Among the many tragedies of the war between Ukraine and Russia is its timing. In the wake of America’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, public and political skepticism over America’s entanglements in foreign wars is once again at a peak. Russian President Vladimir Putin chose his moment carefully.
The last time the country’s appetite for foreign wars hit bottom like this was between 1975 and 1990. It was a period characterized by the Vietnam Syndrome.
The Vietnam War began with a handful of military advisers in 1950 and reached a peak of more than half a million troops before the U.S. presence wound down in 1973. Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon presided over the ever-escalating war in which 2.7 million U.S. military members served in Vietnam. The United States lost 58,220 troops in that war.
For years after America’s failure in Vietnam, the public, politicians, and Defense Department brass were leery of the use of force. That changed with America’s resounding military success in repelling Iraq from Kuwait in 1991. What followed was a gradual increase in U.S. military action abroad with President Bill Clinton’s Balkan interventions. After 9/11, public and political support for military action reached new heights.
Initially, President George W. Bush’s War on Terror was wildly popular. The terrorist attacks caused a rallying around the flag and dramatically boosted Bush’s standing in the polls. But initial success in ousting the Taliban from Kabul, Afghanistan, was followed by a withering 20-year occupation. Mission creep went from rebuilding infrastructure and institutions to trying to transform Afghanistan’s society and culture in ways incompatible with its traditions, history, and religious beliefs.
Bush’s ill-conceived invasion of Iraq on the pretext of destroying the country’s illusory weapons of mass destruction was the second body blow to Americans’ appetites for military adventures. Failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was just the beginning of public disillusionment. Instead of being greeted as liberators and decorated with garlands, our soldiers encountered improvised explosive devices and a growing Iraqi insurgency.
It was always hubris to expect that America could remake Iraq and Afghanistan as models of Western democracy. By the time Bush left office in 2009, skepticism about American military involvement anywhere was once again growing. It only deepened after Obama’s 2009 decision to escalate in Afghanistan. The 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden provided a short-lived sense of victory in the War on Terror, but the emergence of a new terrorist threat from the Islamic State group three years later met with scant enthusiasm for military action.
By 2014, growing numbers of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans were serving in Congress. With their first-hand perspective, many expressed caution about engaging against the Islamic State group. Their skepticism ranged from concerns over the effectiveness of proposed tactics to any U.S. involvement whatsoever.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) was among those dubious about the effectiveness of air strikes against the Islamic State group. Sen. John Walsh (D-MT) bluntly declared that “our mission in Iraq is over.” Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) openly disapproved of deploying troops against the Islamic State group. Bush’s legacy came in the form of a decadelong decline of support for U.S. military action abroad. President Joe Biden’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 cemented the public’s distaste for foreign military adventures. Kabul swiftly fell to the same Taliban who had given refuge to bin Laden while he plotted the 9/11 attacks. They captured $8 billion worth of weapons and military equipment that the U.S. left behind.
The pipe dreams of nation-building in societies with no tradition of democracy went up in smoke. Neoconservatives were out, neoisolationists were in. Americans turned against “forever wars” en masse. Instead of the Vietnam Syndrome, this time it’s the Bush Wars Syndrome.
At the start of this Congress, there were 100 veterans in the House and Senate, the highest number in eight years. Three of them are now major players in government. JD Vance is Donald Trump’s Vice President, Gabbard is the director of national intelligence, and Mike Waltz, who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and was awarded four Bronze Stars, is Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Bush’s legacy is especially bitter for Ukraine, however. The country is an actual democracy, not a theoretical one that might arise out of some nation-building enterprise. U.S. assistance is a welcome lifeline. The War on Terror was costly, some $8 trillion in total, exceeding by orders of magnitude the $200 billion the U.S. has spent helping Ukraine defend itself from Russia. Still, taxpayers and politicians begrudge Ukraine even this modest military and financial help.
But Bush’s legacy is damaging more than just the Ukrainians. America needs to rearm to deter the axis of China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran. We need to build up our Navy, enhance our air defenses, and modernize our military. Public and political will for increased defense spending is lacking just when we need it most.
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Trump’s negotiations with Putin are a sober recognition of this reality. He is trying to wind down the conflict so the U.S. can pivot its resources to the China threat, possibly driving a wedge between Moscow and Beijing in the process.
The Bush Wars Syndrome has made Trump’s challenge infinitely more difficult.
John B. Roberts II served in the Reagan White House and was an international political consultant and former executive producer of the McLaughlin Group. He worked extensively in Ukraine and the former USSR during the 1990s. His website is www.jbrobertsauthor.com.