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Having other countries side with you, use your symbols and laws, and aspire to your culture by choice is certainly a more impressive measure of your global stature than only being able to make them do that by force.
Go to a political rally in Seoul and I assure you that you will indeed see countless American flags; go to Mexico City, or any City in Mexico, and you can see their numerous statues of Abraham Lincoln. American flags fly in Taiwan, in Argentina, in Brazil, in countries no one would even think of, and there are statues of Reagan, Clinton, Lincoln, George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, even irrelevant Presidents like Rutherford Hayes, in countries across the world, in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, even in the lands of our mortal enemies like China and Russia.
Countries we've fought brutal wars with like Vietnam and the Philippines still have incredibly favorable impressions of us and line up for American trade and security guarantees out of choice rather than at the point of a gun; there are West Africans who will frown when they think you're British and break out into a grin when they see you're American, Liberians who will proudly tell you they are in fact American as well, 750 military bases across nearly half the countries in the world where American soldiers walk armed and freely by request of the host nation, countless constitutions and legal systems inspired by the American foundational blueprint, police forces the world over taught by Americans, a world learning English and watching American media and crossing oceans and deserts to come be part of the United States.
Don't pine for empire, we already have it - the footprint of America covers every corner of the world.
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