Military adventurism was most successful for the Roman Empire. During its early phase, the people of cities to which they arrived would sometimes toss their king over the walls and open the gates. In its decline, the legions traveled with thousands of whores to satisfy the troops. It was interior political strife, immorality, and the welfare state the killed the Roman Republic, not military adventurism per se.
The key words are "traveled" and "troops". The foreign military expeditions bankrupted the Roman Treasury. The demise was caused by banrupting the treasury on foreign wars, by spending money they did not have. Same thing happened to USSR. They tried to compete militarily with USA on star wars. Result? Demise of USSR. It is the height of stupidity to borrow money from China to protect middle-east oil lanes from where majority of oil goes to China, Japan & SE Asia. There is absolutely nothing wrong to play world policeman if there is money in the treasury. Right now, employment is horrible with 90 million adults without jobs, corporations are moving out of US to avoid highest tax rates in industrialized world. Obamacare is a ball & chain around the feet of businesses. Illegals WITHOUT SKILLS or MONEY are flooding the country. The priority for us must be to strengthen the country internally first. Pay off the debt to foreign countries. Stop deficit spending on backs of future generation. Only then we can afford to maintain hundreds of military bases all over the world. And act as the world policeman again.