There's a lot to reply here and I'm not uniquely qualified to do it, but I figured I'd write something given the effort you've put into sharing your thoughts and feelings.
With regard to the FBI hacking another agency - the CIA hacked Congress when they were investigating them for torture. Rounding that down to something a founding father could say: the executive branch spied on the legislative branch while it was investigating the executive branch for breach of law.
With regard to US world order - it's so hard to tell when an empire is doing the world more good than bad - and between various 'opportunity costs' to the good it could do the world under its order.
In this sense, the US does do some very, very dirty deeds. It is not above killing and even torturing and then killing innocent people, committing mass fraud on the world to justify its interests, or involving itself in the rape of children, and trafficking of arms and drugs internationally (illegally) to supply proxy forces. It propagandizes and it censors and it disappears people. It steals resources and engages in protectionist trade while espousing free markets. It rigs elections overseas and it coups genuine leadership. It assassinates key figures to decide geostrategic events. It has a long list of scandals.
To maintain its justified place at the top of the world order it needs to maintain an image of legitimacy. If you ask those who know about its special operations who is on the US's side you will hear precisely what you have mused about: the good that America does in keeping a world order with static boundaries based on trade and other forms of competition is collectively a better world to live in, even if some people - in the eyes of the power elite - need to be subjected to torture for it to continue.
Digesting this statement requires a neigh impossible task: predicting alternate futures where current order never developed and in its place another one does. Quickly this task becomes an imaginative one that falls prey to the leanings and biases of the person imagining it: those who favor the US imagine a more chaotic world and those who favor another nation a more peaceful one.
It's nearly impossible to ask this question, so the real work to be done is through alternate questions. What can we do now? What questionable programs and opinions exist today that can be dismantled? What powers are needed to maintain a peaceful sphere? Should the world have one protector, or is it possible for some Wilsonian (or other) creation to succeed at the task?
I can't give you those answers. I don't have them myself.
As an aside - one I hope is interesting - the United States relies very heavily on its reputation as a just and kind force to maintain its legitimacy. Were qualms with the US to bubble into a loss of legitimacy the world order would quickly dissipate.
This is what the US fears the most. It has to keep the optics at a higher bar than it can keep its practices. It hopes, it wishes and it needs to find solutions that allow for international stability - where it remains the top dog - and where it can keep its reputation.
We get to see how our leadership and representatives navigate this space and we get to be the primary sources for the historians to annotate it for the future.
So thanks for your reply, but it's along totally different lines from what I had in mind. (I added an Edit on the bottom.) What I mean is more along the lines of the 'new world order' conspiracy I linked. Why wouldn't we want something like that? It would save all of the costs of the same colluding powers hacking each other. In this specific example, why wouldn't we want China and the U.S. colluding rather than hacking each other? But this collusion is kind of the definition of a "new world order". Why wouldn't we want all the countries in on it?
You are certainly right that my impressions are quite shallow, I am mostly proceeding from first principles, a few use cases, ideas, and philosophy. Thanks for your thoughts.
With regard to the FBI hacking another agency - the CIA hacked Congress when they were investigating them for torture. Rounding that down to something a founding father could say: the executive branch spied on the legislative branch while it was investigating the executive branch for breach of law.
With regard to US world order - it's so hard to tell when an empire is doing the world more good than bad - and between various 'opportunity costs' to the good it could do the world under its order.
In this sense, the US does do some very, very dirty deeds. It is not above killing and even torturing and then killing innocent people, committing mass fraud on the world to justify its interests, or involving itself in the rape of children, and trafficking of arms and drugs internationally (illegally) to supply proxy forces. It propagandizes and it censors and it disappears people. It steals resources and engages in protectionist trade while espousing free markets. It rigs elections overseas and it coups genuine leadership. It assassinates key figures to decide geostrategic events. It has a long list of scandals.
To maintain its justified place at the top of the world order it needs to maintain an image of legitimacy. If you ask those who know about its special operations who is on the US's side you will hear precisely what you have mused about: the good that America does in keeping a world order with static boundaries based on trade and other forms of competition is collectively a better world to live in, even if some people - in the eyes of the power elite - need to be subjected to torture for it to continue.
Digesting this statement requires a neigh impossible task: predicting alternate futures where current order never developed and in its place another one does. Quickly this task becomes an imaginative one that falls prey to the leanings and biases of the person imagining it: those who favor the US imagine a more chaotic world and those who favor another nation a more peaceful one.
It's nearly impossible to ask this question, so the real work to be done is through alternate questions. What can we do now? What questionable programs and opinions exist today that can be dismantled? What powers are needed to maintain a peaceful sphere? Should the world have one protector, or is it possible for some Wilsonian (or other) creation to succeed at the task?
I can't give you those answers. I don't have them myself.
As an aside - one I hope is interesting - the United States relies very heavily on its reputation as a just and kind force to maintain its legitimacy. Were qualms with the US to bubble into a loss of legitimacy the world order would quickly dissipate.
This is what the US fears the most. It has to keep the optics at a higher bar than it can keep its practices. It hopes, it wishes and it needs to find solutions that allow for international stability - where it remains the top dog - and where it can keep its reputation.
We get to see how our leadership and representatives navigate this space and we get to be the primary sources for the historians to annotate it for the future.