[lisdexan]

That's still losing. The enemy's simple and concise objective of "GTFO of my country" was achieved, and the U.S.'s vague idea of "something something stop commies/terrorists" wasn't.

It's like the opposite of a Pyrrhic victory: you lost and squandered trillions while tarnishing your reputation, but your sheer economic and geopolitical power made it so you didn't feel pretty much anything, nor did you learn much.

That might be okay if the national hobby is airlifting a BK to some forsaken land every 30 years. What happens when the technological gap is smaller and your opponents have access to a substantially higher manufacturing capacity? What happens when you have multiple conflicts and coincidentally suffer an economic slowdown? Being able to casually outspend your enemy is a nice luxury, not an advantage.

I suppose in a sense you are right: superpowers never lose; they just get tired, and more tired until they become Russia or the UK.