Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

I am from Ukraine, been stateside since the late '80s, but visited Kiyv and my hometown of Odessa once a decade ago. I am far removed. So many perished on both sides, but we can do nothing but stand by. Can't ask Ukraine to surrender, can't let Russia to get away with this, there is no RTB while VP is running the theater, while the dead are piling up. It's a forever war at this point. Tell me it's not and there is something to look forward to. My spouse is from Russia and can't even visit her homeland to see her aging parents. Semi-annual meetups in Turkey or the UAE, but nobody's getting younger.

From Ukraine's perspective it's existential for sure. Russia however, just revises its objectives every few months according to how well/badly its prospects on the battlefield are looking.

Russia's goals have far evolved over the course of the war, and started out comically ridiculous, prompting a great many people to ask questions about the information "bubble" around Putin. Over the past year, I believe most people would agree Russia has lost a LOT of ground when it comes to their war aims, even if not that much territory.

2014: seize Crimea (success, although it no longer serves any purpose) and Sevastopol (total failure, Sevastopol can no longer serve the Russian black sea fleet, and when it comes to the other goal: keep NATO out of the black sea, it's an even bigger failure. Russia has lost control of the skies above the black sea completely and are losing control over the sea of Azov, by withdrawing air defenses. Now go look on the map where the sea of Azov is to see the magnitude of this failure), prevent Ukraine from approaching NATO and EU (complete failure is putting it very mildly), keep Ukraine unstable (succeeded, until Euromaidan revolution, ie. actually this is a failure)

2022: maintain control over Crimea (looks to be failing, as in Ukraine still controls Crimea's water supply), build a land bridge to Crimea (successfull, except that they can't use their land bridge for anything), seize control over Ukraine's government ("denazify" Ukraine), demilitarize Ukraine (as in Ukraine accepts no to have an army. Obviously total and complete failure), and prevent Ukraine and others from coming closer to NATO (obviously total failure, and not just in Ukraine)

In June 2026, ie. about 4 weeks ago, Russia once again confirmed these goals.

Oh and they were going to do this in 3 days. Then in 3 weeks. Then in 2 months. Then they stopped making predictions. Today is day 1608 of their 3-day attempt.

It's interesting how casually we replace concern for the population with concern for the political entity. No, the Ukrainian identity will not cease to exist with the replacement of the political entity.

Rome lost loads of soldiers in the Germanic wars too. The parallel is that these wars are too expensive (for a non-existential conflict) to take to fulfilment, but also can't easily be disengaged from.

This comment epitomises one of the reasons why the US does not and cannot win any war against a peer adversary.

Flawed data.

Not sure if the numbers are correct, but it looks like the number of Russians killed in Ukraine is about the same as the number of Americans killed in WW2. Does it matter if the state uses a carrot or stick to send a generation off to die?

These may be rookie numbers for Russia, but it's still significant.

Russia does conscript men:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-conscripts-war-combat...

Correct. Conscription in Russia largely happens to rural people, ethnic minorities and convicts. Russia is the way it is because a large enough number of ethnic Russian middle class urbanites don't give a fuck about anything, and Putin knows the moment he starts drafting them he turns them into anti war activists.