Granting everything you say, the statement is still true.
As to whether the country should commit the blood and treasure to be the dominant superpower is a decision we the people make by choosing our leaders. It is an interesting speculation as to how the Founding Fathers would have viewed things if why knew that eventually our power would be nearly enough to defeat the rest of the world put together.
In a way, that’s what lead to the fall of the Roman Republic; not so much the decadence (or otherworldliness) of the people but the fact that a form of government well suited to a vigorous and expanding republic did not work for running a world empire.
Can there be an empire that does not sow the seeds of it’s own destruction by the eventual decline into hubris on one hand or complete impotence on the other?
I have no answers, only the opinion that *if* we want to be #1, then yes, we will always have enemies.
Many intertwining things lead to the fall of the Roman Republic. Attempting to maintain an empire may have been one of them.
But the U.S. does not have to maintain an empire to be the dominant power. We have never been much of an empire, in spite of leaders like Roosevelt and McKinley who wanted us to be one. The people rejected ownership of the Phillipines. The Congress rejected ownership of Hawaii. Liberia was left to fend for itself.
Yes, the question likely comes down to “which is safer, to have a multi-polar world, that is likely unstable, which can embroil us in war; or to take up the role of world super power to keep stability?
It is not a clear or easy answer.