Our leaders love wars. We have had wars on drugs, poverty, cancer, crime, and so on, yet Washington has not won any of them (although we are good at winning battles). There are still major drug problems, 46 million Americans live below the poverty level, cancer has not been conquered, crime remains widespread, etc. And now we have waged war on terror since 9/11. This is most certainly a war without end, since we are really fighting a tactic, not an enemy per se.
If there is a lesson to be learned from the US defeat in Vietnam, the Soviet Union's defeat in Afghanistan, the Soviets' subsequent disintegration in the early 1990s, and the Pentagon's retreat from Afghanistan and Iraq, it is that no amount of weaponry or nuclear capability can ever guarantee security or victory. The old days of attacking countries, occupying them and destroying their assets without any retribution are long gone—unless the invaders are willing to completely annihilate their foes and exterminate millions of people
