Putin seeks Ukraine troop deployment (approval from Russian parliament)

[Benton D Struckcheon]

38. Our Revolutionary War was very similar

This description of the Battle of Kings Mountain in SC is fairly typical of what happens when a foreign force attempts to fight against irregular forces:

These hardy men of the Blue Ridge and Alleghenies, of deep religious convictions, were accustomed to the hardships and independence of a pioneer life, and in their mountain homes in the highlands and the backwaters they but seldom were concerned with affairs beyond their borders or interfered with by Crown or colony. When Ferguson approached their kingdom and threatened to invade their lands and lay waste their country with "fire and sword," and to "hang their leaders," he aroused their indignation and anger to such a degree that they determined to rid the country forever of this enemy, who menaced their independence and the safety of their homes and families...

The causes of the Revolution were but little known to many of these pioneers beyond the Blue Ridge...had not Ferguson from Gilbert Town uttered his threat of fire and sword and the hangman's noose, these mountain men would probably have remained in their homes, and but few of them would have joined with those who were in rebellion against the King...

The Battle of Kings Mountain was not an isolated action; it was the high spot of 1780 in the South. The surrender of Charleston, the defeat of the American forces at Camden on the 16th of August, of Sumter two days later, the many engagements of lesser importance, all added prestige to the royal cause, resulting in the complete subjugation of Georgia and South Carolina. Cornwallis had advanced as far as Charlotte Town in North Carolina and was preparing to move his headquarters to Salisbury, when the unexpected blow delivered by the mountain men at Kings Mountain brought to an immediate end the thought of further conquest and made necessary the withdrawal of the British forces into South Carolina and the assumption of a defensive role for several months thereafter.

https://archive.org/stream/historicalstatem00army/historicalstatem00army_djvu.txt

So, you win battle after battle, but all it takes is one unexpected defeat from a force of men that didn't even exist as a militia, much less an organized army, a few months before, and who came together as a direct consequence of your occupation of their land, and all your plans go up in smoke. Such is the nature of irregular warfare in a foreign land.
The Tet offensive may have been a textbook defeat of the Viet Cong and the NVA, unlike Kings Mountain in the Revolutionary War, but it put to rest any idea the US and its allies had that the war was on the verge of being won, much in the way Cornwallis was forced back on his heels by a single unexpected defeat in South Carolina.
Our generals mostly know their history and realize this stuff, especially after Vietnam. It's our politicians who need schooling re interfering where we're not wanted.