well, i don't necessarily doubt that people will generally value their own system over the other guy's system. i do think that basically capitalism and communism are mutually exclusive. both are supposed to be implemented on a global scale, where as there's only one globe. but even if russia hadn't been communist, they would've been the natural rivals to the united states, it might have been a bit less fierce, but nonetheless they would have been rivals. sort of like putin's russia today, which isn't communist, yet we're getting some friction there.
when you talk about the us going to war over moral issues you have one good example, the american civil war and then a number of light conflicts that were more like interantional publicity stunts than actual wars. beyond that the US is mostly self interested just like any other power. keep in mind that a civil war is a very different type of war, strategically speaking. look at the other major wars the US has been involved in. the us population adopted a highly isolationist ideology directly following ww1,due to massive amount of lives cost over 'european entanglements' ww1 was a clearly amoral war. there was no good guys or bad guys just an intractable pattern of alliances. then ww2 started, where there was a clear aggressor, an actual precedent for talking about good guys vs bad guys, and americans wanted no part in it. until some planes smashed into some ships in the pacific.
and yet what people remember is that the japs attacked us at pearl harbor out of the blue, sneaky japs. meanwhile roosevelt basically forced their hand by interfering with their naval interests in the south pacific. why?? because clearly somebody would have to dominate the pacific. the us and japan are natural maritime rivals just due to geography.
i mean tbh the idea of the united states as some military moral vanguard is completely laughable to me.... you only have to look at the track record of conflicts and wars that we have been involved in throughout the years. there's no consistency whatsoever. we deal with tyrants when tyrants are receptive to protecting us geopolitical interests. in other cases, where the tyrants become a nuisance for us, we become 'morally outraged' and 'something's gotta be done about this putin guy, huh?'
i dunno it seems to me like your narrative is more affected by ideology than actual US foreign policy is. because it will always sound better to approach it that way, so they'll always use that rhetoric.
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