“our empire has the most powerful military ever seen”

Right makes might, not the other way around. It’s a milestone for a civilization becoming an empire, when the Emperor declares that having a large, expensive military at his enforcers makes him the rightful king of all the world. Both of the Bushes said it, as did Nixon and Reagan and Obama. It’s a falsehood which takes on a persona and life of it’s own. The seeds of the destruction of an empire are there at it’s birth.