An entirely accidental comparison - I recently finished a series of novels set in the US's pacific fleet during ww2, so that was simply the example at the forefront of my mind.

But as a European, the US's military footing doesn't feel alien to us at all. They're essentially the modernization of the British Empire, in that their single greatest "weapon" is force projection, rather than the million-man-armies of the East. We don't necessarily identify with it anymore, but it still feels more familiar than alien.