US has always been like all other major powers. And it's not just the US. That we may like to think otherwise, is the problem, not an argument against the problem.
Denmark seems to be a very nice society - not that I can know, only visited their capital once. Yet it isn't a major power, nor even geopolitically important. Greenland can be taken without even violence, due to its claim to all of the island resting only on meaningful powers nodding. It's not even as bad as what happened to many other countries - including Ukraine, but also Libya, Syria, Iraq etc.