You’re fighting the last war. Entrenching and supplying thousands of Marines on an island under drone and missile threat is a huge task.
Yes! If you put your hands around your enemies throat and just choke him out completely dead, he might kick and scratch in his death throes. Anything but flat out win. Since WWII it's not nice or polite to do that anymore. We have to leave some terrorist money, technology and capacity so the next Demonrat POTUS can wag the dog again.