Spend the money on war instead

It’s about taxes and culture and other aspects. Scandinavian countries tend to have very strong “unions” for workers. The tax rates for an average person are higher than what an American who makes millions of dollars a year pays- and these two are critically important: Scandinavian countries tend to be EXTREMELY homogenous. Like- so much so that you need apps to tell you if you’re about to hook up with a blood relative. It’s much easier to “steer” a country when it’s primarily made up of a group of people who are largely the same- same cultures and values and wants and needs with some minor personal differences. If you and 3 friends won a million dollars but you all had to spend it on one thing you agreed on- that’s likely easier than if you and 3 strangers needed to do the same no?

Scandinavian countries have relatively little emigration, and many have laws requiring that anyone who wants to immigrate get approval from local citizens saying they fit in. So there’s a whole case to be made about diversity there. The second thing that’s important is that Scandinavian countries tend to have much lower income disparity. They have rich and poor- but on average the amount of money one person makes is much closer to what their neighbor makes than somewhere like the US which has very high income disparity. That means the construction worker who pulled triple overtime to make $75k this year tends to get upset if you tell him you’re going to take half of it to pay for his neighbors care when his neighbor worked as a video game tester and made $15k.

Now magnify that out. The US is HUGE comparatively. Several US states are larger than entire Scandinavian countries and many are very close in size. California is marginally smaller than Sweden but boasts a higher population. The state of California has some of the most billionaires in the world in one region, if it was its own country without the USA it would still be one of the top economies in the world- so as far as states go its one of the richest. Compare that to a state like Mississippi- one of the poorest in the nation and on the other side of the country from California.

Literally thousands of miles away, with its own laws and leadership- and how do you think most Californians would feel knowing that they were paying 50% of their wages while living in a city like San Francisco which has some of the most expensive real estate on earth- to finance someone living in Mississippi who’s home probably costs less to buy than a years rent in San Francisco?

Now I’m not saying that’s right necessarily- but it’s far more complex than people like to make it. The for profit healthcare system is flawed if for nothing else the fact that it assumes each person is provided for enough to afford basic expenses when many Americans struggle to make rent. But you can’t compare the US to one or even a small group of European countries. The US is like if the entirety of Europe were in the EU. We had our “brexit” over a century ago and fought a war over it to keep our union. We have problems but so does Europe. It’s not candy land. We’ve kept our union functioning for 200 years- when the EU has been functioning strong for 200 years we can talk more about the finer points of managing individual entities under a single body. The US needs to do something about healthcare and basic costs of living- but we aren’t Europe and what works there doesn’t by default work here.

Myself and likely a whole bunch of businesses and wealthy citizens would not stick around if the tax rate jumped up to over double, and the economic impact of that, the impact of the sudden evaporation of trillions of dollars in wealth if the real estate situation were regulated or the market suddenly crashed would potentially destroy the country. A home where I live starts around $3 million dollars for a small home. A condo in a “bad” area is almost a million dollars. People making over $100k a year struggle to get by here and can’t afford to buy a home. So when take home pay drops to almost half what it is and people sitting on multimillion dollar houses find them suddenly worth maybe half what they were- what’s that do to personal wealth or retirement?

Everyone wants a solution now- it won’t be now. A “good” solution won’t likely be on your life if you’re reading this. There’s so much tied up on these systems that even if we agree they are “bad” if we suddenly get rid of them there will be deep and lasting repercussions. Change on this scale has to be a gradual process to allow markets and people and culture to adapt. New methods of storing and distributing the wealth tied up in them has to evolve.

Our navy secures all the oceans, our soldiers defend Europeans and Asians from Russia or China, we stopped Saddam's imperialist and genocidal ambitions, and our dollar is the world economy. Look up the term "hyper-power".

I fail to see how any of that promotes "Stability" in any way whatsoever. Power != Stability and most of the examples you gave do the exact opposite of "stabilize" in easily quantifiable ways.
The US's position as a "Hyper-Power" is disputed at best, and irrelevant in this situation as it in no way guarantees an appropriate or benevolent use of that power.
The Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, and the British Empire are other historical examples of a "Hyper-Power" and none of them are exactly something one wants to aspire to be in modern times.

The Romans and Mongols were regional superpowers, but I guarantee the Aztecs, Cherokee, and Aboriginals didn't give two shits about them.
The US Navy effectively killed piracy. The most famous pirates of today aren't legendary scourges of the seven seas, they're coastal annoyances that either stay small time or get wiped out.
There cannot be mongol or barbarian hordes building bloody empires because as soon as any warlord actually makes any headway, Rangers, Raiders, and Predator drones reduce him and his friends to bloody chunks.
Even "rival" powers like China or Russia fear making big plays because they know that if their economies could survive without our hegemony, their militaries put together couldn't project force on the Mainland.
This is the safest and most prosperous time in human history, indisputably.
On behalf of my grandfather who stood against the Nazi's and Communists, of those who stood before, and those who stand beside me today:
You're welcome.

Stability is kinda a misnomer. “Stability” is measured economically in this case you see. Change tends to be bad for people in power or with wealth- unless they are ahead of the change. That’s how control works. If you have a good thing going for you then you don’t want change do you? People who want change are people who don’t have what they want no? So largely- “stability” is ensuring first and foremost that the economic and political power of the United States is maintained- generally not through conquest but through suppression- and as a tertiary objective that those interests of allies be maintained.

I meant stability as in no major land-grabs or ground wars.

If I am the king, then wouldn’t I want stability? Stability is that I stay in power isn’t it? If that’s my primary goal- then more or less I’m going to try and keep people where they are at, or at the very least ensure the gap between myself and others remains the same size. We don’t need not want to break a country like China. What use is China if it isn’t producing cheap goods and buying imports? Stability isn’t breaking China- it’s corralling and controlling it. That’s how proxy conflict works.

Major power A seed an opportunity to expand or better their position by using minor power A. They offer minor power A some trinket that is paltry to them but significant enough to secure what they need. Major power B sees that this move threatens their place, so major power B engages minor power A because this action doesn’t constitute direct warfare with major power A. Likewise- major power B might instead of making a proxy ally to better their position- they may use this proxy as a threat to major power A and their position. By weakening and tying up major power A, Major power B effectively betters itself relative to major power A. The major powers do not necessarily need to engage the proxy directly either- instead they can use their own Proxy B to counter proxy A.

Such a conflict costs very little resources and has effectively no ties to said major power- which then allows plausible deniability and absolution from actions of said proxy who has no official sanction. In this way- stability for said power manifests as instability for those involved in the proxy conflict- but the domestic effect of this is none or negligible. In other words- what is just another prosperous day of stability for the spider is a chaotic nightmare for the fly.

@famousone- in that regard the two tend to go hand in hand for the most part. If a country lacks a certain level of strength and wealth, it generally cannot wage any major ground wars. It lacks the tactical assets like nuclear weapons or long range delivery systems- or lacks them in numbers which could be of real threat but who’s use would cause massive retaliation. The US has many enemies from Mid East to South America, Asia, and Africa- Eastern Europe etc.

But most lack the strength to attack- or in a direct military conflict anyway. Their lack of aggression is simply because they do not have the means, and many military actions are intended to prevent them from acquiring those means preemptively.

But- @famousone- has US intervention in Syria prevented major ground war? I imagine many Syrians would feel they are on a major ground war. US intervention in Bosnia, Rwanda, The Vietnamese civil war, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. etc. have not objectively avoided conflicts with those powers or ultimately served the citizenry of those nations in successful prevention of conflict within their borders- nor served any direct role in preventing ground warfare against the United States.

The regime changes in South America caused directly or indirectly by the United States have served our interests, our humanitarian stability missions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have largely failed or been called off due to attrition- and behind most we can find the motive of installing governments friendly to the United States or its interests. We put the Baathists in charge of Iraq because we thought they’d be friendly to us. Or at least hostile to our enemies. Like many governments their policies and other actions were known and questionable.

But it wasn’t those things that led us to seek to “stabilize” the region- it was when they began to not play to our tune, undermine our interests. I’m not saying this as a condemnation of the United States and it certainly isn’t a reflection on our fine military men and women who serve a vital purpose in the prosperity and security of our nation- but the politics behind a machine of noble nature are less than noble. We can’t conflate the two- but the reality of policy and the rhetoric of policy are not aligned in reality.