That's clearly a false claim. The US had a long history of combatting the USSR successfully to give one example, spanning the entire post WW2 Cold War era. That

That's clearly a false claim. The US had a long history of combatting the USSR successfully to give one example, spanning the entire post WW2 Cold War era. That included preparing the US population and military for a possible war with the Soviets (which also successfully included building far superior military hardware vs what the Soviets were producing). It wasn't clumsy for the most part, it was exceptional. That included battling them economically, industrially, with espionage, with long-term allies, in locations outside of Europe, and so on. It was a united political front overwhelmingly. Yes, there were exceptions, and they don't refute the overall. Iraq was trivial compared to half a century of standing off with the Soviet Empire. The USSR is long gone. Russia is a joke. The US superpower remains. The US won in part thanks to the US political machine playing the long game, and very often doing it in a united fashion. There is very wide political unity when it comes to certain enemies, one of those now is the CCP. Major threats to the US superpower positioning almost always draw out unity among the political class, over whatever term is required.