So you believe might makes right? Or that right doesn't matter, so long as you are on the side of and can benefit from might?
"Right" and "wrong" have no place in international politics. Nations exist, among themselves, in the state of nature, and in nature there is only power: the ability to do. It is irrelevant whether it is "right" for a nation to impose itself as hegemon. It is inevitable that some national will. The only topic of discussion is: would you like some other hegemon better than the one we have?
We are not the first generation outside of history. You cannot look at say Western Europe and see the decades of peace and cooperation in that region, after centuries of bloody violence, and conclude that it's because modern Europeans are better and more noble people than the ones that lived just a few generations before. No, the world that exists, where France doesn't bulk up its military in response to Germany doing the same, exists because of American hegemony. That is what justifies the exercise of American power.
I am not so cynical. But neither am I naive. I believe (as possibly you may also) right is right, and it is not defined by winning (but you feel right is pointless unless without wining). Right is not defined as the ultimate outcome of geopolitical darwinism. But I also believe in self-fullfining prophesies. The world ultimately reflects us. We get the world we deserve.
Imagine if the United States unwaveringly played by the same rules internationally as it must domestically, per our Constitution. Rather than gaining power by leveraging the corruption and self-interest of foreign politicians, we'd gain influence by winning hearts and minds, and push the world by example rather than at the end of a bayonet. Idealistic? Perhaps. But it is a fallacy that idealism contradicts realism.
Your point about "playing by rules" suffers from a basic conceptual problem. The very concept of "rules" is meaningless without someone to enforce them. Otherwise, it totally rational to break the rules. In such circumstances, the party that doesn't break the rules usually doesn't win, so the system rapidly degenerates into nobody following the rules.
You also can't look at the facts and conclude that there isn't - you can only conclude that there hasn't yet been such an equilibrium. We have been running more or less democratic systems of governments more or less successfully for some number of years now, but there was a point in time before that where you could have said "you can't look at the facts, the history of the world as we know it, and conclude that democratic systems of governments can be successful". Making conclusions about the future based on the past doesn't work, all you can do is hypothesize.
I suppose you probably meant that the odds of a stable peaceful equilibrium seem very low based on historical evidence, and I'm just being pedantic.
Not in an absolute sense. Whether it is rational depends entirely on what you value. It may be rational for some people to resort to cannibalism to survive if stranded and starving to death, and absolutely not for others.
> conclude that there is a stable equilibrium where nations cooperate peacefully without anyone making them do so.
> The literal definition of "cynicism" is the belief that people are generally selfish and dishonest.
Yes, I'm pretty sure you are cynical. :)
What you call "American hegemony" is about 60 year old, so this is not exactly the history of the world.
This is debatable. Roman hegemony has created 400 years of peace whereas US has been involved in wars since WW2.
I am not a us citizen but I don't have a problem with US trying to improve the life condition of its own citizens first (everybody does it). However, believing that US is completely fair to the rest of the world is too naive. The article actually identify several unfair behaviors: [...] A double standard on torture, a near indifference to casualties among non-American civilians, the gross expansion of the surveillance [...].
> However, believing that US is completely fair to the rest of the world is too naive
Sure, but asserting that the U.S. is the most benevolent hegemony in history does not require believing that the U.S. is "completely fair to the rest of the world."
The realist in me appreciates this point, but the parts of me which are more hopeful think that this idea is the last justification available to people who are unwilling to investigate alternatives. Even if you accept that in nature there is only power: the ability to do, there are many ways to exercise that power. What if that power came from a legitimate belief that the people in the world who aren't US citizens are equally as important? American hegemony does prevent potential worse situations, but that's not its purpose. It's to protect Americans and money.
How exactly do you attribute peace in Europe to American hegemony? How do you at the same time ignore the conflict and oppression that is certainly the result of American hegemony in other parts of the world?