Are modern wars winnable?

That title is overly blunt. I certainly think that wars have been and could be "winnable" in the sense of the ancient stories of Rome sacking Carthage, the Genghis Khan stories of killing every male in towns that did not submit, etc. But is there any country willing to prosecute war on this level? Clearly not. And we're all likely better off for it. But I can't help think of so man works of fiction and history this act of true surrender seems so infrequent. Japan and Germany after WW2 is the prime example but even there, Japanese intransigence towards the US in attempting to continue certain aspects of governance was astonishing at times considering circumstances. 

I've had a lot of thoughts about this topic in the last few years after reading and watching (in no particular order) "War: How Conflict Shaped Us" by Margaret MacMillan, The Expanse (both the books and most recent season 5 with Marco Inaros), and - weirdly - recent US politics with the South never accepting its defeat in the Civil War even after 150 years and continuing to poison US government. 

I need to organize this at some point. 

Addendum 1: From Slate: An Endgame in an Endless War 

This is a really weird headline in the sense that I'm not sure anyone has ever had a reality-based "endgame" that would amount to a definition of victory. This is the typical middle-brow Slate fare but does correctly note that Afghanistan has been embroiled in conflict since the early 80s. (The mujahideen even get an appearance in 1985's Spies Like Us). But if you read through the haze of "negotiation" and what-not what you end up realizing is that there *is* no path to "victory" for the US - however it might be defined in this instance. Let's consider a few options: 

  • Functional Western-Style Democracy: Lololol. I'm not sure anyone that isn't actually on LSD believes this to be possible in our lifetimes. 
  • De-facto partition of the country: basically into a repressive Taliban medieval/feudal system based on an opium economy and then another part that is slightly less-repressive where women and girls don't get executed for going to school? From what I've read this is kinda-sorta the current state of affairs - at least until the US pulls out at which point the Taliban can/will just retake everything that isn't controlled by other warlords. 
  • Cede control to the Taliban with promise of "no more terrorism OK?": this maybe seems like the most realistic even though it's probably the least palatable. This is kind of the Vietnam option in that the US has wasted a bonkers amount of blood & treasure just to kill bin Laden who ended up being in Pakistan (oops!) but without anything else tangible to show for it. In this case, maybe your negotiation begins (and ends) with "we're going to leave, do not use force outside of your borders or the drones will rain fire down upon your heads." 
Maybe if the US just leaves the Afghanis will figure it out for themselves? I dunno. Clearly nobody else has any good ideas either if we still think we can "negotiate" with a group that has 20+ years of action to suggest they are not good-faith negotiators, can't be trusted and at any rate have time and locality on their side.

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