American foreign policy seems stuck in the “double down” mode, whereby instead of acknowledging errors — and then correcting them — we simply ignore the mistakes and double down on the same policy elements that led to failure in the first place.

This is because America has built its culture upon exceptionalism and arrogance. USA IS NUMBER ONE.

When you have this mindset and you are entirely committed to it because it is written into the nationalist identity of the country... You are unpatriotic if you admit mistakes. You are unpatriotic if you say america might actually not be the best at something. You are unamerican.

America's failure is written into its own culture because it literally can not self-crit. American nationalism has paper thin skin. Say something remotely critical around american nationalists and they go absolutely fucking bonkers about it. I see it all the time particularly on reddit or discord.

Compare this with european nationalists. Brits? The culture here is self-owning. It is cool to look at Britain and admit that it's shit. Being a bit shit has become part of the national identity. Winning at everything? Nah. But that's ok. And this ability to self-crit strengthens the longevity of British nationalism because it won't destroy itself in doubling down over and over and over again. Same goes elsewhere. In america though? It will destroy itself before it owns up to its mistakes. Maybe this was different back when the British Empire was at the height of its power. I don't know, I wasn't around and it's hard to get a feel for what a cultural zeitgeist might've been historically.

Another factor is probably that displays of nationalism is considered embarrassing here. Outside of sports. Whereas american nationalism seems entirely normalised to the point that not taking part in nationalist rituals marks you as unamerican. This is part of their problem. Part of the ridiculous exceptionalist NUMBER ONE culture they've constructed. It's going to hurt them over and over.