Ah, I follow what you're saying. We've never tried to take over a country, we've only tried to project power for limited durations—up to and including 20 years—which failed because it was with coupled unclear goals, political maneuvering, and changing political situations back home.

However, if we instead did something different called "try to take over a country"—which also does involve projecting power, and also occupying foreign nations for long periods of time, perhaps even up to and including 20 years—it would not be coupled with unclear goals, political maneuvering, and changing political situations back home.

> These smaller actions have never mobilized the entire country on an expansionist, war time footing.

So we've done these things which failed, but if we did a different thing, it would definitely succeed.