No, the industrial and agricultural might of the US gave it global economic dominance that allowed it to lead the establishment of a large number of international systems - Bretton-Woods, the UN, IMF + World Bank, NATO, on and on - that enabled it to largely carry out its goals without direct application of military force. Dollar hegemony is just as (if not more) important than the 800 military bases and aircraft carrier fleets. Of course, these things dialectically reinforce each other.

"Fair" competition was in the US's interest because it was so astoundingly economically productive and profitable that it could always guarantee victory, like a fully armed knight on horseback against a peasant with a homemade spear on a level battlefield. But the rise of China has broken that balance, and now the US is scrapping all these systems that had been so important to its dominance and is retreating back to an older and more active form of military power due to lack of other options.

[–] alexei_1917@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

That is a good point. But the military force was needed to engage in their early imperialism and gain the economic advantage, and it reinforces their apparent rights to all of the resources they take from their colonies that supposedly aren't such, and they're falling back on it because it's always been the true core of their global dominance.