What is the point of a war if not to achieve the political outcome of the war? No-one starts a war to get a high K/D ratio, so it's only relevant to the extent that it helps with the political outcome, and on that front the US failed to achieve its goals. And I don't think this was something the armed forces had no part in: the manner in which they went about trying to achieve this goal certainly has an affect on the outcome, even if it was a lot more difficult than just applying their sheer technological superiority and direct combat capability.

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.

> What's that line: the US doesn't lose wars, it gets tired of them?

"They declare victory and run away."

It's not enough to win all battles, if you still lose the war of attrition (and logistics, and politics, and hearts and minds, and so on).

By that logic, Britain never lost the American revolution.