I think you may have missed the entire point of the Monroe Doctrine, two World Wars, the Marshall Plan, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War. We can even break such complexities down to school yard metaphors: - 2 kids on the playground are amassing friends to create rival gangs. One kid gives out more candy than the other and attracts more members to his gang. Now, the other kid has to settle for much less members...and then gets his ass kicked. American influence in the world matters: ** It's why Monroe's regional Foreign Policy involved telling the European colonial powers in 1823 to stay away from our side of the Atlantic. ** It's why Wilson took his Foreign Policy global and tried to "make the world safe for democracy" after WWI with his Fourteen Points. ** It's why we committed $128 billion in today’s dollars during the four years of the Marshall Plan in Western Europe to inject faith in capitalism and democracy when many of them looked favorable on the Soviet Union. ** It's why Kennedy jumped out of his chair when Khrushchev stupidly put missiles in Cuba, the one communist foothold on our side of the Atlantic, which almost brought the world to disaster. ** It's why we gave Egypt aid, which shoved the Soviets out and forced Egypt's government to behave against Israel. ** It's why we spent trillions of dollars and used our scientific advantage during the entirety of the Cold War as enticement to pull all types of governments throughout the world towards the American umbrella and away from the Soviet Union and China, which was offering much less. The entire Cold War can be summed up as a contest to control regions, one way or another. Our greatest strength since WWII hasn't been our military. It has been our economic power and the political influence it bought us. So, yes, we cut the Bahamas a check and keep China out of our backyard. Handing the Bahamas over to China because we wish to pervert the meaning of "America First" is foolish. You were a soldier. You should understand such things.
