Americans have enjoyed decades of prosperity as a result of it.

Not all Americans, not by a long-shot. The era in which the US has been the global superpower (since WW2) has also been the era when both income and wealth disparity in the US have grown enormously.

Since WW2, Americans have been involved in a never-ending series of financially wasteful, mostly morally indefensible or repugnant wars and dodgy foreign interventions that have cost many Americans and people in other countries their lives. And the US government and economy have become all bolloxed up as a result, with too much money being spent on arms and wars and too little being spent on hospitals, health care, schools, as former general Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his last address to the nation as POTUS in 1960:

As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.[

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

I think all the ills Ike warned about - and more - have come to pass. Rather than be the global superpower, I'd rather the US took a back seat, or least slid over to the passenger seat for a while. Let somebody else drive.

Lots of countries in Europe have equal or more per capita prosperity to the USA, far less wealth & income disparity amongst the populace, a fairer distribution of resources, more benefits, better education, happier populations and far, far lower levels of military spending than the USA. For example, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.