a victory that is offset by staggering losses
From The Portrait by Iain Pears: “I laughed about it, of course, not least bcause my pictures were admired and you didn’t manage to unload a single Cézanne. A cheap and pyrrhic victory on my part; the more I sold, the more my reputation would eventually sink.” Read about the origin of the term in the Wikipedia entry.
What better exemplifies a pyrrhic victory than the familiar scene about three years ago on the deck of an aircraft carrier, on which our president just landed in a military plane with much fanfare, with the “mission accomplished” banner hanging in the background, considering what has happened since?