentery, and malaria.
In specific campaigns, such as on the island of Samar or during the Moro Rebellion in the southern Philippines, U.S. commanders ordered aggressive pacification measures. Orders were given to treat males or anyone over a certain age as combatants. U.S. forces frequently used coercive interrogation techniques, including the "water cure" (forced water ingestion), to extract confessions.
The U.S. was the first to use nuclear weapons. Its strategic and atomic bombings in Japan during World War II killed more than 214,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings were ordered despite Japan’s imminent surrender. War historians say that the lethal act was intended to halt the Soviet invasion on northern Japan and its possible takeover by Moscow. (The Soviet Union drove Nazi Germany fascist forces from its mainland all the way out of Europe in the process losing 25 million soldiers toward the strategic victory of Europe against Hitler.)
Other cases of genocide or mass killings: 3.5 million total military and civilian deaths in the Korean War; 3.8 million plus military and civilian deaths across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (Indochina) plus millions affected by chemical defoliants like Agent Orange; and post-9/11 Wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan). Estimates from projects like the Costs of War and international bodies count over 1 million+ direct and indirect deaths.
The brutal wars of invasion, colonialism, and modern-day foreign policy of cataclysmic conflict against Russia in the Ukraine war – where the latter country acted as a bridgehead for U.S. and other NATO forces – to isolate Moscow and pin it against the wall – constituted a Western project for a regime change in Russia. But the Russian Federation under its president, Vladimir Putin, launched “special military operations” in Ukraine to protect Russian-speaking territories, fight Ukrainian Nazis, and defend the homeland. Russian forces now control more than 20% of Ukrainian territory.
The U.S.-Israel war unleashed in February 2026 against Iran – to bring Tehran “back to the stone age” according to U.S. President Donald Trump – is another form of genocide. The strategic goal is to bring the war against China to reinstitute the U.S. global pre-eminence and stop its decline.
But geopolitical analysts say Iran is "winning": Although Iran has suffered severe damage it has achieved its core political and survival goals, e.g. no regime change, while Trump is sending feelers that he wants to end the war and strike a deal.
America’s wars of aggression, invasion, and colonization have sown lack of respect and mistrust among countries of the world. Recent international polling shows that a strong majority of people outside the United States do not trust or have confidence in the U.S. politically and militarily.
In a Pew Research global survey, a median of 63% of respondents across surveyed non-U.S. countries say the U.S. does not contribute to global peace and stability, while 56% feel the U.S. does not respect personal freedoms.
Major international tracking (such as The Independent) notes that about 57% hold unfavorable views of the U.S., and roughly 76% express no confidence in U.S. leadership. A democracy perception and global footprint study found that in 86 out of 97 countries surveyed, public opinion leans against hosting U.S. military bases.
Furthermore, only 41% to 44% of people in key allied nations (such as Poland, France, Canada, and the UK) are confident that the U.S. would step in to defend them.
Moreover, democracy perception surveys rank the U.S. high among countries perceived as external threats or destabilizing forces in global affairs.
Why people don’t trust the U.S.: Respondents frequently cite aggressive or unilateral actions, including high disapproval ratings for U.S. trade tariffs (77%), handling of the conflict in Gaza (76%), handling of the Russia-Ukraine war (72%), and regional flashpoints (such as Venezuela or Greenland policies).
In a similar vein, allies and partner nations increasingly question whether the U.S. is a steady, predictable partner due to shifting domestic politics, abrupt policy reversals, and a perceived "America First" posture that minimizes collective security. In a psychological survey Americans found Trump – deemed as the most powerful politician in the world - as a narcissist who is bound to commit policy errors due to dementia.
Many global publics view U.S. military interventions as clumsy, overly prolonged, or belligerent - leading to the belief that U.S. foreign policy frequently creates or prolongs instability rather than resolving it.
The United States, likewise, is often called an imperialist country because it has historically extended its economic, military, and political power over other nations and territories - through direct territorial conquest, military intervention, economic dominance, and global spheres of influence.
That American global power is fading is a foregone conclusion. The world has transitioned into a multipolar architecture. #
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