Seeing Like A State is out of date. The White Empire is not run by a state, as you can see from its incoherent statements, nor is it even run by humans, as you can see from its inhuman behavior. Empire is run by corporations, AKA greed incarnate. You have to see as a corporate, not a state.

What governs Empire is not the electorate but the profit rate. Since that declines (re: Marx), capitalism trends towards imperialism (Lenin), and can only be stopped via the barrel of a gun (Mao). Narrow profit is the hunger that can never be satiated, it's why new countries must always be on the plate. Return on capital is what turns empire, not election returns, which are just a marketing campaign.

Marketing

Seeing like a corporation, you realize that all 'American' politics is just marketing.

Debating the ins-and-outs of US military strategy is like debating the internal universe of a Coke ad. Does the thirsty girl really get libated, do the oppressed women really get liberated? It's all marketing, you cretins, none of this is really happening. They're just trying to sell you something, empty calories or empty wars. Understand all of America's words accordingly. As marketing.

Asking why America doesn't actually build nations or really establish democracies is like asking why that deodorant didn't actually get you the girl or that shampoo didn't actually make you a model. They were just selling you something, you moron, and if the whole thing goes in the garbage afterwards, all the better. Then they can sell you more.

The Corporate AI that actually runs the place (and has since 1602, when the VoC was algorithmically created) does not understand or care about democracy or freedom anymore than the Coca-Cola Corporation understands thirst or happiness. It has just figured out that using these words on humans helps it procure resources for its metabolism which is raw energy and claims on energy, measured by money.

It is as arch-capitalist Milton Friedman described Corporate Social Responsibility to Joel Bakan in The Corporation. He said the only time a corporation should care about anything but its own metabolism (money), is to trick people, like the light on an anglerfish. He said it's like “putting a good-looking girl in front of an automobile to sell an automobile. That’s not in order to promote pulchritude. That’s in order to sell cars.” This is the real rationale of 'America's' sociopathic foreign policy. It's not in order to promote democracy. It's in order to sell weapons.

In this sense, 'America' has never lost a war because it always makes money. Vietnam wasn't a loss at all, they ‘sold’ more bombs across Southeast Asia than in World War II. Afghanistan wasn't a 20-year waste, it was a 20-year feast. And Ukraine isn't a stalemate, it's a steady business. In this sense—the only real sense—war on Iran isn't nonsensical. It is in fact good losing all these planes and weapons because then the customer has to replace them.

Accounting

To understand how corporations think you have to read their DNA, the double-helix that is double-entry accounting. Every 'cost' reported by the press is revenue to something else, which is certainly not depressed about it. Every debit to the US Treasury is a credit to treasure hunters, and somebody's stock price goes up even if the whole market goes down. A bad war is still good business for somebody, and if you're counting, that's what counts. Even with a military loss—nay, especially with a loss—they are winning. In accounting, every loss is some gain. Again, seeing as a corporation explains.

What we are witnessing, then, is not a display of firepower so much as a fire sale. It's a going-out-of-business sale for the military-industrial complex. Everything must go. They unloaded all the artillery and tanks on Ukraine, all the dumb bombs on Gaza, and now they're dumping the good stuff—radars, planes, and helicopters—over Iran. People say 'America' is losing, but this is seeing like a state instead of a corporation. 'American' empire may be imploding, the balance sheets and stock prices of 'American' business are literally booming. Arms dealers are seeing their budget balloon to $1.5 trillion, and they increasingly don't even have to deliver anything. In losing, there's so much winning.

So if you see like a corporate, then you're up to date. The only thing that governs the United States is the profit rate and losing wars isn't bad for this. In fact, it's great. Every plane lost is some contractor's gain, and every base destroyed remodels another estate. Of course, these planes and bases will never be rebuilt, but who cares when you can get paid today? This is called a mafia-bust out on the streets, or liquidation in the spreadsheets. Same thing. It is what Iran calls ‘Black Friday’ meaning something bad, but what to 'America' just means a good deal. A steal, if you will.