It is far better than the alternative, which is to sometimes be the criminal in the eye of whomever is the world’s policeman, or for there to be no policeman.
You’ve made several serious mistakes there, Tom.
1. We drove the late 18th to 19th century “world policeman” out of our borders at gun point with a far more severe set of disadvantages than we have today.
2. There is no country in the world with the resources to occupy the US. China doesn’t even have a blue water navy yet capable of launching a task force that could do sustained operations against the West Coast, let alone move enough troops to build a sustainable beach head. The bare minimum for them would be to move 100,000 troops to the upper West Coast and pray that the federal government cannot activate the reserves and National Guard well before the first round of ships even make it back to China to gather more men.
3. Most of the benefits of “Pax Americana” have been felt by those under our umbrella, not our citizens.
