US is currently run by thugs supported by the cheering consumer crowds that have been bred and conditioned to be infantile. So the situation is best evaluated in the "Lord of Flies" context. As long as masters are winning and have stronger army than anyone else, nothing will change. You will notice that they never engage army unless they have several orders of magnitude strength advantage. Which means that only small countries are in danger. There are two consequences of this: (a) there is no likely grouping of bigger entities to strike back - and that is the only response that will change US behavior. Until US is beaten and have suffered occupation and complete military defeat nothing much will change. This will eventually happen as history demonstrates that empires are not capable of sustained supremacy (due to the negative selection within among other factors - incidentally, the brain drain in the last 3-4 years have changed direction - this is the most significant metric.) But not any time soon. (b) smaller countries will strive to arm themselves with effective weaponry. The window for this is closing and in few years there will be two clearly defined clubs: untouchables and fair game. It looks that most of the arab world is heading for the fair game status and they are understandably unhappy with it. The main question is - will the income from newly and soon to be acquired colonies be sufficient to prevent confrontation between US and the rest of developed and armed world?