[necovek]

Military itself should seldom be judged by the decisions of the government. The entire mission in Afghanistan has long stopped being military oriented, and military was present to preserve some semblance of US control.

One could argue that there is sufficient proof now that US application of military in attempting to "democratize" nations has so far failed, but that should not come as a surprise since military is, by definition, not "democratic". Democracies deploy military exclusively to preserve peace (by discouraging invasion, for instance). This is still not a slight against US military, but against US foreign policy instead. Whether that makes it a net win in other (economic, geopolitical) measures for USA is another matter altogether.

As such, I do not think you should discount US military as a top-notch organization with a lot of know-how in building up expertise.