That’s an important point.

From a political standpoint, one of the purposes of the defense treaties has been to discourage allies from building up their own militaries. This was an explicit policy in the wake of WW2 to promote both US hegemony, but also to promote stability - the theory being a world with one dominant military power is less likely to see large wars like WW1 and WW2.

Well it was also because 1900s Europe couldn't seem to stop causing major wars with itself that pulled in the US and other countries. So this policy was also to rein in Germany permanently, in parallel with economically integrating Germany more closely with Europe to reduce incentives for militarism.

Pax Americana, like Pax Britannica before it. Wonder how much longer that can hold?

Until Pax China.

They're going to need a lot more reeducation camps for that.

Between "Pax X" and "Pax Y", there's often a war. The war leaves X weakened to the point that they can't enforce "Pax X" any more. Pax Americana ending probably won't just be because Pax China peacefully superseded it.

*Pax Sinica if we want to be consistent with our Latin analogizing.

Is this true? I keep reading that the US is putting increasing pressure on allies not spending at least 2% of GDP in their military.

It was for a long time. This is why GOP handwringing about our allies underspending on military defense is so incongruent - other countries underspending on their militaries was a cornerstone goal of post-WW2 policy. Complaining that Germany doesn’t have a strong enough military marks a pretty sharp break from prior US policy goals.

That was true until Trump, and it's really only Trump pushing for that, and the GOP going along with it b/c Trump owns the GOP now. The US policy establishment is against it, but have to follow the President's orders.

Has the US entered "so many" treaties?

WWI was caused by an overuse of treaties.

"Declaring" war had meant almost nothing since 1789.