Its the institutions, the departments of government, like the Defense Department and attendant attitudes towards others, and how they view the world. The idea that you have to be dominant militarily is inbred even as we can't afford it. But the real power is in the money, the banks. They are the one's financing our wars. If we couldn't borrow, we couldn't war. The neat thing was that China was buying the debt that paid for our Mideastern wars. Note they are selling and rates are going up, especially on mortgages, and the economy will flop.