Very few policymakers even concede that Washington’s overseas military adventures often have not turned out as planned.

 The performance of U.S. leaders after the Cold War has been even worse

• An array of disruptive, bloody tragedies-most notably those in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen-mark Uncle Sam's global trail of wreckage.
• Very few policymakers even concede that Washington's overseas military adventures often have not turned out as planned
• The news media, which is supposed to serve as the public's watchdog, have routinely ignored or excused America's foreign-policy disasters

The elites' post-Cold War track record is not a pretty one

• Despite the passage of 27 years, Bosnia is no closer to being a viable, united country today than it was in the mid-1990s
• The three antagonistic ethnic groups still refuse to cooperate, and the Serbs even periodically threaten to secede
• NATO's intervention merely may have postponed the day of reckoning for Bosnia, and Kosovo remains a powder keg

The level of human tragedy in Libya and Yemen is horrifying

• Washington and its NATO allies bear almost exclusive responsibility for the situation in Libya.
• U.S. and NATO air strikes played a decisive role in overthrowing Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011
• Libya thereafter became an arena of chaos as a multitude of militias vied for power, displacing more than a million residents
• The turmoil in Iraq is less severe, but is still damaging the country. Political disputes and mass demonstrations against the current government regularly surface in Iraq.

The U.S. foreign-policy record over the past three decades could hardly be worse

• It is crucial not to let policymakers and their media mouthpieces get away with convenient collective amnesia and imitations of Pontius Pilate

Washington should utterly renounce nation-building

• Trying to remake alien societies by force and impose Western political, economic, and social values is the essence of folly
• The United States must avoid the temptation to engage in regime-change wars
• Such offensives often are a prelude to disastrous nation building ventures
• U.S. leaders must do a much better job of distinguishing vital national interests from secondary or peripheral ones

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/uncle-sams-long-trail-of-wreckage/