China has been considered (by American govt/corporations) an enemy to be controlled for a long time. 2013 AntiWar.com article on US military bases encircling PRC: https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2013/08/22/the-us-is-encircling-china-with-military-bases/
The US didn’t lose, it got exactly what it wanted: money to the rich
It did loose. They were forced to pull out because Trump was to dumb to properly buy into the racket, so now they lost this contractor goldmine.
They got exactly what they wanted though. A Taliban controlled Afghanistan is the new permanent frontier. People aren’t buying DPRK anymore, but they’ll remember the fall of Kabul
For context, I went and looked at what the S&P500 has done since that time (Fall of 2001) and it's pretty much gone 4x i.e. a 300% return. So 1200% is pretty damn good. I wonder if that's even including dividends?