The effect of the imperial boomerang is intensifying partly because the Trump administration has taken foreign policy in a more inward-looking direction.

Hegseth has pushed for a new national security plan that downgrades great-power competition with China and Russia in order to have the military focus on the American homeland.

In keeping with the long tradition of Republican anti-internationalism, that "homeland" includes the entire Western Hemisphere, seen in imperialist terms as being the natural backyard of the United States.