as the US soldier is the "Ultimate Weapon" every patrol is a kind of victory parade in the spirit of TR's Great White Fleet Voyage...
I'm not sure I savvy your meaning with this, but if you're leaning towards presence patrols as a means of showing who's boss, I suppose that could work. More often than not, at least in Afghanistan, I think we'd be more likely to simply breed resentment or one sort or another.