I don't think this is true. Wars have been successful at those goals without the hundreds of thousands or millions of souls lost to unsuccessful wars. There wa

I don't think this is true. Wars have been successful at those goals without the hundreds of thousands or millions of souls lost to unsuccessful wars. There was no real hearts and minds in, say, Afghanistan. A real hearts and minds campaign would see at least as much on improving the quality of life as in destruction, yet in Afghanistan or Iraq, enough money was spent that the US could have provided every single family with a car, modern electronics, built a brand new house, and more - what was spent in Afghanistan was 350 000$ for each Afghan family! And yet the average Afghan saw war, devastation, death, and famine. The level of material investment is so bad that, adjusted for inflation, the average Afghan was significantly richer during the Soviet-Afghan war as during U.S. occupation. I can't see how you can come to the conclusion that real effort was spent on hearts and minds when so much money was spent on war when the living condition of the average Afghan only got worse. If you want hearts and minds, you need to materially and significantly improve the life of whoever you are occupying at the bare minimum. You can't impoverish a population that's already massively impoverished and claim that you're doing hearts and minds.