I'm canadian but I do think that America has overwhelmingly been a force for peace globally post WW2 and the stats bear that out.
Hmm. I agree that the world has been getting more peaceful. Jury's out on whether or not that has anything to do with America's involvement on the world stage. The US has done an awful lot of bad that doesn't seem to get as much press as it should here in North America.
1990s
- In a bid to kill Pablo Escobar DEA backed and supported Los Pepes, the group of people who founded the AUC and were responsible for 75% of the violent civilian deaths in Colombia over the 10 years following
- The CIA overthrew democratically elected President Aristide in cuba by training and using FRAPH
1980s
- the US destabilized the socialist government of Afghanistan and trained/installed various Taliban warlords in power. Didn't work out too well long term for the US.
- the CIA trained, armed, and supervised El Salvadore government forces responsible for more than 66,000 civilian deaths in El Salvadore
1970s
- the US (led by Kissinger's recomendation) approved and supported the military junta responsible for the murders of 30,000 in Argentina
- overthrew democratically elected president Salvador Allende in Chile to institute General Pinochet . . . another brutal dictator.
1960s
- the US backed General Castelo Branco, installing him as a pretty brutal dictator in Brazil for more than 20 years in place of elected President Joao Goulart
- Nixon order a secret and illegal bombing of Cambodia, killing 500,000 Cambodians. This action ended up causing a lot of Cambodian support for the Khmer Rouge.
- Backed and supported the Khmer Rouge against the Vietnamese army in Cambodia - laying millions of land mines across Cambodia
- Supported the Batista dictatorship (responsible for more than 20,000 civilian deaths) in Cuba . . . followed by years of CIA supported terrorism and assassinations in the country after Castro came to power
- Overthrew elected president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah
1950s
- Overthrew elected liberal government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, arming and training an army and directly causing 40 years of civil war - resulting in 200,000 civilian casualties
- Overthrew the popular democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, to implement the Shah as a pretty brutal dictator
- CIA hired Saddam Hussain to assassinate the president of Iraq. When he screwed that up, they paid him and an intelligence officer, then later assassinated the leader and helped him take power over Iraq.
1940s
- the US recruited Minister Xhafer Deva (one of the Nazis responsible for deporting people to Auschwitz) in an attempt to overthrow the government of Albania
- instituted Syngman Rhee as dictator in South Korea, who ended up being responsible for 100,000 deaths and helping to bring about the Korean War.
I mean, this list goes on and on. Haven't mentioned Laos, Myanmar, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Panama, Syria, Zaire . . .
Yes there have been mistakes made but the world has never been this peaceful with so few combat deaths and a lot of that is because of the military power that America exerts. Of course there's other factors like mutually assured destruction, more intertwined economies, etc. Could someone like the Chinese be better? Possibly, but they could also be far worse. It's not like they don't have their own biases and issues (ex: Uyghur re-education camps) and they have far fewer checks in their government.
I don't think too many people were hoping for the downfall of the US and the rise of China as the leading global power under Obama. As far as that might be a "thing" I think most of it is a relatively short term response to Trump.
Don't get me wrong . . . China is certainly no better. But given history, it's difficult for me to really see the US as a force for world peace.