The Patience Strategy: How Waiting Becomes Winning in Great Power Shifts
![empty formal interior, natural lighting through tall windows, wood paneling, institutional architecture, sense of history and permanence, marble columns, high ceilings, formal furniture, muted palette, an abandoned imperial committee room, oak tables layered with undisturbed papers and faded inkwells, sunlight slanting through tall, arched windows at a diagonal, casting long shadows over a vacant speaker’s chair; dust motes float in the still air, illuminating the silence of decisions no longer being made [Bria Fibo]](https://081x4rbriqin1aej.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/viral-images/98e75546-9cd7-45ae-9283-7439bda1fe6b_viral_2_square.png "empty formal interior, natural lighting through tall windows, wood paneling, institutional architecture, sense of history and permanence, marble columns, high ceilings, formal furniture, muted palette, an abandoned imperial committee room, oak tables layered with undisturbed papers and faded inkwells, sunlight slanting through tall, arched windows at a diagonal, casting long shadows over a vacant speaker’s chair; dust motes float in the still air, illuminating the silence of decisions no longer being made [Bria Fibo]")
If U.S. diplomatic patterns continue to fluctuate across administrations, then alignment among middle powers may increasingly reflect stability over alliance history, not preference for any single actor.
There is an old rhythm to the fall of empires—one that rarely involves cataclysm, but instead a quiet unraveling as allies begin to look elsewhere, not because they love the successor, but because they no longer trust the incumbent. In the 1920s, British diplomats watched helplessly as dominions like Canada and Australia shifted economic allegiance to the United States, not out of hostility to London, but because Washington offered stability and growing markets. Decades later, during the 1970s, U.S. credibility faltered after Vietnam and Watergate, and it was the steady, if rigid, posture of détente-era diplomacy that allowed openings in China and the eventual erosion of Soviet influence. Now, once again, the signal is clear: when a superpower becomes erratic, the most powerful strategy may not be action, but patience. China’s current rise may be less about ambition and more about the vacuum created by American inconsistency—a lesson written in the margins of history, where the quietest moves often change the world.[2]
—Marcus Ashworth
Published February 28, 2026