The frontier wars of empires are rarely about winning. Truman didn't really want to win Korea but he'd have been happy to let MacArthur win if Mac hadn't been s

The frontier wars of empires are rarely about winning. Truman didn't really want to win Korea but he'd have been happy to let MacArthur win if Mac hadn't been such an arrogant son of a bitch. Johnson, McNamara, et al weren't willing to win Vietnam, as a statement of historical record. Grenada was forgettable because of its success. Clinton won Bosnia by accident via third-order effects of Richard Holbrooke's chase vehicle falling down the side of a mountain. We achieved our stated objectives in Afghanistan (take out Bin Laden) and Iraq (regime change) but successive administrations of both parties have found it advantageous to keep a presence in the region. It is worth noting that presence includes things like having Iran almost surrounded. Yes, surrounding our enemies on their own continent is the definition of the US frontier. We have agreements with many Asian countries(1) with the net effect of having pushed our "frontier" up the borders of Russia, China, and Iran. If you think the small number of troops in some of these locations is trivial, keep in mind there were only a few thousand troops in Korea before the North crossed the 38th parallel and pummeled Seoul. The key was to have US engagement at the country level, and the death of a single US troop. That created the diplomatic opening to bring unlimited military power into South Korea. This created a model, and this is important to Pax Americana, so pay attention: a model where any country allied with the US is relatively safe from its neighbors, as long as such neighbors are not allied with the US, and the US presents a credible ability to threaten the non-allied country. This is why Iran is not happy about US alignment with Afghanistan, and Iraq, and the Gulf states. Note the US even has deals with Turkmenistan. And that is what makes the US non-response to drone strikes in Saudi Arabia a sensitive issue. The Iranians are trying to draw a picture where the US has lost its ability to present a credible threat. Which is bullshit, but the Iranian economy is in a bad way and getting worse and that makes for desperate politicians. (growth went from 13.4% in 2016 to a projected -4.5% this year). However, while the US has plenty of agreements with the House of Saud, no US servicemembers were harmed by overt aggression by Iranian combatants (as defined by the Geneva conventions, law of armed conflict, etc). So the US threshold for response has not been met. Not by a long way. While I'm sure the price of gas in LA is up, it will be temporary. Those refineries were no doubt diverting processing to offline capacity even as the fires were burning. tl;dr: arguing about whether the military is 'winning' misses the problem of empire entirely. Pax Americana is still here and you're enjoying it despite the shitshow at home. (1) Backing out of TPP and electing Trump were terrible for our long-term strategic interests in Asia, particularly with respect to the Middle Kingdom and it's satellites. We pissed away a hell of a hand there. E.g. seeing a few Apple-related factory jobs show up in Austin will never compensate for the net weakening of our new ally in the modern version of Vietnam.