Getting involved in a war without being prepared to do what's necessary to win it was the real madness. As Jacky Fisher, former Admiral of the Fleet put it: 'The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility.'
This is a lesson the Americans seem oddly unwilling to learn.
Of course they could win it. Militarily, they were more than capable of winning it in double quick time. They just weren't prepared to do what was necessary, which was invade another country, anger the Chinese and kill a fùck ton of people (although that number almost certainly would have been fewer than they actually ended up killing by dragging the thing out for 10 years).