I am not trying to persuade you of anything. I am just giving you my opinion based on 28 years as a foreign service officer and 8 years as a naval officer. I have lived and worked 26 years in 11 foreign countries.
You cannot impose values on a foreign culture at the point of a bayonet.
Cite one example where we have done that save for Japan after the war? And that was a resounding success.
The sixty five thousand young American who have died abroad since 1965, the countless wounded, those who are permanently deranged: Just how did their sacrifice enhance the security of the US and how might it been handled differently?
Since 1945 the US had a policy of containment for the Soviet Union and the spread of communism. The fall of the Berlin in 1989 was the culmination of those efforts that led to the downfall of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe. You need to include the dead and wounded in the Korean War to your totals.
And exactly what would have you done to enhance American security after 9/11? Or the invasion and takeover of Kuwait by Iraq? Or what should be done with Iran and its pursuit of a nuclear weapon? When should the US use military force?
We won the war in Vietnam and Iraq and then lost the peace. We abandoned South Vietnam including shutting off military assistance after our military forces departed. It took the North almost three years to defeat the South Vietnamese forcing millions to flee and millions more placed into reeducation camps. The Communists won. It is a sad chapter in our history. We snatched defeat again from the jaws of victory in Iraq.
Still, the elimination of Saddam Hussein was a good thing for the region. Iraq had invaded Kuwait and Iran and used WMD against the Iranians and its own people. The Israelis took out the Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 that could have led to Iraq having nuclear weapons--something that Saddam was still pursuing before we eliminated him. The Libyans. as a result, gave up their nuclear weapons development after the Gulf War.
US military losses are regrettable no matter when or where they occur. We lost over 400,000 in WWII and 50,000 in Korea. I have seen and experienced those losses during my military service. We who have served or are serving know the risks and we have had a voluntary military for almost 40 years. As bad as combat deaths are, they are exceeded in number by military training accidents, motor vehicle crashes, suicide, etc.
60 million people lost their lives in WWII, Stalin killed an estimated 20 million of his own people during his purges and gulags. Mao contributed to the death of 40 to 70 million of his people. 15,000 to 20,000 Americans are murdered each year. From 1965 we have been averaging 45,000 deaths per year due to motor vehicle accidents. So spare me the emotional argument of lives lost needlessly. Personally, I don't view the 65,000 lives lost since 1965 as being lost in vain. They died defending American interests. The only animus I have is for the politicians who failed to seek victory as an outcome. The military personnel have nothing to be ashamed about. They did their duty.
“So spare me the emotional argument of lives lost needlessly”. Those lost lives should be used as a template against which the actions they participated in and future actions are judged. Politicians who are woefully ignorant of history or local realities are too quick to commit the United States to futile interventions. There is is a reason that defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory in the cases you mention. The reality was that chances that the long term goals of the American interventions would be realized were practically nil. Our leaders would do well to study how the thinking and positions of Douglass MacArthur evolved over time and how some of his insights still pertain. MacArthur came to understand at least some of the rational of why Japan fought. Japan and most Asian intellectuals were humiliated by European dominance in the economic and political life of Asians. They abhorred the British presence in Malaysia, India, the Mideast, Hong Kong,China and Singepore. The Dutch in Indonesia , the French in Indochina and the Americans in the Philippines. They were of course nationalistic and ravenous imperialists but MacArthur came to understand this important point. Today the Chinese claim to be Asia’s leader and absolutely abhor American involvement in Asian affairs be it in Iran, Korea, Taiwan, the South China sea etc. MacArthur also understood that the vast population and political currents in Asia were beyond the capability of the US to change meaningfully. He warned against American military involvement on the Asian mainland. Now this is not to say that MacArthur’s conclusions should be the be all and end all of American foreign policy but his insights were hard earned and should not be forgotten. Also just have to wonder as you look back on your career that the America you were fighting to protect and defend as a young man would become a place where officials dump fresh water into the Pacific ocean during a drought to protect an obscure fish while farmland dries and people suffer, or if you ever thought that Detroit would resemble Hue after the Tet offensive. America has a lot of mending that will not come easy, and really should not squander its resources on futile foreign entanglements.