[Ryzorian]

The US was bascially the main power standing after WW2 and got stuck putting everything back together. It's everyone's "Mama/uncle/big daddy" because we got tired of putting everything back together every 20 years. WW1 was a disaster too. We didn't get involved at the end of that one and look what happened.

Now yes, I suppose we could pull out of all the bases we are at everywhere, and stop feeding all those countries that rely on our food, and stop shipping aid to those countries that have natural disasters. Since we use alot of those bases as operational platforms for that sort of thing.

Your also right, we could let the planet burn, the problem is that we would end up catching some of the flack. Keeping these bases, keeps much of that away from the home turf.

Aside from some nutjobs, mainland US hasn't been hit by anything since WW2, Japan actually managed to capture an island off Alaska and droped firebombs in California. Kudo's them, it's more than the Germans managed.

Now yes, I can understand where some of these nations come from, The US orginally was a colony too. It's still not likely going to change many minds about those bases. The US tends to keep anything it gets a hold of, specially if it paid for it in blood.

The added irony here is that if war did break out between Japan and North Korea, Japan would have the US on their side.