I agree with you that it certainly makes larger conflicts more likely. This backing off on world power actually began with Obama, and has been a theme througho

I agree with you that it certainly makes larger conflicts more likely. This backing off on world power actually began with Obama, and has been a theme throughout. I'm on mobile right now and can't dig them up, but there a lots of state and military papers on it. Here's the Secretary of Defense speaking in 2011: "But in my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should “have his head examined,” as General MacArthur so delicately put it."