Granted! But that's insurgencies vs wars IMHO. In one, you have irregulars trying to bleed an occupying power. In the other, you have regular military forces.

The US is great at winning the latter, but sucks at winning the former (largely because of a lack of coherent political-diplomatic-military fusion on the US side).

> The US is great at winning the latter, but sucks at winning the former

Also, enemies aren't suicidal. Why would they take on US tanks, fighter planes, missiles, satellites, etc. for more than five minutes? They know they can't win that way so they quickly abandon it for what does have some success, irregular warfare / insurgency.