[T]hose who posit the decline of America, and by extension the liberal world order, often get key metrics wrong. For instance, it has been argued that as the unipolar moment fades, so will the dollar's international reserve currency status. Writing in UnHerd, Thomas Fazi recently argued that Western sanctions on Russia have "enhanced the yuan's reserve currency status", while Bloomberg reported that the dollar has reached a "critical inflection point". Even the IMF has signalled alarm.

However, the use of the dollar is based as much on geopolitics as it is on economics. Foreign investors will continue to use the currency not just because of its incredible liquidity as a store of value and medium of global exchange, but because of the US's legal and governance infrastructure. It remains, after all, the currency of choice in foreign-exchange swap transactions, accounting for nearly half of the $6.6 trillion daily foreign-exchange turnover. Of allocated foreign-exchange reserves in late 2022, the dollar accounted for 60% of the world's total. The Euro, by contrast, stood at 20%. The Chinese Renminbi? 3%.

The case for a renewed Sino-Russian axis is equally unfounded. Although Putin recently hosted his "dear friend" Xi at the Kremlin, underlying this friendship is the stark reality of a deepening Russian vassalage to Xi's China. A loss of Russian prestige and status in Ukraine, and by extension an American victory, would prove a mortal blow to Putin's project of contesting the world order that, from the Kremlin's perspective, represents a greater civilisational struggle. Given this existential framing, Putin has little choice but to deepen his reliance on China as a market for Russian commodities and supplies for his war machine (via useful proxies such as North Korea).

Moreover, simmering tensions within the Sino-Russian axis already exist. The Siberian Pacific seaboard, which includes regions such as the Russian Far East and the Amur river basin, is rich in natural resources, such as timber, minerals and fisheries. China's infrastructure and development projects in the region, including through its Belt and Road Initiative, have been primarily economic. As Moscow's dependency grows, China may seek to salami-slice Russian interests, including the eventual reabsorption of the Pacific Seaboard. And this could lead to a weakening of the Federation as a whole, as well as its disintegration in the long term. None of the Central Asian states have supported the invasion of Ukraine, and are increasingly distancing themselves from Putin's integration projects. As such, despite proclamations of brotherly love, the chaotic Sino-Russian axis remains unlikely to become a "soft power" pole around which much of the Global South will seek to organise.

The US, meanwhile, retains an incredible capacity to leverage its military power into structuring the international preferences of politically equal but security subordinate states. The threat posed by the emergent Sino-Russian axis increases its capacity to corral powers as diverse as Sweden, Finland, Taiwan and Japan under its strategic superintendence, all of whom look to the US for protection. Underlined by its newly energised Aukus deal, and growing role within Nato, America's status in major centres of world power remains as strong as it did in the early post-Cold War period.