Immediately after the islamist scum attacked our country we all wanted revenge. Big mil had only one answer. We sent a hundred or so warriors into asscrackistan supported by our air power and chased the Taliban and AQ out of the country in a few weeks and killed them wholesale.
Then the pols, both mil and civilian, again decided that nation building was a realistic concept.
They repeated the formula with combined forces in Iraq shortly thereafter.
Our military made the world gasp in awe and our enemies retreated into their shells until politicians phugged everything up again. This is a program of failure that began in Korea and has been repeated ad nauseum.
Ike was right. My answer would be to only elect combat vets that led troops on the ground while an NCO or no higher than an 03. YMMV
mike r
