But then who would man the sword of damocles hanging over periphery states? Without the constant terror of the possibility of genocidal bombing campaigns launched with impunity from floating fortresses those subjugated peoples might start to want silly things like "living wages" or "safety regulation" or "agency over their own natural resources" and then where would the treats be?

That's right: in the hands of foreigners instead of sitting backlogged on a container ship or in a warehouse that can't be unloaded in a timely fashion because the imperial core did a democide on itself by doing fuckall about covid. But once the treats get moving, well then some suburbanite kid's gonna be mildly sated for a few hours.