PUNDITS are busy sifting US President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations for key roles in his administration for signs as to how he will approach world politics, dividing his picks into “America first” hawks and neocon uber-hawks.

They might be better looking at the factors driving US foreign policy, which turn first of all into the weakening power of US imperialism and its efforts to maintain the global hegemony it secured at the end of the cold war.

One Achilles heel is the position of the dollar as effectively the world’s reserve currency. It sits alongside the strength of the US’s hypertrophied military as one of the two pillars of US global dominance.