A major power can afford a military debacle only when it looks like a political victory.
Mankind's true moral test its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view) consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
It makes sense that we came up with our public school system during the Industrial Revolution because it's like everybody is a factory worker eating their terrible food and going back to the room where you're silent and listening to an idiot. That's an epitomizing idea getting called 'Nothing' for your whole high school experience.