America is terrific at attacking, and war-making. It's terrible at making peace. Trump is even thinking of changing the "Dept. of Defense" to the more accurate "Dept. of War." It's part of how us USians got control of the continent. Actually, Old World diseases are more responsible than military attacks for the defeat of the North and South American natives--a genocide that wiped out more than 90% of the New World's populations.
The imperialist impulse is why, between 1798 and 1994, the US is responsible for 41 changes of government south of its borders.
Taking credit for that "victory" is what part of what drove US imperialism up until the Vietnam war, that is.
And speaking of Vietnam: (from Naked Capitalism) "A vignette provides confirmation of Vietnam’s fierce retention of its identity during the period of Chinese rule. In the documentary The Fog of War, a not-exactly-satisfactory effort at atonement by former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, he recounts how, many years after the Vietnam War, he was able to arrange a dinner with the leaders of North Vietnam during the conflict.
"Needless to say, it was a pretty tense affair. Finally, one of the North Vietnamese officials asked: 'Why did you go to war with our country?'
"McNamara invoked the domino theory, that if North Vietnam won, China and Chinese communism would advance across Southeast Asia.
"McNamara reported that his counterparts nearly leaped across the table: 'How could you go to war understanding so little about our country? We spent 1000 years expelling the Chinese.'"
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