Why doesn't military intervention in foreign conflicts work? Or does it?

As a Civil Affairs Operative and MTT team leader in Latin America, military intervention works well only when you engage the locals and gain their support, otherwise we just become their bitches. The same applies to getting teenagers to clean and keep their rooms clean.

That's an easy one. It's because politicians are idiots and have no concept what leadership is and especially what the relationship between the government and the military should be.

The military exists to protect America and it's interests. Those interests are typically obtained through diplomacy. When diplomacy fails it falls to the military, should the government decide that interest is important enough to require military action. AT THAT POINT, it is the job of the politicians to create the governments goals and objectives and give them to the military. That SHOULD BE the last communication between the military and government except for status updates until those goals are met and the military should use everything in its power to obtain those goals in the shortest amount of time with the fewest casualties possible.
The government has no business creating ROEs, strategy, any type of military policy or anything else within the military.

America has a fundamental problem. Our leaders wrongfully believe that other countries want what we have. Democratic thought processes elude them because their cultural leadership systems are ingrained and socialized differently. We try nation-building using our military as ambassadors. The military should serve one role and one role only: To ensure complete and utter capitulation by the enemy by destroying will and ability to fight. A tenacious and resourceful enemy wins against us by winning the political war.
If you are not willing to scorch the ant mound and kill everything in it, you will allow the enemy to divide and multiply.
Korea,Vietnam and every succeeding war bears witness to the folly of police actions...(in my opinion)

Nation building is not the military's responsibility. The State Department is responsible for nation building. The military can and should assist but they should be in a supporting role to the DoS (not the host nation). There are some good examples of successful nation building in the past but no modern examples success come to mind. In recent cases of Afghanistan and Iraq we tried to fundamentally change the geopolitical culture of the nation in ways they were not ready to accept. Democracy is not the right answer for every country. For almost all of human history it has been the minority form of government. the best advice I could give to the country would be to keep any military engagement brief and to the point and avoid nation building. For example handing control of Afghanistan to the Northern Alliance once the Taliban were defeated in Afghanistan made more sense from a military perspective. The second part is choose your targets very carefully. Is Libya and the region better off now than before we pushed to topple the dictatorship? Just my thoughts and opinions. Military intervention works when it is done right and for the right reasons.

I am a firm believer that we should only have one simple mission statement. Deter the enemy if possible, kill them if it is not. We should not be involved in someone else's wars and we shouldn't be lingering for decades spending trillions of tax payer dollars and our soldiers lives trying to police nations that do not want to be policed. We should continue to maintain the most powerful force in human history and pray it is not needed. Fighting in Iraq has not made America prosperous. It has not solved the problem with world peace. In fact we have had the opposite effect. We should be a bit more isolationist in nature and stay out of foreign conflicts with a few exceptions. There will be times when we must intervene, but very few. When those things happen, and they will, we should have the same approach. Deploy, kill the enemy, and then come home.

As a retired and Veteran 1SG I'll chime in here briefly, I think great examples of how to do things the right way are Japan and Germany, and I know, everyone uses those as examples, however, they were both huge successes, that came a great loss. I think that when were intervene in a country without occupation for an extremely long time, its like placing someone in a correctional facility, once returned to their own devices they tend to revert to what they know. Based on that analogy, success stories will be far and few between in our global endeavors if we continue the correctional like methods we currently employ. Lastly, we impede the natural progress of the countries we go into, or change their course in history all together, countries must be afforded to undergo their own civil strife to the end that best supports their way of life's morals, values, norms and belief system, not ours, ours is for the American dream, not necessarily everywhere else, people that share our beliefs in freedom and democracy move here and assimilate.

Because after the State Dept. has already failed and it has become necessary to commit US forces, we give control over policy, rules of engagement, etc. to the State Dept. instead of the military.

I think it usually does work, when acting within the initial mission related task list. The military doesn't create it's own policy concerning how the U.S. maintains or creates long term relationships. The military always acts on behalf of a civilian who signed an order. I wonder if the State Department would stand up to the operational scrutiny that the DoD has withstood over the generations. Probably not in my lifetime.

Nation building is a major aspect of the US military's strategic policy. From multi-national training engagements like the one going on in Poland, to digging wells and treating disease in West Africa, the US military is part of a multi-agency effort to help stabilize certain regions of the world. In order to accomplish that, not only do you have to help provide and bolster security, you have to help develop infrastructure, reinforce foreign economies, and maintain a persistent presence.

Otherwise you end up with what happened to Afghanistan in the 1990's. A failed state that is rapidly overrun by radical extremists. Does our military have the capability to nation build? Absolutely, and the bulk of that capability lies within the Special Operations community. Recently Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations were unified under a single command to help better coordinate their efforts. The Marine Corps also has taken their fledgling steps into enhancing their capability to interact by, with, and through foreign elements to increase security in at risk nations with persistent mil-to-mil relationships.

Furthermore, the Army has regionally aligned many of its divisions. This allows for soldiers to learn the pertinent languages and cultures of their assigned regions so they can be better prepared to assist with infrastructure issues, deal with complex relationships between different ethnic groups, and identify economic issues. This regional alignment also allows for senior staff to develop better working relationships with other agencies such as the State Department or NGOs like USAID that may be better prepared to handle some of the issues.

This seems to be the mantle that we have put on since World War II becoming a super power has led this Nation down many different paths not all that we followed have turned out so well for us,but the underlying premise is always I think to make the world a better place,I might have a Pollyanna outlook on this theme but think I read some where about life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness.