You always hear America going on about how great its military is, how strong it is, blah blah blah. But then I started thinking about how many recent wars they have actually won in any real sense. Vietnam? No. Afghanistan? No. Iraq? Depends who you ask. Korea? More of a stalemate than anything. Somalia? Not exactly a glowing success either. And now Iran. Who knows?

So I am not really convinced by all the chest beating.

My take on it is a bit different. Yeah, they have some of the most advanced and destructive weapons on the planet, and they are really very good at blowing things up and vaporizing them. No doubt about that. But that is not really the same at all as winning a war, is it?

It is almost like they win the fighting part, but then lose everything that comes after.

The US military goes in, overwhelms a place with pure force, and then… what? That is where it always seems to go wrong. The military is not designed for making peace or bringing about meaningful change in leadership. It is not their job, and yet they are the ones who go in and seemingly start to try and do that job once they establish some ground. They do not want to only be seen as destroyers, but liberators. But the eventual diplomacy, long term planning, actual stabilizing of things, understanding the people on the other side, that actually comes later and is the part that never seems to go particularly well, at all.

And maybe it is not even just incompetence. Maybe it is because the goal was never really about the narrative of helping the other country in the first place. It often looks more like securing influence, natural resources, or strategic positioning, then setting something up that suits them and leaving.

So yeah, if you ask me, they are not bad at fighting wars. They are actually very good at that part. But when it comes to winning them in any meaningful or lasting way, that is a different story entirely.

More often than not, they leave behind a big, fat bloody mess, and the people living there are the ones stuck dealing with it, often far worse off than they were before.

They consistently save the world from fascism.