Can't be Great and so diffident at the same time.

"Self doubts, shame, and remorse are coursing through Washington after US troops stealthily bolted from Bagram airbase in Afghanistan in the dead of night last week without even informing local Afghan commanders," wrote Chidanand Rajghatta. US troops pulled out of Iraq in 2011, leading to political instability and the rise of ISIS, Britannica. Left to the ravages of the Taliban, "Gun-toting Afghan women are marching in the streets and sharing pictures in a show of defiance against the Taliban, which is rapidly gaining control over a significant portion of the war-torn nation," Independent. Kurdish women have been fighting alongside men against ISIS in Syria, The Week. "The all-female branch of the YPG comprises at least 10,000 women in the age group of 18-25 year old," and "Kurdish women have been in the forefront during many of the political and military struggles in the Kurdish-dominated regions of Syria and Iraq." Just like the US, the Soviet Union was also defeated in Afghanistan despite the deaths of 1 million civilians and 90,000 Mujahideen fighters, The Atlantic. The Soviets could not take the deaths of 14,500 of their own soldiers and the costs of invasion. Similarly, Israel cannot win against the Hezbollah which has positioned 150,000 rockets and missiles in inhabited areas, schools and hospitals. "To the Israelis, the build-up is an intolerable threat  -- but also one it can only remove with huge loss of life and capital, which it has thus far been unprepared to commit," Business Insider. The problem is today's democratic nations cannot resort to indiscriminate slaughter as used to be the norm in the past. In the siege of Chittorgarh in 1567, Akbar slaughtered 30,000 of its inhabitants and all the Rajputs who walked out of the fort, Rajras. Julius Caesar killed or enslaved more than a million Gauls, National Geographic. Of course, the Chinese would probably come first in exterminating people. The conquests of Genghis Khan resulted in the deaths of an estimated 40 million people, history.com. "Censuses from the Middle Ages show that the population of China plummeted by tens of millions during the Khan's lifetime, and scholars estimate that he may have killed a full three-fourths of modern-day Iran's population during his war with the Khwarezmid Empire. All told, the Mongols' attacks may have reduced the entire world population by as much as 11 percent." "Colonisation of the Americas at the end of the 15th Century killed so many people, it disturbed earth's climate," BBC. "It's a cooling period often referred to in the history books as the 'Little Ice Age' -- a time when winters in Europe would see the Thames in London regularly freeze over." Today, only China is capable of wholesale massacre of an entire people. A report by a US-based think-tank claims that China is killing Uyghurs, "causing serious bodily harm, inflicting damage that can severely affect one's life, imposing child control measure on the group and finally, transferring children of the group to another", The Print. "The state (China) regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show," AP. "In the most callous tradition of realpolitik the liberal establishment has simply abandoned Afghanistan to the ministrations of some of the world's most notorious actors," wrote an angry Rahul Shivshankar. "For amongst the abominable who are primed to jump into the vacuum as soon as the Americans up sticks are the Taliban." "Both Beijing and Islamabad fancy a stake in Afghanistan for the strategic depth it affords against its neighbours, in particular local hegemon India." "What was the point of all the destruction, killing and misery they brought us? I wish they had never come," regretted Malek Mir. Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan and Akbar would have destroyed Taliban's support, which is Pakistan. That's why they are known as Great. The US is seen as a loser and a wimp.