Humankind has been waging war upon one another, seemingly forever. In most cases, wars so made upon one another, are seldom justified, but rather has a lot more to do with rape, pillage, greed, and conquest. In other words, those waging war are primarily doing so in order to increase their wealth and assets, at the expense of those that are defeated. One supposes, that for those that see this world as a zero-sum game, war thereof for those that are its victors, makes sense.
When it comes to the United States and the wars it wages, there isn’t any doubt that America is quite capable of vanquishing just about any nation or group of nations, and thereupon taking over the reins of such; but the critical thing that America somehow fails to take into proper account, is that the governments that it subsequently tends to prop up after such wars are seldom embraced by its native population, in whole. This thus means, that America is infrequently seen as a liberator but is more often seen for what they really are, opportunists, as well as illegitimate occupiers of sovereign nations. This thus is reflected by that population, not willingly working hand-in-glove with America, along with the salient fact that domestic military elements that have been defeated, have not been fully disarmed, signifying that they are often able to be a real annoyance against the occupying force, by being a constant nuisance to that force, knowing that they don’t need to defeat America, but simply need to be a continual thorn in its side.
When America wages war, it needs to know what it is really trying to achieve, before it ever goes to war. Those nations that have different religions, different traditions, different cultures, and different this and different that, probably aren’t going to be the type of nation that desires to be re-envisioned or re-configured by America, for essentially the grand purpose and benefit of America. Further to the point, America’s go-to solution to such, of putting into power, those that appear to be legitimate representatives of that country, but are in reality, puppets of America, aren’t going to be a good short-term, let alone long-term solution, because as dumb and credulous as America likes to think other nation’s people are, they aren’t really that dumb or that credulous.
Therefore, the problem that America has in its wars, is really not in the basic defeating of the other nation’s armed forces, but really comes down to knowing the appropriate and meaningful steps to accomplish next; which will therefore ultimately result in a country that will firstly, be a good trade partner for America as well as exploitable, and secondly with its new governance as approved by America, will improve the lot of the people that live within it or if not that, at least keep the people there, basically quiescent.
What America seems slow to learn, is that defeating a nation’s armed forces, does not necessarily equate to winning those people over, and when those people aren’t won over, and further aren’t going to be won over, then that is something of real importance that hasn’t been resolved by that war, which should have definitely been taken into consideration before the first shot was fired or even first contemplated.