That sounds reasonable... After taking over though, there is a need to occupy and that is the job of politicians and bureaucrats to administer, most of whom are like me and have never fought a day of war in their lives.
As an observer of history I can’t imagine what Japan, Germany and Italy would look like today if the United States hadn’t established a long term and permanent presence within those countries. Iraq is still in progress, but being there is better than not being there.
The one obvious lesson learned from the first world war... You can’t conquer your enemy and then just leave them to their own devices... Hitler proved that overwhelmingly. And after winning the cold war the United States and its allies should’ve forced Russia into completely disarming and demobilizing their military. Then today we’d only be worried about China and North Korea. Now we worry daily about a madman in Russia, until the next madman takes over. Just opening a bunch of McDonald’s and KFC joints didn’t do much good.
War is never ending and thankfully we have brave and courageous men like yourself who are there to fight for our freedom... I thank you for that.
If our politicians were more schooled in history, maybe those fights would be fewer and farther between. Then again, maybe it’s just our savage nature and nothing can be done to stop the carnage. Generations have fought and died and sadly generations more will do the same.
Eisenhower clearly stated NATO was for 10 years. Occupy is BS, as I saw Germans digging through trash cans in 1957. After Vietnam we left, same in all wars since. Had we listened to IKE we’d have no troops in Germany, Korea, etc.