I'd guess you're asking rhetorically but
Japan
Germany
Austria
Belgium
France
Italy
The Netherlands
The Phillipines
Or in other words, WWII era victories.
Regime change is pretty effective after a total war when you kill every fighting age male. When a country is brought to its knees and or was an sattelite state of a different occupying force, nation buidling has its place. But its also very costly in lives.
In order to circumvent the need for mass troop commitments, casualties and the outmoding of total war with the advent of the A-Bomb, post WWII/cold war presidents began relying on CIA covert operations to stoke coups and uprisings in order to acheive nation building. This was much less successful in the long term, because it recruited and armed many fighting aged males, instead of sending them to the meat grinder. But in terms of American lives, it preferable to overt war, though it's results are usually temporary. Typically CIA actions have been a mix of toppling popular revolutions, reinstating former leaders, enabling CIA controlled puppets and supporting prefered forces in a civil war.
*Mosaddegh's popular recolution being overthrown and replaced by the reinstated shah in Iran
*Allende's socialist uprising in Chile being overthrown with Track II
*The Mujahadeen in Afghanistan
*Supporting Habre in Chad
There were softer popular revolutions against the USSR in Poland and East Germany, though not bloodless, they were the standard bearer for Reagan/Bush 1 era diplomacy, though Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost policies to openness and reform in sattelite states was the bigger catalyst for the fall of the iron curtain.
Korea, Vietnam were overt wars to quell civil wars and maintain relationships with prefered sides, and since they were fought with half measures they ranged from disaster to catastrophe.
Iraq and Afghanistan were also part of the failed half measures occupation campagins , though sold to the American public as anti terrorist campaigns instead of anti communist. Instead of fearing communism blocks could overtake the west, the now unipolar world revolving around the united had the new boogiemen of of rougue states and non military actors. Typically called the Bush doctrine, though really implemented by Clinton and Bush 1, states the US deemed unstable could be overtly bombed when politically expedient. Iraq was the patient zero of unipolar as Clinton bombed them several times throughout his presidency after Bush 1 had successfully crippled the bathist forces in 1991. Yemen, Syria, Libya have all been continuations of our
In almost every case these rogue nations were headed by former allies or guerrilla cells once funded by the US. Outliers like the the breakup of Yugoslavia after the death of Tito and the Bosnian conflict could be considered successes of humanitarian relief and US intervention. It should be considered the exception to the rule.
You can nation build quite easily under a few conditions
1. The war is considered justified internally by your population
2. You kill most of the fighting aged men that oppose you
3. You either repel an occupying force or cripple a militaristic one so completely the nation you are building sees the former regime as weak.
Half measure wars never achieve these because if what you are fighting is truly so evil it is worth committing to, you should be dropping nukes. You can't drop nukes though, and thusly war has been outmoded in practice, and we've been experiencing it's death throws in the late 20th and early 21st century. The only place left for conventional total war is among non nuclear states or China and the United States, two countries so intertwined that the objective of bringing the other to kneel would tank your own economy. If that ends up being WW3 it will be the most preposterous of all wars.
Peacekeeping has some benefits, despite my governments retarded cycle of arming retards to bomb them later, we secured internatiinal shipping routes for nearly a century and raised the global standard of living unfathomable amounts. Which is a decent comp to McNamara's stewardship over Vietnam while also leading the commercial adoption of seatbelts.
Win some, lose some I guess
