It is the biggest “problem” of modern warfare. We don’t fight wars of conquest anymore because that tends to actually make other countries care (because those brown people have resources!). So we attack and then leave.
It is similar to why France and England (or China/Japan/Korea) were basically at continuous levels of war for hundreds (?) of years. Because when you roll up and kill a bunch of people and maybe steal a goat? The remaining people want revenge. When you conquer them and either ethnically cleanse them to nonexistence or integrate them into your society? They forget why they were angry after a generation or two.
I very much do NOT believe the world would be a better place with more ethnic cleansing and stealing of land. But we also are in a mess where retaliation between countries just continues with no real consequences to the people who are calling for the attacks. And the civilians just get rightfully angry when their kid is permanently blinded because she was looking the wrong way at the Lebanese equivalent of a Kroger.
And then you get the keyboard warriors who hop in decades (or even centuries) into the conflict, pick a side, and immediately say THESE terrorists are good guys and THOSE terrorists are bad guys.
I mean… you really can’t. Contracts and even people on the ground more or less reveal this real fast (and is what the OSINT community lives off of). The US and even Ukraine do the same. You can keep it a secret exactly how juicy a target is but you can’t really hide that missiles or tanks or whatever are being built somewhere.
For example, a buddy of mine lives near a US facility that is near some REALLY nice climbing areas nearby. Every couple of months the army swings by and tells everyone to go the fuck away. And it does not take much brain power to realize that THAT is when they are moving whatever they don’t want people to know is at that base. But any other time? You can literally watch equipment being moved from warehouse/hanger to warehouse/hanger while giving someone a belay.