I'm not sure what argument you're responding it, it doesn't sound like it's one I made. The point I'm making is about how these cables are characterized by the OP, not US policy. What they reveal is much closer to The Quiet American than, I dunno, Star Trek's Cardassians and that's an easy thing to check by looking at the cables.

> Hegemony is a publicly stated goal of the US.

Where? Stated by whom?

A president? We’ve had 46 with wildly conflicting public statements and goals. A Congress? We’ve had 117 sessions of Congress.

“The US” isn’t a single entity. I don’t think you can make any blanket statements across that much time and that many people much beyond “they are all humans.”

I'm not sure if I agree with the OP that it's publicly stated but the bipartisan hysteria towards China, Russia, or even one or two generations ago Japan (interesting historical piece[1]) is kind of constant. With very few exceptions American politics, however divided internally is generally unified in some McCarthy style campaign against this or that perceived foreign threat.

The prospect of the US having to live in a world shaped by forces it has no control over is melting brains across the board. Americans, and yes this is a generalization but not a wrong one, cannot imagine a world that is run on values utterly foreign to them.

[1]https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1987...