Owning The Black

The reason for the Pax Romana, Pax Britannica and Pax Americana is to allow for the free flow of goods from the periphery to the capitol.

Everyone else enjoys this peace, and doesn't pay for it.

Generally speaking, we're getting more from the peace we're enforcing than it costs to maintain it, but we are being taken advantage of by certain actors.

In Traveller, the 3rd Imperium controls the space between worlds, not the worlds themselves.

What would a Pax Americana Oceanus look like?

"Gee, that looks like a land war, not our problem."

"That's our ship you interfered with, problem."

I rather like the idea of using the Atlantic and Pacific as moats.

I also rather like the idea of being a lot less imperial in our international politics unless we actually become Imperial.

At least Rome and Britain were keeping the trade routes open to someplace they owned.  We're not even renting the places we're protecting.