A force for civilization?

Will history find twenty-first century America a spineless bully on the way out, or a force for civilization on the upswing?

Here is how these two polities differ both in outlook and results achieved: 

A force for civilization is humbly proud and pragmatically confident of its power.  It has taught itself the lessons of history.  It can afford to compromise on foreign interests of tertiary consequence to itself but primary importance to the interested party, increasing its influence and strategic reach by this seeming sacrifice.  It cannot be sucked into foreign alliances destructive of its own interests – it laughs at them.  It suppresses international evildoers, confident that their eventual replacements will do a better job regardless.  Its strength grows by improving the life circumstances of everyone it can, and this Golden Rule is its default position.  It always pursues peace and stability, even at what appears to be its own expense.  If its policies stray into wholesale brutality and retribution, its lean and mean intelligence -- service, honest, acute and diligent -- warns the leadership, which takes heed and reverses its course.  It promotes the righteous, the brave and the charismatic to positions of responsibility.  It suppresses psychopathic subordinates by providing them with minimal rewards in exchange for minimal damage and maximum punishment for anything else.  It invites rational discourse in the resolution of its problems both internal and external, and real transparency (left unsaid but very real) in its policy outcomes.  It funds with near-extravagance infrastructure, learning and real democracy both at home and abroad; looking forward to increasing rewards by means of rational investment.  It measures its success in terms of the good will it has recruited by its actions.  Its vision of the future is broad ranging and seeks the benefit of all, which fact it publicizes honestly to its own advantage.  Its internal policies and procedures proceed from its utmost constitutional ideals.  The most powerful miscreants, internal and external, are punished swiftly and with exemplary vigor: very few exceptions are permitted.  Military and other “hard” solutions are reserved for none but the most intransigent problems.  It is not afraid to apply them, merely made prudent by a long study of the disasters of the past.  It is admired abroad, credited with social gains it may or may not have contributed to.  At home, its intelligencia is proud of it and proud to serve it.  Almost everyone welcomes its influence toward the good.  It is on its way up in the world.  Quietly proud of it by popular acclamation, the Earth awaits its next pronouncement and policy decision.

A force for self-destruction is boastfully uncertain and panicked about its loss of power and influence.  Supremely arrogant, it ignores the lessons of history; it is “outside the norms of history.”  It thwarts foreign interests for no better reason than that it can, even at its own strategic disadvantage.  It woos partners indifferent to its interests as long as their own are optimized -- and becomes addicted to those alliances.  It permits mass evildoers their transgressions, afraid of the ultimate upshot of their downfall.  It nurtures opponents of growing strength, sophistication and coordination by making their families suffer for more and more trivial reasons.  This set of dragon’s teeth: “Grow more enemies by hurting them more” is its default position.  Its bloated intelligence service is geared to accelerate and worsen this spiral into genocide.  It seems to thrive on discord and conflict, and does nothing to reduce those things, to its own eventual demise.  It promotes idiots and stooges to positions of internal power.  It assassinates its own best leaders, and places psychopaths in positions of increasing responsibility, until those guided by their conscience have been removed from every position of responsibility.  It endorses dogma, reaction and anti-thought.  Its decisions are cloaked in unnecessary secrecy and punitive suppression, even though declared to be “transparent.”  It skimps on internal necessities of infrastructure, learning, and honest democracy, feeding off its own flesh and that of its neighbors, in favor of exponential rewards for a minority of social parasites neither creative, conscientious nor humane.  It measures success in terms of dollars spent and accumulated by an incestuous elite.  Its internal policies and procedures admit and permit more and more corruption with bureaucratic sanction.  The most powerful miscreants are declared “Too big (or powerful) to fail,” on lower and lower rungs of power as time goes on – until everyone in power, with the very rare, out of favor exception, may get away with anything he pleases.  It holds no vision of the future, merely “profit for the few at the expense of the many,” which fact it hides behind the illusion of “freedom” to misrule.  It often defaults to military and other “hard” solutions because it has become too stupid to map out better ones: afraid to apply them, uncertain of ill-defined measures applied prematurely and results therefrom, and panicked by its own fears.  It ignores the lessons of history in favor of its investment returns.  It is a sick joke abroad: accused of every social ill whether of its own devising or not.  Its at-home intelligencia is relentlessly embarrassed by its consistent misrule and the self-confirmation of its stupidity, shunning any responsibility for it and involvement with it.  Everyone on Earth with any sagacity despises it (with good cause) for one reason or another.  Regardless of its current firepower and wealth, it is past its prime and on its slide into historical obscurity.  The louder its paid mouthpieces bay its exceptionalism and merit to rule, the more mediocre and forgettable it becomes.

Pick.