No, this does not have to do with "American Exceptionalism." It has to do with the much more basic concept that sovereign nations reserve the right to kill people in other sovereign nations in pursuit of their own security. The U.S. just gets the brunt of the blame for these sorts of accidents because it bankrolls geopolitical stability for the rest of the world.
> The U.S. just gets the brunt of the blame for these sorts of accidents because it bankrolls geopolitical stability for the rest of the world.
"bankrolling geopolitical stability for the rest of the world" is a nice attempt to recast maintaining a global empire through military power as if it was a selfless, altruistic deed.
I don't know if we can speak about their motives, but they certainly contribute to overall stability.
Use your head for a second.
The US government hands out millions of dollars in foreign aid to it's "enemies" - governments who are quite happy to parade around talking about standing up the US, and then holding out their hand for handouts from them.
It's quite clear what they're doing - they're basically doling out money in the hopes that it'll prevent civil unrest and nations imploding - sure, they might not like these people, and they might even be actively trying to destroy them - but the alternative is to have a messy civil war, and then have to come in to clean it all up.
The US is very interested in global stability - you can argue that's also in their own interests as well, but you can't argue they don't bankroll geopolitical stability.
> I don't know if we can speak about their motives, but they certainly contribute to overall stability.
"For the world" is speaking to motives. America isn't bankrolling "stability for the world", its bankrolling stability where it suits the interest of American decision-makers, and instability where stability doesn't those interests.
> The US is very interested in global stability
Except for those places where its interested in altering the status quo, in which cases it spends lavishly on doing that.
> you can argue that's also in their own interests as well
"Their own interests" -- that is, those of American decision-makers -- are the only factor, not an incidental "as well" factor, in the decision of where to bankroll stability and where to bankroll instability.
That is actually true. Consider Syria: Assad is a horrible person, but the Islamist groups currently fighting him are worse. Much worse.
America is the de facto World Police. And frankly I'd be okay with assuming that role if we did a good job with it. One problem with us being World Police is that we pursue our own geopolitical goals, and so it's impossible for a single nation to really be objective about policing the rest of the world - that's why we need institutions like the United Nations and, to a lesser extent, the World Trade Organization.
The really interesting thing about the USA, now that I think about it, is how willing we are to bankroll our gigantic military. Historically its clearly momentum from the cold war - culturally we're used to spending this kind of money to deter the Soviets. And now the fear of terrorism (and perhaps a more fundamental fear of change) keeps us spending gigantic sums on force. But we don't really take our responsibilities as World Police very seriously. If we did, we'd have something akin to an Internal Affairs department, at the federal level, that was easily accessible from anywhere in the world. And we'd stop treating foreigners like a different class of people - you can't (and indeed shouldn't) police people you see as fundamentally different, less, than yourself. That's just asking for trouble of a despotic nature.
The U.S. does maintain dominance, but it's not quite correct to say that it maintains a global empire. Instead, it maintains the status quo where it is at the top, but where it's traditional allies are also in favorable positions.
It's not altruistic, certainly, but it's not entirely selfish either. Obviously as the preeminent world power the U.S. benefits from the status quo. However, so does Europe. And India and China have done pretty well under the worldwide stability that American military power has bankrolled.
Look at history before the rise of the U.S. Was it free of great powers intervening in lesser countries to maintain a particular world order? Of course not. A course in European history is a course in how the great powers of a Europe used military intervention to maintain their status. Today, much of what Europe (and China and India, let's be honest) would otherwise do is subsidized by the U.S. Or do you think that if America pulled out of the Middle East everyone else would just let them do whatever they want?
This definition is a double-edged sword. What happens when non-secular state defines certain Westernisms/Americanisms as an existential threat to social moralities derived from the religion that gives a government legitimacy among its populace? In the case of non-secular governments, existential threats to religious mores are basically also threats to security. The criminals who blew up the Twin Towers on September 11th viewed their actions as aligned with their right to kill people in other sovereign nations in pursuit of their own security.
"The U.S. just gets the brunt of the blame for these sorts
of accidents because it bankrolls geopolitical stability
for the rest of the world."
Many would argue that we reduce geopolitical stability by greatly distorting geopolitics through far too many policies to enumerate here.
