[Bond]

It's been a long held view of many Western intellectuals that some powerful democracy (in this case, the United States) must dictate objective morality throughout the world. If not, by default, that morality will be dictated by dictatorships. You could look at our military as a proxy to serve these means.

Our generational military superiority will also keep us in a position of strength when our power inevitably declines.

Also, for fun, compare military spending to medicare/medicaid and social security spending in the United States. You'll run into some interesting numbers.