From Michael O'Hanlong on War

Surveying the major wars of modern history, I would propose two general themes that have special relevance for today.

The first, so seemingly obvious but so difficult to absorb, is that outcomes in wars are not preordained. History, written and studied after the fact, sometimes makes the great events of human affairs seem as if they had to turn out as they did. That is rarely the case.

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A second key lesson of military history is that wars are almost always harder to fight than expected. All of America’s major wars since 1861—the Civil War, the two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan—were longer and more sanguinary than most foresaw at the outset.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-war-leaders-most-underestimate-duration-and-deaths-11674830698