It’s just a fact that every single empire in history ended up with a society which hated the conquests only to be conquered by another, less ethically-concerned nation.
It’s easy to judge when you are in a privileged position, however the reason you do that is because you already made someone else pay the price of the externalities of your champagne pacifism.
Basically you have this ethical idea that war is bad, but you provide no solution as to how to make today’s poor people reach the same level of education and plenty without giving them the means to conquer you politically, economically or by the means of warfare.
Every other argument you make is akin to a “what if”. I am speaking about how it _currently_ is.
Will the future be different? Maybe.. technology (especially communications tech) might be the thing that lets us break the cycle.
'Everyone is a victim' is a cop out. The fact that some ancestor of mine was probably conquered by vikings doesn't mean that I shouldn't criticize china for doing the same thing today. Nor do I feel like a conqueror because some other ancestor was one of those vikings. Look to the deep past for lessons. Don't point to the deep past as justification for horrible actions today.