One of the great things about the SWC is the conversation is as erudite as it is lively.

WM wrote:

"I doubt that your proposal will be "cheaper and safer in the long run." For example,were we to dig into the history of the Roman Empire's budget, I suspect we would find that it nearly bankrupted itself by trying to maintain a strong standing army to defend its outer frontiers while also funding a collection of mobile cohorts for use in putting down internal revolts (like the Zealot's revolt in Judea in 70 AD--and I know that this revolt was actually put down by Vespian and Titus with Legions, not expeditionary cohorts--followed by the Kitos War 40 years later and Bar Kochba's revolt 20 years after that; similar stuff was happening in Dalmatia and Illyria as well as Germannia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhaetia in later years). When the Romans found that they could not afford both efforts, they started to trade land to "outsiders" in exchange for an agreement to defend the frontiers and kept a few mobile armies to respond to breakthroughs at the frontiers (See Luttwak's Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire and Isaac's The Limits of Empire ). We know what the outcome of all that was. I fear that if America takes your chosen road, it will end up with something like what happened to the Romans
The period of decline to which you refer actually was approximately a century longer than the United States has existed. Three centuries is a very long time to ascribe to a single causation. Military overstretch was a problem but so was the loss of economic and social dynamism as the empire moved further away from its republican origins, so was social stratification and centralization of landholding that began before Julius Caesar, so was political chaos and misrule of Diocletian and Constantine's shift of the empire's center of gravity to the East. Even then, the Roman Empire enjoyed periods of good governance and fiscal responsibility, the end did not have to come at the time and in the manner in which it did.

Nor does preponderant power have to mean perpetual wars. Great Britain's naval supremacy and balancing diplomacy was a major pivot of the Long Peace between Waterloo and World War I. Even as the British Navy's absolute strength declined during most of the 19th century, it maintained it's relative supremacy over other navies and tried to multiply that with cooperative relationships with the United States, the Anglo-Japanese Treaty and pursuing a Corbett strategy to maximize their strategic reach against any particular opponent. British power was generally used to reinforce stability and inhibit great powers from making war against one another. A worthy objective in my view.

"Given your chosen avatar (Emeror Palpatine from Star Wars)), you ought to remember Leia's line to Governor Tarkin as the Empire blows up her home planet. A corollary to her point is that holding the military card will not guarantee peace or security. Hobbes made a variation on that point in Leviathan as a step in his argument that people have a duty to seek peace"
My avatar notwithstanding, I'm not in favor of casually blowing up planets.