The Infrastructure Trap: How America's Dominance Strategy Is Accelerating Its Own Decline
Empires don't collapse overnight. They get replaced—bit by invisible bit
Over 1,000 ships suddenly found themselves blind in the world's most critical waterway. In the Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of global oil flows through waters barely 21 miles wide, captains watched their navigation screens dissolve into static. GPS signals jammed. Positioning systems dead. Vessels began sailing in impossible straight lines, zigzagging wildly, or appearing to drift onto dry land according to their instruments. The collision of the Front Eagle and Adalynn was likely inevitable—two massive tankers groping through digital darkness in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
This was June 2025. For the first time, many of us glimpsed how fragile the systems we never think about really are.
Every morning, you wake up and reach for infrastructure controlled by distant powers. Your smartphone's GPS guides you to work. Your banking app processes payments through networks you've never seen. Your ride-share connects through servers you'll never visit. You know that moment when your phone dies and you realize you don't actually know how to get home? That's the feeling entire countries are having about American infrastructure.
Iran certainly felt it. In the final week of June 2025, during what became known as the "12-day war" with Israel, Iran made a decision that will be remembered as a pivotal moment in the decline of American technological hegemony. As GPS jamming disrupted maritime traffic, Iran officially severed its dependence on the US-controlled Global Positioning System and switched entirely to China's BeiDou satellite navigation network.
This wasn't merely a technical adjustment—it was Iran saying they were done being at the mercy of systems that could disappear without warning.
While Iran's broader anti-American strategy undoubtedly influenced this decision, the timing reveals something more concerning: US restrictions were a significant accelerating factor in transforming what might have been a gradual, optional transition into an urgent strategic necessity.
The Parallel Systems of Control
The parallels between GPS dominance and the petrodollar system are striking. Both represent the quiet power of making yourself indispensable—where the United States provides critical global services that create dependencies, generate leverage, and reinforce American influence worldwide. Just as oil transactions denominated in US dollars require countries to maintain dollar reserves and support American financial markets, GPS has become the invisible backbone of global navigation, timing, and precision systems that touch your daily life in ways you've likely never considered.
For decades, this dual infrastructure dominance seemed unassailable. Countries needed dollars for energy transactions and GPS for everything from smartphone navigation to precision agriculture. The United States held the keys to both kingdoms, able to grant or deny access as geopolitical circumstances dictated. This created what appeared to be permanent leverage—until alternative systems proved not just viable, but superior in key regions.
Critics might argue that Iran represents an outlier—a rogue state whose defection was inevitable. Yet the broader pattern suggests otherwise: Russia built SPFS after SWIFT restrictions, China created UnionPay after payment limitations, and according to Belfer Center analysis, 165 countries now receive better BeiDou coverage than GPS service. This isn't cherry-picking; it's a documented trend across multiple cases since 2014.
The Fatal Flaw: Weaponizing What Should Be Universal
America inherited something unprecedented: technologies that could genuinely serve the world. GPS represents decades of American innovation and investment. The dollar's role reflects the strength of American institutions and markets. Somewhere along the way, though, the question shifted from "how can this help?" to "how can this control?"
Rather than using infrastructure dominance to build lasting partnerships and mutual dependencies, the US has repeatedly chosen the path of punishment and exclusion. Iran's GPS experience perfectly illustrates this pattern: denied access to high-precision GPS services that could have improved civilian infrastructure, agriculture, and transportation, Iran was forced to seek alternatives.
Imagine your landlord decides you can't use the building's parking garage anymore because he doesn't like your political bumper sticker. You don't storm out immediately. You probably try to reason with him first. Maybe you remove the sticker, maybe you argue about property rights. But his decision feels arbitrary, personal. Eventually, you start looking for a new place to live—not because you hate the apartment, but because you can't build a life around someone else's changing moods.
Some defend this as responsible statecraft—using targeted sanctions to influence bad behavior. But institutional analysis of restrictive policies suggests otherwise: each "targeted" restriction has prompted systematic alternatives that reduce American leverage permanently. We're trading temporary punishment for long-term irrelevance.
How you treat those you perceive as beneath you reveals everything about your long-term judgment. Each restriction, each sanction, each "comply or be cut off" ultimatum plants the seeds of future competition.
While America Doubled Down, Another Power Took Notes
China recognized what America missed: that accessibility and reliability without political preconditions would eventually trump superior technology with strings attached. Rather than trying to destroy GPS, China built a more comprehensive alternative and made it more accessible. BeiDou now covers blind spots that GPS doesn't reach, provides better service in underserved regions, and offers access to countries that the US has restricted. By 2020, BeiDou satellites observed the capitals of 165 countries more frequently than GPS satellites—a quiet revolution that happened while America was focused on maintaining control rather than improving service.
The contrast in approach is telling. While American infrastructure policy asks "do you deserve our technology?", Chinese infrastructure policy asks "how can we solve your connectivity problems?" This isn't about moral superiority—it's about strategic effectiveness. Iran's switch to BeiDou reflects not ideological alignment but practical problem-solving: China offered unrestricted access and technical cooperation when America offered restrictions and conditions.
When someone consistently uses their advantages to punish rather than partner with you, you find other friends. It's not complicated.
Those who argue that China's approach creates dangerous dependencies miss a crucial point: when American "oversight" means potential service denial during conflicts, Chinese "control" that actually works becomes attractive. If our "open" system excludes large portions of humanity while their "closed" system serves them reliably, who's really championing accessibility?
Every punitive use of infrastructure dominance—whether cutting countries off from SWIFT, restricting semiconductor access, or denying GPS services—validates the strategic necessity of building alternatives. The US doesn't just lose the targeted country; it demonstrates to every other nation the risks of dependence on American-controlled systems.
Iran's dramatic GPS shutdown during active conflict sends an unmistakable message to every government watching: infrastructure independence isn't just desirable, it's essential for sovereignty. Countries that might have been content with American-dominated systems are now asking themselves what happens when they inevitably disagree with Washington on some future issue.
The Pattern
I remember the morning in 2003 when I watched Donald Rumsfeld explain why the invasion of Iraq would be quick and easy. American technological superiority made it inevitable, he said. Smart bombs, satellite communications, overwhelming force projection. I believed him—not because I was naive, but because the evidence seemed so clear. America had built something unprecedented in human history: a military that could see everything, strike anywhere, coordinate across vast distances in real time.
What I didn't understand then was that every demonstration of that superiority was also a lesson plan for competitors. Learning that cost me the comfortable illusion of my own supremacy. It's not comfortable now, but at least it's real.
This isn't an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern that transcends any single administration's policies. Russia developed alternative payment systems after SWIFT restrictions. China built its own social media platforms after concerns about American tech surveillance. Multiple countries are developing sovereign digital currencies to reduce dollar dependence. Each American restriction spawns new competitors and reduces long-term American influence.
The repeated weaponization of these advantages has turned them from sources of attraction into drivers of technological nationalism. Countries now view dependence on American infrastructure not as beneficial integration but as dangerous vulnerability.
Those who point to America's continued technological leadership miss the trajectory. Absolute strength matters less than relative direction—much like how the British Empire remained globally dominant even as new competitors emerged in the early 20th century, yet still lost its hegemonic position within decades. The question isn't whether America dominates today, but whether current strategies will maintain that dominance tomorrow.
China's BeiDou system processes over a trillion location requests daily and guides four billion kilometers of navigation, according to Chinese space agency data. The system generated nearly $80 billion in economic output in 2024, representing a comprehensive parallel system to American GPS dominance. While GPS continues to serve most global users effectively, Iran's switch signals the leading edge of a global trend toward technological sovereignty among countries seeking to reduce dependency vulnerabilities.
What makes this particularly devastating for American interests is the network effects of infrastructure. Once countries invest in alternative systems, switching costs make them sticky. Iran won't switch back to GPS, even if America changes course tomorrow. When someone breaks their promises repeatedly, you stop believing the apologies. Each defection makes the alternative system more valuable and the American system less indispensable.
Adaptation or Decline
America's current behavior suggests how it will adapt to this new reality: poorly. Rather than acknowledging the strategic failure of weaponizing infrastructure or adjusting to a multipolar technological landscape, the response has been to double down on restrictions and attempt to prevent competitors from succeeding. This approach makes losing influence almost inevitable—not because America deserves to fail, but because it's choosing strategies that don't work.
Policy can change with new administrations, but infrastructure decisions create path dependencies that outlast political cycles. Countries investing in BeiDou today won't switch back even if America changes course tomorrow. Research on network effects and infrastructure economics shows that each delay in adaptation increases the costs of reversal substantially.
True adaptation would require fundamentally rethinking the purpose of technological leadership—shifting from control and exclusion to innovation and inclusion. It would mean competing on value rather than leveraging dependency. Most importantly, it would require treating potential partners as equals rather than subjects.
But I'm not optimistic about America making that shift. The same reflexes that created this problem—the assumption that American advantages are permanent, the belief that punishment changes behavior more effectively than partnership—those reflexes are deeply embedded in how we think about power. They're not policy choices that can be easily reversed; they're cultural assumptions that shape how entire institutions operate.
Part of me still wants America to figure this out, even though I know it probably won't. That hope feels naive, but I can't quite let it go. Maybe it's because I'm American and this is my country's decline I'm watching. Maybe it's because the alternatives aren't obviously better. I don't know.
When Your Apps Stop Working
Iran's GPS switch represents more than a navigation system change; it's a case study in how short-term thinking can transform technological advantages into strategic liabilities. As more countries follow Iran's path toward infrastructure independence, America faces a choice: learn to lead through attraction rather than coercion, or watch its dominance crumble one infrastructure defection at a time.
Those tanker captains in the Strait of Hormuz weren't the only ones navigating by signals they didn't control. Every day, you hand over your location, your payments, your communications to systems owned by powers who see you not as a partner, but as a user to be managed.
The next time your GPS guides you home, you might notice how much trust you place in systems you've never questioned. I still don't know what happens next, but I know something fundamental is shifting. And sometimes, late at night when I'm driving home using GPS I don't understand through infrastructure I can't control, I wonder if this is how empires always end—not with invasions or declarations, but with people quietly building alternatives until one day you realize the old world simply stopped working.