Leadership and Support for Interventions
Rachel Moltz
Mon, 10/17/2022 – 05:39
Americans generally unite in support of military interventions only when they perceive grave threats to their security. After Pearl Harbor, the American people embarked on war with an unprecedented degree of unity, one that was to last to the end of the war. The 9/11 attacks produced a groundswell of support for military intervention, which carried through the war in Afghanistan and the beginning of the war in Iraq, but eventually faded because of the scarcity of terrorist attacks after 9/11 and the difficulties encountered by American forces in suppressing Afghan and Iraqi insurgents.
The unpredictability of 9/11 serves as a reminder that a unifying crisis is always possible. In the near term, nevertheless, it appears unlikely that a prospective military intervention will be the result of a crisis as easy to connect to American security as Pearl Harbor or 9/11. More likely is the possibility that the prospective intervention will be tied to interests that are less obvious, as was true in such conflicts as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War. Although the unhappy outcomes of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya will discourage the United …read more
Source:: Hoover Institution
