On 27 January 2024, Iranian-backed militants launched a one-way attack drone at the US base known as Tower 22 in the Syria-Iraq borderlands. It hit and killed three American soldiers and injured many other members of the 350-strong garrison. Before it, no US ground troops had been killed by an enemy aircraft since the Korean War. At the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged ‘sitting alone’ atop the international pecking order. Globalisation and free trade had seemingly delivered relative peace and prosperity to the world, while further entrenching US power.