A Skeptical Public May Stop War With Russia
After disappointment in Afghanistan, Americans show no eagerness for a new conflict.
War has an irresistible magnetic draw for government officials who are in some sort of trouble. It's often an effective way to redirect a public that's out for political blood toward a new target. For the Biden administration, that designated enemy is Russian and its Bond-villain leader, Vladimir Putin, which seems like a safe distraction from high inflation, domestic tensions, and tanking popularity. Inconveniently for the president and his little helpers, the public may not be all that well-disposed toward Russia's leadership, but it isn't interested in getting into a shooting war.
"I'll be moving U.S. troops to Eastern Europe and the NATO countries in the near term," President Joe Biden told reporters on Friday about America's response to Russia massing forces on the Ukraine border.
"The United States and our Allies and partners continue to prepare for every scenario," the White House doubled down on Monday. "The world must be clear-eyed about the actions Russia is threatening and ready to respond to the risks those actions present to all of us."
This came after Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, commented that a Russian invasion of Ukraine "would result in a significant amount of casualties….It would be horrific."
The United States, it seems, is staggering toward a conflict with Russia, a diminished but still potent military power. Ukraine is a sympathetic victim, but it's in an almost impossible position given its long border with Russia, its relative vulnerability, and the distance it lies from potential assistance.
Worse, the United States can't expect much help from its NATO allies in shoring-up Ukraine's defenses. Germany not only blocked the transfer of weapons to Ukraine, its naval chief resigned under pressure after suggesting that Putin deserves respect and that Ukraine is a lost cause. "The Crimea Peninsula is gone: It will never come back — this is a fact," he commented. French President Emmanuel Macron takes a similarly independent line, saying "it is vital that Europe has its own dialogue with Russia."
Conflict in Eastern Europe with minimal support from key allies looks like a disaster waiting to happen.
The problem is that Biden faces disaster at home, too, and desperately needs something to rally Americans around his presidency if his party is to avoid, or even mitigate, a miserable showing in the mid-term elections. Inflation is now running at the highest rate in 40 years, bringing budgetary misery to millions of Americans. The public is unhappy with the president's handling of the pandemic. Biden "has the second-lowest approval rating of any president one-year in," FiveThirtyEight's Geoffrey Skelley and Jean Yi noted, with his poll numbers exceeded in awfulness only by his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump. This wouldn't be the first White House to conclude that domestic woes might be alleviated by prodding the public into shared hate of an overseas adversary. But that only works if the public is amenable to a convenient new war, and that's not the case.
"The White House is grappling with a U.S. population weary of foreign wars as it weighs a response to a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine," The Hill's Ellen Mitchell observed this week.
That's no exaggeration. After two decades of fighting and thousands of lives lost, "71% of Americans say the U.S. role in Afghanistan was a 'failure' including majorities of Democrats (66%), Republicans (73%), and independents (75%)," an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found last September.
That war-weariness translates into deep hesitancy about picking a fight with a foe much more capable than the Taliban. Pew Research finds that roughly half of Americans view Russia as a "competitor" to the United States. That's nine points more than the share of the population that views Russia as an "enemy." That predominant view of Russia as competition cuts across members of both major political parties. And while you might go to war with an enemy, you challenge competitors on the sports field, in business, and in diplomacy, not in life-or-death combat.
It's no surprise, then, that "only 31% of Likely U.S. voters think that if Russia attacks Ukraine, U.S. combat troops should be sent to help defend Ukraine," according to polling by Rasmussen Reports. A Trafalgar Group poll put support for troops on the ground even lower, at 15.3 percent.
So, when the Biden administration contemplates war against Russia, it must contend with long supply lines, lukewarm allies, and also a resistant public that has recent and unpleasant memories of the country's last military adventure.
That doesn't mean that Americans are unsympathetic to Ukraine. It's an underdog country with a bully next door. And wobbly as the country's institutions are, its people are trying to implement something resembling a functioning open society. Ukraine is also not the country massing troops on its neighbor's border. It's a much more appealing party in this conflict than Russia. But even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked Biden and company to tone down the drum-beating.
"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday other world leaders have been overstating the likelihood of war between his country and Russia, causing 'panic' and destabilizing Kyiv's economy," CNN reported. "When asked about his conversation with Biden, Zelenskyy thanked the US President for his support, but said the Russian troop build-up was not much more significant than what he had seen in the past."
"I'm the President of Ukraine, I'm based here, and I think I know the details deeper than any other President," Zelenskyy cautioned. "We don't have any misunderstandings with President Biden. I just deeply understand what is going on in my country just as he understands perfectly well what's going on in the United States."
Unfortunately, what Biden understands is that he and his policies are deeply unpopular with the public. He appears to hope that war might bring the public together against a common enemy and, not incidentally, in support of national political and military leaders.
So far, the American people are unpersuaded. This country just finished (mostly) one unpleasant overseas conflict and the public shows no enthusiasm for embarking on another one that looks even less promising. Ultimately, the best hope for peace with Russia might be the U.S. population's deep weariness with war.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Anyone itching for a donnybrook in Eastern Europe is free to go there to participate.
Sadly, it is the old men who will send the young men to die.
When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. – Ayn Rand
I have just received $18000 of my last month working and i was doing this in my part time online. (re91) i joined this 4 months before and i know how easy this job is to make money online.
Join now from this website below.==-==>> http://moneystar33.blogspot.com/
Yeah, I’d like to see how many of those 31% would actually show up at the recruiting office if the U.S. did go to war over Ukraine.
Who gives a shit what the American public wants when there are profits to be made engineering a fake war? Do you have any idea how much military contractors contribute to re-election campaigns?
Yes, this! Who gives a shit about what the American people think any more? BidenFuhrer is telling 76% of Americans to fuck off, with his special racist-sexist preferences being FAR more important than what we peons think about impartial, color-blind, sex-blind standards!
https://abcnews.go.com/US/majority-americans-biden-nominees-supreme-court-vacancy-poll/story?id=82553398
Majority of Americans want Biden to consider ‘all possible nominees’ for Supreme Court vacancy: POLL
“Now, with the chance to do so, just over three-quarters of Americans (76%) want Biden to consider “all possible nominees.”
Hey, Vlad, “You break it, you buy it.”
Actually, after 4 years of living under Russian control I’ll support President Biden if he takes us to war with Russia.
#LibertariansForGettingToughWithRussia
*golf clap*
Indeed.
The Constitution says Congress must vote. Where are they?
I thought Congress had the ultimate say on ‘use of force’.
Oh, are the Bidens still drawing a salary from Burisma?
The Constitution is an obsolete, moldering old scrap of paper. If the Congress-Critters want to have ANY kind of say in this, they better start buying some Hunter Biden art!
https://nypost.com/2021/12/06/wh-flags-art-market-as-money-laundering-haven-amid-hunter-biden-shows/
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/14/1015895944/the-latest-ethical-pitfalls-involving-joe-bidens-son-hunter
Hunter Biden’s Paintings Are Going On Sale, Drawing Critics Of Art And Ethics
The Constitution has been ruled a suicide pact by 90% (+-9) of this country.
No one has ever had any eagerness for another World War III or a nuclear war, which is what going to war with Russia would entail. Only Democrats worried about their families’ corrupt deals with the Ukrainian government have any eagerness to go to war over Ukraine. Unfortunately, for the country and the world, one such Democrat was installed as President by the current regime in Washington. Given that, the world is probably closer to nuclear war and human extinction than at any time since the early 1980s. When we are all consumed by a nuclear fireball or die of radiation poisoning, we can die with the knowledge that there are no more mean tweets. So, we have got that going for us.
Fuck Joe Biden.
Fuck Joe Biden.
Fuck Joe Biden.
Let’s Go, Brandon!
Russia wants to annex all its neighbors and form some kind of super-state. Because that will work out so well.
If the people of Ukraine do not want to be ruled by the Russians, invading and annexing it will end up being a fool’s errand. If the Ukrainians don’t mind being ruled by the Russians, then who cares? Let them invade Ukraine. It will either result in the Ukrainians getting what they want or the Russians going broke trying to force their rule on an unwilling country.
My God, if any country’s political leaders should understand that invading a country is a lot easier than actually ruling it, it should be the U.S’s. Sadly, however, our political leaders are nothing if not slow learners.
The Russians had well over a million troops stationed in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. That cost them a fortune. The half a million the US kept in Western Europe cost a fortune and the Soviets had two or three times that in Eastern Europe. Russia is even more broke now than it was then. They don’t have the money to rule Ukraine much less move further west.
And millions of people lived and died under the Russian boot. That’s what really matters. Those individual lives. Not some fucking balance sheet.
There’s literally billions of people living under the Chinese communist boot. Why should we start with Russia and not with China?
Who says they don’t matter? The point is the Russians went broke doing it. Since they are still broke they won’t be doing it again.
Do you just not read very well or something? And the alternative to their living under the Russian’s boot was the US liberating them and fighting a nuclear war. So, things could have been a lot worse.
So why should it be our problem. I don’t disparage Biden for selling arms to the Ukrainians, but his rhetoric could very likely result in us stumbling into a war that in all likelihood will result in a nuclear exchange at some point. The Russians have the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world and the second largest nuclear armed submarine fleet in the world.
I have longed believed we should shut our bases down in Germany and move them to Poland, Lithuania and Romania, because they are more welcoming countries than Germany and the threat to them from possible Russian aggression is higher than against Germany, however, this temporary surging of troops to these countries, especially as it is announced as a reaction to possible aggression from Russia, just further inflames an already precarious situation. Biden is stumbling into a war that likely is far worse than we can imagine. The Russian people have long suffer from societal paranoia (and for good cause if you study how often they’ve been invaded). We need to dial down the rhetoric a whole fucking lot. We don’t want a war with Russia. And it wouldn’t be a small scale war for very long. Invading Russia is pretty much a no win situation, as Napoleon and Hitler discovered, not because they are a strong military nation. We far surpass them in training, equipment and ability, as did Napoleon and Germany. But because they can trade land and casualties for time and are willing to do so.
Also, Russia and China have developed strong mutual ties, and it is quite possible that a war with Russia will likely result in a war with China, and quite possibly North Korea. Which would likely result in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, and likely Australia and New Zealand, being pulled into the war, possibly even India, Vietnam and Thailand. Which may then pull Pakistan and Burma into it as well. And it’s a guess as to what the Middle East would do. Venezuela and Cuba are also wild cards, who wouldn’t mind a distraction from their governments failed policies, which could bring all of Latin America into it.
At this point, the Ukraine isn’t ready for membership in the EU or NATO, and it is debatable as to if they really want to join those organizations anyhow. We lost our one true bargaining chip when we removed our objections to Nordstream and the Mediterranean pipelines.
Finally, when the US and international world did nothing in reaction to the Georgia conflict in 2008, Russia was totally behind that, even if Georgia initiated the war, as Russia had been stoking up aggression for years in Georgian provinces as a way to destabilize Georgia. We, the rest of the world, stood by when Russia invaded the Crimea and also overtly supported a civil war in the Ukraine. Any of those times, international pressure would have been far more productive, because Russia was a far weaker country at the time.
So, yes I feel for the Ukrainians, but stumbling into a war would be far more costly then doing anything more than passively supporting the Ukrainian government.
Remember, Japan attacked the US in response to heavy sanctions that FDR put in place in protest of Japanese aggression against China, but the US and the rest of the world ignored Japanese military aggression against Korea, China and Russia for 40 years before they decided to act. By the time FDR reacted, Japan felt strong enough and justified enough to attack us over the sanctions. I see strong parallels to what is happening now in Russia. Also, the reaction or lack of reaction by England and France prior to 1939, as Germany rearmed and violated the Versailles treaty and then began occupying Austria and the Sudetland, made the second world war much worse, if they had protested and pressured much earlier, it is likely that Germany wouldn’t have been able to withstand the pressure. We aren’t in 1933, we are now in 1939.
My God, if any country’s political leaders should understand that invading a country is a lot easier than actually ruling it, it should be the U.S’s
If you’re talking about Afghanistan, it was a nice little cash cow for one segment of the ruling class, and it was a nice political football for another segment, and when that awful no good rotten orange man fucked it all up, they still ended up with all the cash in their pockets and no consequences for anything that went wrong. What lessons do you expect them to learn?
The lesson is that war pays and pays well. It is not like them or anyone they know ever ends up dying. So, yeah, fair point.
It worked for National Socialism for 12 years, and for International Socialism for 47 (as Heinlein predicted). The Almighty Dollar has only been around for 345 years.
When are midterms again?
Postponed “temporarily” so that lawmakers can focus on the requirements of their jobs during wartime and not be distracted by campaigning.
If Trump runs and wins the Presidency in 24, and if the polls are to believed the office is his for the taking at least right now, I think they will try something like that. I know it sounds crazy but these people have lost their minds. If Trump wins, they will do something totally crazy and desperate like that.
Trump is not popular. He ain’t winning shit. God damn I hope he runs so Biden can beat ass again but I think he gets indicted and convicted of fraud. Can a convict run for President?
Every poll says otherwise.
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-starts-2022-trailing-trump-average-nearly-5-points-2024-election-polls-1664829
Polls nearly always favor Democrats. For a Republican to be up five points in the polling average is remarkable. That is beyond the margin of error and since it is an average, includes polls that are weighted heavily for Democrats.
Maybe the polls have suddenly become tilted to Republicans but I see no evidence of that. As it is, the facts are what they are. To say otherwise makes you sound like Pauline Kael. Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean a lot of other people don’t disagree with you on that. You should try getting out more.
If history is any guide, that is a massive lead. In 2020, Trump was down 16 points going into the election. So that makes a 20-point swing. One would suspect that that much of a swing would be decisive.
I hope Biden runs again so I can hear the Brandon chant from the floor of the DNC.
The narrative that it’s 1936 all over again is wearing thin too. Analogies tend to be weak arguments to begin with, and historical analogies are the weakest.
Yeah, for those who think it’s 1936 all over again, the question is:
which industrial/military superpower’s government is being taken over by angry socialists this time?
Yeah…I am getting more of a 1917 vibe. Actually, maybe more of a 1974 vibe. But not German history.
I am getting a 1914 vibe. The world is led by small, stupid men, unable to control events such that their actions are dictated by the events. Biden, Borris Johnson, Steinmeir, Putin, hard to imagine a group of smaller and more pathetic men than that. Putin is the only one of them with any balls and he is just a two bit thug.
Agree. Sending US troops to eastern Europe would be like when Franz Ferdinand visited Sarajevo.
We should have relocated our troops to our eastern European allies several years ago, from Germany. But doing so now, especially while saying it is response to Russian actions, and is only temporary, does nothing to stabilize the situation and much like mobilizations in June and July of 1914, makes war more likely rather than less likely. We should have done it in 2008 after Georgia, or at the latest 2014. It may have even been feasible when Trump proposed it, but was widely denounced for it. Troops stationed in Germany hasn’t made sense in a long time, strategically speaking. Today, however, we have to remember Russia has a long history of societal paranoia, at least some of it justified. And with as heated as the rhetoric had become, these troop movements are ill advised and just guaranteed to make Russia even more paranoid.
The US is attempting to instigate a war with Russia. Regarding land and resources on another continent. Russia is not invading the US. Europe has the resources and population to defend itself if it so chooses.
It’s not 1936, it’s 1939, as the world has ignored Putin and his aggression for years, now they finally want to do something, but Putin feels he is strong enough to resist pressure. We have already given up Austria and the Sudetland, which I mean Georgian provinces and the Crimea.
Also, it is close to being 1941, were after fifty years of Japanese aggression, FDR finally decides to implement strong, economic sanctions, which prodded the Japanese into starting a war. If the world had reacted to Japanese aggression in Korea in the 1890s, Japan would likely have been incapable of resisting.
If the world had condemned and pressured Russia in 2008, before the Georgia conflict, Russia was to weak, and Putin to weak politically, to have resisted. Instead the world blamed Georgia, because they started the war, but it was obvious that Russia had been supporting and inflaming the troubles in Georgia for years, trying to destabilize Georgia. And then we barely said boo when Russia funded and actively supported rebels in the Ukrainian Civil War and said even less when Russia occupied the Crimea. In fact, we said, while the Crimea has always been more Russian than Ukrainian, which is almost the same thing what Chamberlain and Lebrun said about the Austria and the Sudetland.
Fuck you JD, seriously. You are such a fucking asshole. No one asked for this fucking nightmare.
Bill Kristol, Joe Biden, and most of the major media are on the phone and would like to have a word with you. A whole lot of people are asking for this nightmare and doing everything they can to make it happen.
Why is it a nightmare and not in 2008 or in 2014? Fuck you, if you aren’t enlisted in the military, double fuck you. My son leaves for basic in three months, my nephew just completed basic. It’s my family who will be dieing for your warmongering. So fuck off.
If you so want to fight the Russians, I expect you to be reporting to your local recruiter right the fuck now. Otherwise shut the fuck up, whore.
Better yet, buy a fucking ticket to Kyiv and join their military.
Every ignorant Trumpanzee™ and Antifa Bidenista tool voted for the initiation of force. You’ll get no sympathy from me when you feel unequal yet apposite reprisal force on your hides.
shut the fuck up, grampa. As someone suggested in a earlier thread…take you meds, preferably all of them at the same time.
“Unfortunately, what Biden understands is that he and his policies are deeply unpopular with the public. He appears to hope that war”
JD, you belong to a political party that gets damn near zero popular support. The only reason you mfers even have jobs doing this is because you’re the pets of some rich billionaire. You don’t win shit ever. If popular support was the metric than you’re a failure. Biden’s policies actually do have popular support. The party he leads enjoys support beyond yanything you’ve every experienced. The issue is that sometimes you need more than popular opinion on your side to pass something thru Congress. I seriously doubt war in Ukraine is going to help Biden anyway. That you would frame it all thru something so petty when there’s a fascist army on the march is so wrong.
Biden’s policies actually do have popular support.
Every single poll taken anywhere says otherwise. If you don’t want to believe the polls, then believe the Democratic politicians who ask Joe Biden not to campaign in their districts and pass on appearing with him. There is not a single person anywhere who doesn’t think the midterms are going to be a wipeout for the Democrats. The only debate is over how big of a wipeout.
There is not a single piece of objective evidence I can see that anything about Biden or his policies are popular. Not even the people on MSNBC believe that.
I can’t really find any evidence that Biden’s policies actually belong to Biden.
It seems to me that he spent his entire career being a sort of centrist, pro defense Democrat. He ran as the stable moderate .
Then he gets into office and the woke interns are running the show.
The irony is, I think a lot of the soft support or disapproval he has among Democrats comes from the far left who see him as not successfully implementing the woke agenda. That would explain all of his minions running around claiming that we have to implement his agenda now in order to cure inflation. It’s silly, but that’s what they’ve been saying for the last 6 months.
Biden is senile and totally compromised by his family’s corruption. I wouldn’t hazard to guess who is in charge in the White House, but whoever it is, it is not Biden. My guess is that no one person or group is in charge. Who is running things depends on the issue, how awake and willful Biden is on a given day, and who has access to him that day. All Administrations are some level of chaos. The government is too big and the news cycle and world events too swift for it not to be to some degree no matter how well run the administration. The level of chaos in the Biden Administration must be biblical. If we have something besides a state run media, the backstory of what is actually happening day to day up there would be both horrifying and fascinating.
Translation: if reality WEREN’T what it is, ignorant, superstitious girl-bulliers would not have helped Czar Biden into the White House and things WOULD be different.
Sullum, you are hilarious = Biden’s policies actually do have popular support.
This is the most remarkable poll I have ever seen.
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2022/50_support_biden_s_impeachment
Fifty percent of the country supports impeaching Biden. That alone shows a level of unpopularity that no President has ever achieved in his first year in office. Nixon was probably that unpopular in 1974 but not after a year. I don’t think even really unpopular Presidents like Carter and Bush II ever had 50% of the country wanting them impeached.
It gets even more amazing when you look at the detailed numbers.
Thirty four percent of Democrats want Biden impeached. His own party.
Forty two percent of independents want Biden impeached.
Then there is this
Among ethnic groups, the results included 50% of Black voters supporting impeachment. A total of 58% of other non-white voters also supported impeachment.
Biden is a Democrat just to remind you. Biden is arguably the most unpopular President in American history. You would have to go back to the 19th Century, Andrew Johnson maybe, to find a President as unpopular as Biden is right now.
I don’t know much about what the American people writ large think, But I have been in two conversations recently with ardent Democrat union members who get all of their information from MSNBC and CNN. What made it interesting was that they were very open to criticism of Biden, and did not have much to say in his defense.
In one conversation, they did not even bother to defend him on taking bribes. With everything else piled on, I think the notion of trying to defend half million dollar painting purchases by anonymous “art collectors” is just more than they feel like carrying.
The continued COVID lunacy and the Soros DAs have redpilled a lot of people especially those under 30. To give one example, my wife’s cousin is in his 20s and lives in NYC and was up to now your typical millennial Democrat. We met him for dinner last week and he said in so many words “I understand why you guys vote Republican”. The rampant criminality in New York City, the total irrationality of the mask mandates and lockdowns, and the epic incompetence and corruption of the DiBlasio administration finally woke him up. In his view the Democratic Party has been taken over by delusional morons who think Twitter is the real world. He is not wrong when he says that.
The Democrats have gotten a lot of support from people who wanted to be a part of the brand of “team tolerance” and didn’t care about the harm Democratic policies caused because the harm didn’t affect them. Now thanks to COVID and de fund the policy, that is no longer true. A whole lot of loyal Democratic voters are getting what they voted for good and hard as the saying goes. I don’t think that is going to turn out well for the Democrats or the lunatics who have taken over the party.
If Team R takes the House, item 1 is an impeachment vote of POTUS Biden.
I sure hope not. Not that Biden may not deserve it, but the likelihood of conviction is virtually impossible and short of a conviction I think impeachment would hurt the Republicans more than help them.
Republicans can do the same thing Democrats did: tie the administration in knots, harass its officials endlessly, and make sure anybody who served in the Biden administration will regret the day they accepted their job.
But they won’t get the media covering for them as the Democrats got in 2017-2021, and thus it is likely to backfire. Impeaching Clinton did nothing except make him more popular.
Far better to debate and pass bills that will help the citizens but which the Democrats will never agree to. Hearings may be beneficial, but I think there is to much chance of impeachment backfiring.
I was reading a piece a couple months ago about political realignments, and the historical factors that lead to them. The author was trying to say we are in a political realignments driven by young progressives. As the evidence grows, and we see daily more and more lifelong Democrats leaving the party and voting for Republicans, it may be being driven by younger progressives, but the realignment isn’t towards progressivism, it appears to be away from progressivism. Also, historically, once a person leaves a party, they rarely ever return. So, for every Hispanic and Black, for every woman and young person leaving the Democratic party, that is one less vote they are ever likely to recover again.
Suck Biden’s dick harder. When the shooting starts, I expect you to be in uniform, fuck face.
The idea that all wars should be opposed for the same reasons is absurd. Because we were attacked by a foreign power is an excellent reason to go to war–whether we’re talking about Al Qaeda and the Taliban or whether we’re talking about Imperial Japan. That’s legitimately a war of self-defense, and that’s the kind of thing that drives public opinion. Why would Russia invading the Ukraine provoke the same public response? They aren’t even a NATO member.
Public opinion in the Iraq War was largely driven by misinformation in that regard. Six months after we invaded Iraq, 69% of the American people still believed that Saddam Hussein was personally complicit in 9/11. Libertarians both for and against the war were astounded at the time! A majority of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents still believed that Saddam Hussein was personally complicit in 9/11–six months after we invaded the country.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/vault/stories/data082303.htm?
It’s hard for people to remember when they came to know the things they know now, but public support for the Iraq War started to deteriorate once Americans came to realize that it wasn’t a war of self-defense after all. It wasn’t just that Saddam Hussein didn’t have WMD. It’s that he wasn’t behind the anthrax attack. There was no active coordination between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was all about replacing unholy dictators like Saddam Hussein with sharia. That’s when the justification for the war (and continued occupation) became about spreading democracy. The American people didn’t support the Iraq War to spread democracy. They thought it was a war of self-defense.
Almost all American wars are precipitated by an event that is interpreted as an unprovoked attack on the United States–whether or not it’s actually the case. There is no good evidence that the Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident ever happened, and yet it precipitated the Vietnam War. World War II started with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Our entry into World War I was precipitated by the sinking of the Lusitania and the Zimmerman telegram. The Spanish-American war was precipitated by the sinking of the Maine. Some of these claims of self-defense were dubious, and some of them were not–knowing what we know now. In the minds of Americans at the time, however, these were all wars of self-defense. Get away from wars of self-defense (like Somalia or Rwanda), and public support falls off a cliff.
The idea that Americans either support wars because they want to kill people or oppose wars because they don’t want to kill people is naive. It’s always a question of whether our interests are involved, and when people believe it’s a war of self-defense, they support it because our interests are always involved in an act of self-defense. We have interests in the Ukraine, but they don’t rise to the level of self-defense. The Ukraine isn’t even an official ally. And that’s why the American people won’t support a war over the Ukraine.
Assuming that the American people are against war, now, so they oppose going to war with Russia over Ukraine is to assume the American people are stupid. The American people’s support for war is situational–like their support for imprisoning people. They’re not just in favor or opposed to imprisoning people. Did the defendant rape and murder somebody? Is he guilty or not? If the defendant is guilty of rape and murder, then they favor imprisoning him. And if the American people are opposed to imprisoning the innocent, that doesn’t mean they’re generally against imprisoning people. It just means they don’t think war is merited in this situation.
It is not that they oppose war in all circumstances. It is that the American public is much more skeptical and harder to convince to support war than they were 10 or 20 years ago.
I think it’s just that the evidence to support a war is less compelling. If China sank a U.S. warship in an unprovoked attack, some people would deny it really happened, or they’d blame America first. I wouldn’t bet on the majority of Americans opposing all wars on principle in that situation. I wouldn’t bet on them opposing all wars for war-fatigue over the past 20 years either. When the situation materializes, the majority of Americans will judge it based on the circumstances. And God help us if they rely on the news media. The news media has been failing the American people miserably in that regard since 2003–at least.
It is both. There is no case to go to war over Ukraine. In fairness to Russia, how would the US take it if Russia and China told us that we couldn’t intervene in Mexico? Not well and rightfully so. We have no business being involved and the public sees that.
Fairness isn’t a warranted consideration here.
The legitimate purpose of government is to protect our rights. The legitimate purpose of foreign policy and the military is to protect our rights from foreign threats. Sometimes that involves dropping atom bombs to wipe out whole Japanese cities–even if it isn’t fair to many of the people who live there. When we’re in a war of self-defense, we try to avoid civilian casualties. We abide by the tenets of the Constitution and our laws. We are not without ethics and principles. But there isn’t anything about protecting our rights from the likes of Putin that says we need to treat Putin or Russia fairly.
There are costs and benefits associated with different plans of action, and foreign policy and military actions need to be evaluated in those terms. Imagine thinking about this from an investment perspective. If you invest in one car company, is it unfair not to invest in all the others? Are there benefits associated with owning some car stocks that the others don’t offer? Aren’t there more risks associated with investing in some car companies that are greater than others? What does fairness have to do with it? The benefits of defeating Saddam Hussein were unlikely to surpass the costs, and that was an excellent reason to oppose the Iraq War–because it didn’t protect our rights and because the costs were too high.
When the costs and benefits are taken into consideration, there’s no reason to treat all situations the same. Because we foolishly invaded Iraq is no justification for foolishly invading Syria. We don’t need to do things that aren’t in our own best interests just to treat everyone the same–and be fair. There is certainly nothing about American security interests that we should compromise in the name of being fair to Russia. The legitimate purpose of American foreign policy and the American military is to protect our rights–it’s not to be fair to Russia.
Fairness matters because we have to understand how other countries think and the effect that our actions have on them. You not understanding what I am saying.
P.S. Putin’s territorial ambitions run beyond the Ukraine and into the territory of our NATO allies. Because going to war with Russia over Ukraine is not in our best interests, does not mean that it isn’t in our best interests to help Ukraine deter a Russian invasion or that it isn’t in our best interests for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to fail miserably. The best way to frustrate Putin’s territorial ambitions against our allies is for Russia to either never invade Ukraine in the first place or for Putin’s path to reconquest fail in its first step.
We can allow our defense contractors to supply the Ukrainians with the anti-tank hardware, anti-aircraft hardware, and anti-missile systems with which to defend themselves, and that’s exactly what we and our allies are doing. The Turks are supplying the Ukraine with extremely effective drones. There is good reason to hope that Putin didn’t anticipate NATO coming together to arm the Ukrainians against him–or he would have invaded quickly before that could happen. Putin’s actions are almost entirely driven by political considerations at home, and he may dread the political consequences of a humiliating defeat more than the benefits of a patriotic invasion.
Let’s hope.
Europe needs to get off the US taxpayer funded welfare dole and provide for its own defense.
France and Germany do, but I don’t blame them for being deadbeats. I blame us for continuing to let them get away with it. If the U.S. government wanted to give me billions of dollars every year for free, I wouldn’t resist on principle. I’d say the voters were fools for not holding their elected politicians accountable.
We should announce that we’re pulling our bases, troops, and military hardware out of France and Germany starting in 2024, and we’ll review our decision in light of what they do to fund their NATO obligations between now and then. That would give them more than adequate time to either change their ways or arms themselves for their own defense in our absence.
If we need to leave, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania will be happy to have us relocate there–and they’ve been abiding by their budget obligations to NATO all along. Germany may technically still be our ally, but they aren’t acting like it. They’re acting like they’re Russia’s ally.
We need to get out of NATO on Feb 2, 2022 and bring all personnel home. It was established to prevent the spread of socialism into western Europe. And it failed.
It was established to deter an invasion by Russia–as the Cold War ramped up–and it was especially effective at deterring one, especially under the cover of a nuclear war. Nuclear weapons make conventional wars more likely through proxies. NATO did an excellent job of deterring a Russian invasion, when there was plenty of good reasons for the Russians to do so, and it continues to serve that purpose well.
It deterred Russians from potentially invading a group of socialists that freeloaded off the American taxpayer. The crony capitalists got twenty years of double digit ROI on Afghanistan spending. That should be more than enough.
Russia is not invading the United States. We should end this socialist and corporate welfare.
Passive support may be acceptable, I have no problems with selling arms to the Ukrainians, and felt we should have been doing so since 2008. Stationing troops in Eastern Europe, specifically to warn Russia and broadcasting that seems to more likely to make the situation worse. Sanctions also at this point are likely to make the situation worse (remember Japan justified to themselves the attack on the US because US sanctions so threatened them that they thought aggression was self defense).
I have thought we should have long ago redeployed our troops from Germany to Eastern Europe allies, specifically the Baltic, Poland and Romania, as a bulwark against possible Russian aggression. I think if we did it ten years ago, maybe even five we wouldn’t be were we are at now. I do remember Trump actually proposed doing that, and Germany, many in the US government security apparatus and diplomatic apparatus, and many in the press condemned him for it. Now, I fear those redeployments, especially how Biden and Britain have framed them, actually is leading to more instability, and much greater chance of war. If Bush had ordered in 2008, after Georgia, I believe it would have detected Russia and weakened Putin. In 2014, it is very likely to have had the same outcome. Today, I believe it is much more likely to lead to a war, the same as mass mobilizations in June and July of 1914, lead to war in August. And Austria wasn’t wrong, as history has since proven, the Serbian government was behind the group that planned the assassination of Arch-duke Ferninand.
I truly believe we are closer to 1939, than to 1936 or 1933. We have long since moved past the ability to deter this.
If by some miracle Russia does back down (Biden and Johnson need to find some way for Putin to save face, a dictator like him only keeps power by appearing strong, if he backs down he knows his days are numbered) we need to seriously, and quietly, move most of our forces in western Europe into Eastern Europe and probably Scandinavia on a permanent basis. But it should be done quietly, and we should have an alternative explanation, i.e. Poland has given us better deals on stationing troops, and gives us more room to train than Germany, so as to not make the move overtly aggressive. Russia is known by most historians to suffer from societal paranoia (and if you look at it’s history, it has some reasons to back up that paranoia). We have to do any such troop movement in such a way as to not feed into that paranoia. Biden is doing nothing of the sort, he is fully feeding their paranoia.
Europe =/ United States. Let Europe handle their business.
They don’t have a good track history of that and when they fail it often becomes our problem, starting with the 7 years war, hell, even before the 7 years war.
The US has a bad track record of playing international Karen. And the American taxpayer gets saddled with the bill.
You are free to go there on your own dime.
I think this idea is quaint.
After watching what the American people didn’t do anything about for the last several years, it is hard to imagine “The American People” stopping anything.
That is the thing about popular revolt, everything seems fine right up until the moment it isn’t. There is not a single government in history that ever saw a popular revolt coming. If they did, there wouldn’t be revolts. At some point, a population decides it has had enough. When that happens or what triggers it is always a surprise to pretty much everyone.
Well, we did end up electing Donald Trump. So I suppose you have a point.
You could have won 2 months pay off of me on that one.
I can honestly say I saw that one coming but even a blind pig gets lucky sometimes.
I guarantee you the Canadians never saw the trucking revolt coming. Right now they think they can ignore it and it will go away. They are likely wrong about that.
Rumor is American truckers are going to do the same thing to Washington. I so hope they do if for no other reason than to watch the spectacle of the elite leftists in the city have a fainting temper tantrum at the sight of an actual worker movement, the very thing they all claim to love and support. If it comes to Washington, reason will no longer be able to ignore it and we will be treated to “The Libertarian case for gassing and shooting the truckers who have driven to Washington to protest for personal freedom”. It will be good times.
It would be quite a sight to see the 495 beltway shut down.
Come on, 495 is shut down even when it’s open.
True that. But I mean ‘SHUT DOWN & NOTHING MOVES FOR DAYS’
GHWBs ratings were tanking so he launched the first Gulf War.
Bill Clinton’s ratings were in the shitter, so he launched bombing campaigns against Serbia twice.
GWB had some support (just above 50%) for invading Iraq only because he linked it to the War on Terror.
The war boners always win the day-this time will be no different
That is not true. GHWB’s ratings were fine in the summer of 1991. They didn’t tank until the “recession” of 1992. There are lots of good reasons to criticize the decision to throw Saddam out of Kuwait. That GHWB did it to help his poll numbers, however, is not one of them.
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, causing gas prices to spike, which in turn caused Bush’s ratings to dip (there was already some pre-recession rumbling in the economy at that time too). The dems picked up seats in the 1990 midterms and Desert Storm started in January 1991.
He went to war because Saddam controlling Kuwait was going to drive up gas prices and damage the US economy. Yes, failing to do so was also going to cost him politically, but that doesn’t mean he invaded to improve his political ratings. He invaded because he felt it was necessary to protect the US economy, and protecting the US economy is part of his job. That his doing that improved his political standing is besides the point.
One of our recent presidents did step back from starting a war with Iraq a few years ago. I’m surprised Reason didn’t give him much credit for that.
Iran, I mean… no edit button?
Hopefully.
At least we had a mission in Afghanistan, even if we stayed much longer than that.
The mission in Afghanistan was to boost stock prices and dividends of defense contractor companies. Mission accomplished!
According to Scientific American anyone who is against war with Russia over Ukrain has obviously been fooled by Putin’s false information campaigns or per MSM is just a Trump supporter traitor working for Putin.
the TDS is so bad on the left they are willing to start WWIII to save Biden’s faltering Presidency, seems they made a movie about that called “wag the dog” or something like that
Um, where does Union of Soviet Scientific Amerikan say this?
article in SciAm
Russian Cyberattacks against the U.S. Could Focus on Disinformation
in it it essentially alleges anyone not for the war is a puppet of disinformation
Don’t forget the John Candy masterpiece Canadian Bacon.
It appears that Biden’s handlers and virtually all news media (including WSJ and Fox News) have been intentionally hyping daily claims that Russia is going to invade Ukraine.
Even the Ukrainian president and mayor of Kiev (both of whom are Putin enemies who have pledged to fight if Russian invades) have repeatedly requested the Biden administration and news media stop overhyping the threat of a Russian invasion.
It also seems like Biden and his handlers may be daring Putin to invade Ukraine, which makes no more sense than Biden’s policy to invite and assist illegal immigrants to relocate to the US, his energy policies that screwed the US and benefitted Putin and Iran, and his policies that greatly increased inflation by increasing US debt.
Let’s go, Brandon.
Germany’s naval chief learned from reality. Ukraine had its chance to secure armed neutrality and blew it. Yes Biden is a disgusting spectacle, but female voters were offered him or Orange Hitler with more Methodist White Terror judges packing the court to force them into involuntary labor as slaves to “race suicide” superstitions. The Libertarian party could once again defend the individual rights of women instead of helping the Mystical Inquisition coerce their insides. The 1972 LP demanded and got repeal of laws to bully women at gunpoint. Like Ukraine, it is derelict and invites bullying.
fucking love it when (D) appears and wars-up the place … every fucking time.
Yes, and it’s almost always the progressive D’s. And the few Republicans tend to be the more progressive Republicans. I was thinking both Bushes, but the war in Afghanistan at least was in response to an attack, Iraq not so. The first Bush, Panama and Iraq. Reagan did do Granada, but that was in, rescue the hostages and get the fuck out.
>>Biden’s policies actually do have popular support.
Strazele’s larf-o-the-day is even funnier if you say “actually” like a 7th grade valley girl
And that is the rub with omnibus bills. Some parts of an omnibus bill will always poll well, but it’s everything else in it that makes them bad. And even then, once you start explaining the actual costs to people even those “popular” programs generally become very unpopular, quickly. It’s easy to support something in absentia, much harder when it may impact you. That is why polling is usually worthless on any big ticket item, because the abstract is always popular, but the reality tends to be very unpopular.
Trump didn’t fail to overturn Obamacare because it was popular, he and the GOP failed because they didn’t offer a solid alternative.