Damn, this world war shit is easy, why doesn't everyone have two oceans of distance as a defense?

Generally, though, the US military acquits itself well. The issue is that war is “politics by other means”, and in many subsequent wars, the political goals have been hopelessly unclear or unrealistic ("nation-building” - oh, is it just that easy? Why didn’t we think of that before?). WW1 and WW2, with clear and ‘straightforward’ goals ("Get a surrender statement from the Germans/Japanese") played to the strength of a polity with massive warfighting capacity but little interest from the political elites (and the public they cultivated) for long-term geopolitical involvement.

I mean, the US showing in the First Gulf War caused the PRC to reorganize its whole military.