In other words, we’ve become like the British Empire at the height of her powers in the 18th century, tinkering & forever scheming in world affairs with disastrous results, gaining prosperity through sheer force and often in spite of ourselves.
That was the outcome of WW I&II.
The United States became the senior partner in the alliance with the UK, and as the sun set on the British Empire and colonies detached themselves, the United States assumed governance of the world through financial manipulation backed by the US military, rather than through direct political control. Direct political control of an Empire had proved too expensive to implement.
This was the basis for the UN, Bretton Woods, NATO, the Five Eyes agreement, etc. Any resistance to the “merger and acquisition” was quashed during the Suez Canal Crisis when Eisenhower basically told the UK and France to sit down and shut up.