Exactly! That's why the US won so decisively in Afghanistan! ;)
>13 killed (including 1 CIA officer and 4 non-combat deaths)[11]
if that was not a decisive victory, then I don't know what is.
the rest of the so-called war was a low intensity insurgency during 20 years of which the US lost fewer soldiers than Russia loses in 20 hours.
It's not nothing, and it seems that the scale of such things are enough to impact decisions and directions and lead to long low level churn with no particular outcome.