People deal with him as if he were a unique figure in American history and in some ways, of course, he couldn’t be more so. But not, it turns out, when it comes to American-style war. There, he seems almost boringly part of a story (now more than three-quarters of a century old) of how the seemingly greatest power on Planet Earth in the endless decades after World War II simply couldn’t -- no, not ever! -- win a war.

Donald Trump remains at war (or perhaps at chaos) with Iran, a country a mere 6,300 miles or so from Washington, D.C., and so crucial to American power on this distinctly overheating planet of ours (right?). And even as I was writing this, Iran had indeed again closed the Strait of Hormuz through which about 25% of global oil and 20% of global natural gas normally passes
Harry S. Truman got us into a major conflict in Korea, almost 7,000 miles from Washington, D.C., in 1950, and when it ended three years later, the U.S. left the North Koreans with approximately half of the Korean peninsula.

Harry S. Truman got us into a major conflict in Korea, almost 7,000 miles from Washington, D.C., in 1950, and when it ended three years later, the U.S. left the North Koreans with approximately half of the Korean peninsula.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy increased American support for what had been the French colony of Indochina (until its military lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu to Ho Chi Minh’s rebel forces in 1954). He would then oversee what would become a full-scale American war in Vietnam, a mere 8,500 or so miles from this country, as well as a war in Laos (also about 8,500 miles away) and Cambodia (nearly 9,000 miles away)
tomengelhardt.substack.com/p/a…
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