You're right. Perhaps the US should be held to a higher standard than it's allies who are next door to their enemies. After all, the US is bordered on no sides by anyone other than cooperative, friendly countries, or countries that are less cooperative but have a US presence.

As for countries like Norway and the Netherlands being independent because the US defended them against Germans and Soviets, that's not strictly true. It was a team effort on all sides, and the team America eventually joined won, with great thanks and a great debt to the US effort, which as I understand was paid off.

And hegemony is a dangerous thing that must be watched closely.

It is entirely reasonable to apply expectations to all countries that they not operate in ways that encroach upon the sovereignty and privacy of other nations, especially their allies or even less friendly nations with whom a declared state of war does not exist.

The hegemon ought answer to a much stricter standard than the "pleasant little countries" who do not wield such power.

Hegemony does not implicitly grant universal assent to be a total asshole.

You realize the first thing you do if you're going to attack someone is tell them one thing and then do another, right?

And that a country's leaders are replaceable components - the country doesn't have a personality, it has a government of thousands of individuals, all who subtly bias its aggregate behaviour in different ways, and whom the replacement of various members can fundamentally alter the country's goals, agenda and long-term interests against other countries?

How then, do you intend to maintain your own security if you've decided to simply take the word of one country's government - again, a shifting gestalt of thousands of individuals and millions of citizens goals - as naively true, when there is absolutely no reason or even motivation for that country not to simply lie to you - likely in many cases without even realizing it, as the messengers don't have the situational-awareness to understand the context of the message.

The Soviets did enter Norway towards the end of world war II, in order to defeat the German forces in the North. They then voluntarily withdrew, to the surprise of a lot of people, but seemingly without much US interference.

(The Norwegian response was rather disgusting: Remains of fallen Soviet soldiers were dug up from burial grounds all over the place and sent up the coast to be reburied closer to the border, in order to not have to let Soviet officers further into the country for memorial services etc. out of fear of spying..)

And you are right, our expectations might be different. But that does not mean that it is any more acceptable and that it will not affect the way people will deal with US diplomats and officials in the future:

Now we know that giving US officials phone numbers means those numbers will get monitored. So any government official wishing to give US officials a number now, will think twice, and then probably hand them numbers set aside exclusively for communications with the US, and will be reminded every time that the reason for doing this is that we can't trust US officials, because the US government does not trust us enough to not monitor us.

Hegemony depends on the tacit consent of those ruled.

If the US treats the rest of the world as an enemy, and a playground for its war machine and surveillance apparatus, it can expect at some point to earn the enmity of the people in all the countries where it has interfered. This has already happened in the Middle East, East Africa, and South America.

By these actions the US is undermining the only friends it has in the world, and is becoming increasingly isolated.

"One of the great American tragedies is to have participated in a just war." Kurt Vonnegut

I'd say US has a petty good record in the 20th century:

WWI WWII Cold War

All won. And for the latter two (I personally think Germany losing WWI was the worst thing that happened to Europe), I am 100% on the side of the US (particular tactics notwithstanding).

I don't know what you are trying to say. It sounds like you've missed the point of the quote, which is understandable as it's not very transparent from that one sentence. To put the Vonnegut quote in fuller context:

"One of the great American tragedies is to have participated in a just war. It’s been possible for politicians and movie-makers to encourage us we’re always good guys. The Second World War absolutely had to be fought. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But we never talk about the people we kill. This is never spoken of."

The point of the quote is that the US participation in just wars like WWII has given the US government a free pass in a vast number of other conflicts where it's behaviour has been shameful, as well as when it comes to the behaviour in specific instances in just wars. And this has happened to a great extent with the intelligence agencies too.

cough korea and vietam cough

Sure - both engagements were part of the Cold War which US has won.

Everybody knows that nobody won the cold war.