I'm sure some in the US see the US "mission" as the successor to the British Empire. And I think the argument can be made that the "Pax Britannica" did exist--and that the British treated their colonies better than, for instance, the Spanish and Portuguese.

But it's of course absurdly naive to think that the US influence in the world is entirely or even mostly, positive--the homogenization of culture, for intance, is a continuing tragedy, and mostly due to US multinationals--and the seductive attractions of their products to people outside the US, as well as hard-nosed tactics those multinationals use to push their products. There's not much positive that can be said about Coca Cola or Macroslop, in my opinion, for instance.

Uh oh, thread creep alert.