Either didn't read it all or read into what I posted...... Oh well.
With all due respect, I read your post and understood what the post said. If you meant something different post that. No region in today's Germany or England antagonized Rome. Rome invaded. Period. No one in Poland antagonized Germany in the late 1930s. Germany invaded. Period. And so on through my examples in re war mongering major powers.
There was no need to bring up Alexander or Genghis Kahn, two major powers leaders whose primary motives were conquest, conquest and more conquest.
One wishes Junebug's reason for invading Iraq was conquest instead of showing his mama he could penetrate deeper and stay longer than daddy-o.
Uuuummmm....... Many in the Middle East see us as invaders, in many countries where we stayed after WWII some eventually viewed us as "occupiers", prior to that some country's citizens, obviously not all, like in the Philippines saw us as conquerors. Many in countries not friendly to us propagate the imperial capitalist myth to this day.
Since when was Poland a major world power? They may have had delusions of grandeur but they were never a world power. Russia didn't become a world power until after WWII though it was well known that ultimately, between Germany and the Soviet Union, one would invade the other, they were traditional enemies and the non-aggression treaty was nothing more than a move of convenience for both. Not all of Rome's territory's were originally derived from conquest, some started out as alliances.
Our antagonism towards England that lead up to the American Revolution was partially our fault, we started the French and Indian wars, the real first world war. It drained the English crown coffers and they felt we should share in the cost. We had been self sufficient for so long that it was met with complete resentment by many but not all.
I could go on for pages, quoting books, articles and spending hours finding links but I really don't feel like it.

Nuances, the nuances are the key.