There was a military saying once: "If it's stupid and it works, than it is not stupid" We should have the opposite "No matter how smart it is, if it doesn't

There was a military saying once: "If it's stupid and it works, than it is not stupid" We should have the opposite "No matter how smart it is, if it doesn't work it's stupid" The US war machine is working brilliantly on the tactical level. And yet there is total inability of the military brass and the administration to deliver tangible geopolitical results. No idea why this is, but the war on terror is longer than WWI and II combined, and the world is quite possibly a worse place right now than in 2001.