The submitters were not countries but (typically groups of) practitioners. Only one proposal was made by a group consisting entirely of Americans and it did not win. Like all such processes, I'm sure this particular one was imperfect and could be made better. You're making it sound like the judging of an Olympic Ice Dancing event, though, and I think all available evidence suggests that it wasn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard_p...
The submitters were not countries but (typically groups of) practitioners. Only one proposal was made by a group consisting entirely of Americans and it did not win. Like all such processes, I'm sure this particular one was imperfect and could be made better. You're making it sound like the judging of an Olympic Ice Dancing event, though, and I think all available evidence suggests that it wasn't.