Similar thought to your first paragraph, now that the dust is settling. My best guess is the current US playbook is to risk most of the US soft power and take advantage of its current economic position to really bolster its hard power so the US is in a position to exert more direct force/coerce the rest of the world for what it wants and have more control over policy in other countries. If that’s really the case then china is probably the biggest threat to that gamble as it’s been catching up to or surpassing the US in a few industries recently. And if the gamble fails the economy sinks for a while and Europe or china passes the us as the global powerhouse.