Most Americans don't know much about South Asia - in spite of India being the largest democracy in the world. They could maybe tell you Gandi led the separation from the UK - there was a popular movie about that - but that's about it. I'd agree that US behavior has been beyond stupid. I see that as mostly coming from internal politics, mixed with a Cold War 'hangover' - and the IMO irrational hope a capitalist China might turn democratic (long history of US connection w China via 'Mish' kids, many of whom ended up in the State Dept or otherwise influential). See Tuchman's Stillwell for some of the initial bits on US involvement.
I'd love to think that the US has woken up to the potential partnership it might have with India (same labor mix as 70s China - and a democracy), but...
[edit — back on a real keyboard] It certainly was not a conscious decision to exit globalism; the reason for Bretton Woods went away with the end of the USSR. Bush Sr tried to start a conversation on it and lost the election, pretty sure Clinton came in with a complete focus on US-internal — and the US need to import oil pushed us to keep it going. (now, with shale oil, not so much). So we’ve been drifting away w no national conversation. Bretton Woods deliberately sacrificed US manufacturing, leading to lost blue collar jobs. Those people are (IMO legitimately) pissed at the rest of us. I think a lot of them voted for Trump because his tagline was “I am your retribution”.

Those links look to be interesting; mobile Medium app ‘protects’ readers from links in responses.

Agreed that Afghanistan, beyond booting alQuaida out, was one of the stupider things. Somehow we got the idea that a geographically grouped set of tribes was a ‘nation’ — and the success of the Marshall Plan made us think we could fix a broken nation. Also agreed that India coming to global power is to the global good. I hope you’re wrong about wars, but don’t have any reasoning to back that up.

I’ve never lived in South Asia, know a bit about the history Mostly ancient: Alexander, Gupta Empire, some more modern: fight to get free of UK, Churchill’s bad behavior, partition. Post Cold War, very little, but I know I should know more— sorry.