The world today has begun clearly to see the decreasing hegemonic power of Washington

In picturing how globally significant are these occurrences is by looking at the influence of these phenomenon toward almost all states and their civilians from different regions, in which the news spread all over the globe through media. This significant phenomenon, which almost never occurred after the events of 9/11, show that it has an impact on both state and non-state actors throughout the international arena. However, it is certain that the events involved are not actors who have no interest in other actors in the international arena, but they are actors who carry the interests of almost all other actors in the global world.

In the world of international politics, hegemonic power transition is a common phenomenon, where a country will not be able to dominate the international arena forever. It is certain, that a hegemonic power will one day fall, just as a leader changes after his term is over.

Therefore, in this paper, the writer wants to provide a view based on international relations perspective by using hegemonic stability theory. Through the basis of this knowledge, the study sees that the phenomena that have occurred recently may indicate the signs of the decreasing role of the United States as a hegemonic power.

Within the past few years, international arena has been coloured with surprising phenomenon. One was the re-emergence of Taliban in taking over the land of Afghanistan on August 2021, and the present international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the Ukrainian land, which just began in the past few weeks when the author was writing this article.

The process of hegemonic power transition does not take place in a short time but requires certain times and moments which ultimately puts the United States in the front position. In the Second World War, the United States was forced to involve in war in Western Europe in order to resist several resisting forces in League of Nations international organization, which were the German Nazi and Italy. At the other region as well, the United States was forced to involve militarily at East Asia region in the aftermath of the Japanese imperial army attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941.

As a result of the United States’ successfulness in defeating the resisting powers, the United States has expanded its sphere of influence in other regions. Moreover, the influence of Washington expanded when the Cold War against the Soviet Union took effect until 1989. The Cold War and the destruction of the Soviet Union has given the United States once again the opportunity to expand its influence throughout the Asia Pacific region and Eastern Europe as well. Within these period of time, it was seen the United States emerged rapidly as a hegemonic power.

The position of the United States as a hegemonic power turn into question since the beginning of 21^st century. The 21^st century views number of phenomenon, which led Washington to act not in line with the liberal values that it should prevail or with the common interests of all countries in order to sustain its hegemonic power. At the early period, it was seen that the economy or also consider as non-traditional security was the main issue.

The United States could no longer maintain its economic liberalization due to the financial crisis 2008. The rapid economy development of China, in which probably Beijing might overtake Washington’s economic superpower within a decade caused the United States to impose economic sanctions towards China with so called “trade war”. Economic sanctions towards Iran since the withdrawal of Washington from Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 also caused other existing members of JCPOA disappointed with the United States’ decision. The policy that the United States applied in handling these turmoil was in contrast to the extend that it did not influence the international arena but disappoint the international community. This disappointment should not exist if the United States act in the common interests of other countries. However, what happened was that Washington’s actions were purely for his own national interests that should not be occurred for a hegemonic power.

The phenomenon led to an argument, in which one argues that the United States’ role as a hegemonic country. Another narrative, however, argues that only relying on economic indication in analysing the strength of the United States as a hegemonic power is not enough as other aspects are also significant factors (military, economic, technology, territory). This means that both traditional and non-traditional security are necessary in observing the power of a hegemonic country.

In looking at the recent years, there are significant traditional security phenomenon that related to the United States. Surprisingly, the phenomenon do not seem to bring Washington one step further as similar to what happened during the Second World War and Cold War. Instead, the re-emergence of Taliban in the land of Afghanistan and the Ukraine-Russia crisis perhaps lead the United States one step backward as a hegemonic power. The Taliban which overtook Ashraf Ghani’s government showed how the United States’ military defeated by Taliban. How come such a hegemonic power could not defend his own territorial influence? How such a hegemonic power could not create a peace world as how the United States could not prevent the crisis between Ukraine and Russia? Why is “peace” actually so valuable to the United States? Because in the end the chaos of the international arena will burden a hegemonic power itself. Such a huge hegemonic power transition is possibly occur when war occurs, and such an emerging regional power could possibly turn into hegemonic power when war occurs.

However, this does not mean that the United States is no longer a hegemonic power. But what can be taken from the current situation in the international arena is mostly contrary to what should be happened with the presence of a hegemonic power. Both traditional and non-traditional security become a concern of the international security. What can be concluded based on this writing is that the United States is increasingly finding it difficult to act as it should as a hegemonic power.