It's interesting that you don't preach this mentality for Russia. If you did, you wouldn't want them in Syria, Ukraine, or anywhere else. You're all for Russian involvement in the world. The reason why is that you know this is BS.
Being a superpower has real advantages for average people. That doesn't mean everybody benefits equally. Obviously the politically well-connected benefit the most. The biggest winners are banks, defense contractors, infrastructure builders, etc. However, the average American also benefits in many respects - money, jobs, protection, access to markets, etc.
The British Empire comparison is weak. First, Britain was a small country with limited natural resources. It thrived by acquiring colonies in very distant lands that were extremely difficult to protect and secure and pillaging them and their people. By contrast, the United States is large and has vast natural resources of its own. It doesn't need to dominate a colonial empire of resentful people to maintain its economic dominance.
Second, the United States has a MUCH freer economy than the British Empire's largely command economy, which concentrated the benefits of the British Empire. In the British Empire, government-chartered entities run by the well-connected were basically the only people who made serious money off the Empire. There wasn't an entrepreneurship element to speak up. The US economy is pretty free. Somebody can create a business without asking the government to bless it and sell their products all over the country and all over the world. So yes, American billionaires in the sack with government can get extremely rich off our system, but relatively ordinary Americans can also get in on the action to a significant extent. And of course, all of that creates jobs in the United States.
Third, to the extent that the United States maintains a global presence, it's not resented to the extent the British Empire was, so maintaining it is a lot easier. Our global presence is mostly military bases that are kept with the consent of the host nations, which benefit handsomely from our presence. I'm not saying there's no resentment at all. Of course there is some, because we're a convenient target. However, it's no where near as intense and far less widespread. Go to a country and tell them you want to build a military base on their soil. You'll pay them to be there, use the base to protect that country's security, hire thousands of their people at above-market wages, and create demand for billions of dollars of local business every year. How many will be pissed off about that deal? A handful but very few. Now go to a country, take away all or virtually all of that land's sovereignty, raid the country of its resources, and enslave or virtually enslave its people. How many will be pissed off about that deal? Many more.
The bottom line is that a true empire like the British Empire was just a lot harder to maintain than ours - both politically, socially, and economically. Frankly, even if Putin got his OBOR, he'd try like hell to build Russia into a powerhouse, but he'd probably fail. Russia has more than enough natural resources to do it, but they don't have the economic system, stability, infrastructure, and culture to do it.
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