America is somehow very good at consistently finding ‘the one thing’ that really matters and excelling in that particular thing at the correct time (roughly in order — republican democracy, territorial acquisition, industrialization, capital markets, military supremacy, cultural revolution, high finance, semiconductors, internet, software, space, AI, etc.)
The downside of this is that it is very difficult to excel in multiple things at once. Attention follows what succeeds and what does not succeed, or is second-best, is left relatively forgotten and uncared for. Whether that be people/companies/ideas/etc.