I agree with your assessment. But I think the leaders pulling these strings are not fully appreciating the costs of this security.

Controlling all of these foreign lands is pointless if the country collapses then Balkanizes. The past decade has brought so many events that nobody thought could ever happen that we need to be rearrange our beliefs. It's very possible that those of us around in 10 years will see this time period as being part of the Second American Civil war.

The only thing keeping people almost pacified is the economy is not total dogshit yet. But that's tenuous at best.

There's going to be a post-trump power vacuum. It will likely be much more bloody than our current situation.