Your synopsis runs parallel to:
Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States
1998 Ralph Peters
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/98spring/peters.htm
Yes, I know that Peters went sideways, but this article is on the money.
The failure is greater where the avoidance of responsibility is greater. In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, oil money has masked cultural, social, technical, and structural failure for decades. While the military failure of the regional states has been obvious, consistent, and undeniable, the locals sense—even when they do not fully understand—their noncompetitive status in other spheres as well. It is hateful and disorienting to them. Only the twin blessings of Israel and the United States, upon whom Arabs and Persians can blame even their most egregious ineptitudes, enable a fly-specked pretense of cultural viability.
Just cuz a guy went nuts doesn’t mean all his analysis was bad, and just cuz a guy was a “war hero” (aka McTurd) doesn’t mean that his subsequent positions are honorable.
MacArthur’s “Island Hopping” was brilliant for 1944, but his requests for multiple atomic bombs in Korea was idiotic in 1951.