Another great article by Michael Totten on the French in Mali and the Americans attitude about the rest of the world.

Snippets:

  "The American superpower is an original. It's reluctant and self-doubting. Most Americans just aren't that into it. Policing the world is deadly, expensive, exhausting and thankless. France can unilaterally invade a former colony like Mali and endure nary a peep, but anti-American protests break out all over the place whenever the U.S. intervenes anywhere, even with authorization from the U.N. Security Council.

Strutting around the world like a colossus doesn't appeal to anything in the American soul. We do it because somebody has to, because we can, and because most of us sense instinctively that we'll wake up in a different world if Russia and China take over the job."

Very true, but keep in mind that we can project power so well only because we have the economy rich enough to back it up and pay the cost, and the moral compass to exert that power without inevitably becoming a colonialist power.  That in fact could well change the longer the progressives maintain power in our government.