Some say the US is addicted to oil, some say that the US is addicted to debt, some say that the US is addicted to wealth. But one thing that the US has really become addicted to and may pay as big a price as other empires did many times in history for, is the absolute, existential indispensability of being the GREATEST (of all countries and nations)!
Finland or Canada or Australia or Belgium do not need at all any feeling of greatness to feel the best about their own national self-reflections, to make their respective countries the best and COZIEST HOMES for themselves - indeed, there is no place for that "greatness" in the reflection of their own value in the mirror of their societies and countries.
That's not the case with the US, in my modest view - alas. Take that "greatness" away from the America, and it may lead to a very deep cognitive dissonance on the collective scale. That wasn't the case with America at all before WWII, but it became so after. Post-imperial syndrome (like phantom pain) is not an easy thing to go through (many nations went through it in history - the US is not the first and won't be the last).
One doesn't have to be GREAT, let alone the greatest, to feel happy about oneself and others, which has been demonstrated by so many people and nations in history who, ironically, sometimes have later been declared "great" to their own surprise because they've never expected or wanted it.
