We deploy drones in places where there are perceived terrorist threats. As you can see in collateral murder, all you have to do to be perceived as a threat is to be alive. This tells me that the U.S. government is overly paranoid.
Next, we are or will soon be deploying drones right here in the U.S. That tells me that the government perceives its own citizens as a threat or as a possible threat. This is backed up by the fact that they 'accidentally' collect U.S. citizen electronic communications.
The U.S. government makes far too many "accidents" for them to all be truly accidental.
You can argue about force projection all you want but the US is not trying to engage in some warfare campaign against the entire planet.