> I agree with most of what you said about the bureaucracy, but the Pax Americana was achieved the old fashioned way, the same way as the preceding Pax Brittani

> I agree with most of what you said about the bureaucracy, but the Pax Americana was achieved the old fashioned way, the same way as the preceding Pax Brittanica and the Pax Romana, to put it crudely, "Peace through superior firepower." While these empires had powerful militaries, firepower alone did not make them powerful. Trade and culture were far more potent long term instruments of power. In modern terms, NATO is only one part of the equation of the Pax Americana - you also have Hollywood/English language/the internet and a global mesh of free trade agreements and shipping networks. For all its downsides (and there are many, such as massive environmental damage and inequality) globalization is also a huge factor in the peace (although not necessarily an infallible one: the globalization in the 1900s wasn't enough to stop WW1).