What we've been seeing in more recent years is that the US can't get away with that so easily. Countries like Iran, China, Russia and India are capable of pushing back both in terms of the raw resources they can bring to bear and also increasingly in the ability to get their propaganda into the US discourse. The US is being manoeuvred into a one-among-equals position in practice and probably in the discourse too which will be a moral shock.
The United States Japan and South Korea seem to be failing in that area, if it wasn’t for the war between Russia and the Ukraine, the Chinese would probably be halfway to Europe with their high-speed rail system, which is already in the far west of China today.
Once the war is over between Russia and Ukraine it will be full steam ahead to Europe, whether that’s through the Caucasus, in the north or south or somewhere in the north between Russia and the Ukraine, the Chinese will get there and unfortunately the United States will be standing on the sidelines scratching its head in denial.
American foreign policy since the 1950s, fixated on fighting communism and then terrorism, has meddled with so many foreign countries that it’s silly to talk about “goodwill” towards America. That is not to say goodwill matters. Clearly the U.S. has done great without it.