Well how about this. The "Lessons of History" are general and vauge. For example. A Lesson of History is to NEVER get involved in a ground war in Asia.
That's not a lesson in history, that's simply a quote by Douglas McCarthur. It all depends on who you are fighting. We fought the Japanese all over Asia and won. And herein lies the problem with "lessons of history," there are so many different situations one cannot legimitately make fair comparisons. Until we invaded Afghanistan in 2001 the historical assumption was that you could not fight and win a war in Afghanistan against the Afghanis. It all depends on how you do it.