Two Northern Alliance soldiers watch as the dust and smoke rises after explosions in Taliban positions on Kalakata hill, near the village of Ai-Khanum in northern Afghanistan, November 1, 2001. The Pentagon said on Wednesday B-52s dropped heavy loads of bombs, a tactic known as carpet bombing, on Taliban troops north of Kabul as a result of improved targeting intelligence, partly from US special forces on the ground. Reuters Since the end of World War II, why has America lost the wars it started? And why has America failed in the military interventions it made without just cause or legitimate reason? Vietnam, the invasion of Grenada, the Beirut bombings in Lebanon that killed over 240 American servicemen in October 1983, the second Iraq War that began in 2003, the Libyan intervention of 2011, and now Syria are case studies in failure. And Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is correct in stating that "we are not winning in Afghanistan."

Of course, the United States prevailed in the Cold War. George H.W. Bush was masterful in responding to the implosion of the Soviet Union, making Europe "whole, free and at peace," and liberating Kuwait in 1991, expelling Saddam Hussein in one of the most overwhelming military victories in history. But these are exceptions.

Two broad reasons explain why military failures occur irrespective of the political party in charge of the White House and no matter how noble America's intentions may have been. The first is the failure of presidents to exercise sound strategic thinking and judgment. The second is the parallel failure to have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the circumstances and situations in which military force was to be used.