And why can’t both be true as you just demonstrated in you argument? It’s full of dip shits with a powerful public and private army.

They have all the world’s resources at their peril and still are highly ineffective, but with enough force they can eventually fuck some shit up and if they can’t figure out a way with the cia they’ll just start bombing you and it will always be justified to the people in this country. So yes it’s a failing empire that can destroy a nation through soft power moves. Don’t know when those two became mutually exclusive.