Yeah, there's good reason to study the US and to avoid doing whatever the hell they have been doing with their military industrial complex. I think the US has however been spectacularly stupid and corrupt - the shit they have gotten themselves into seems hugely avoidable.
As for "economic and cultural infrastructure/exchange/ties", it's nice when it works, but building Nord Stream and sucking up to Putin for decades did not exactly get us very far in terms of peace in our time. History is full of culturally rich civilizations with deep economic and cultural ties being completely fucked over by stronger military powers.