Public Support For War

Why public support for war generally or always decline over time?

Why public support for war generally or always decline over time?

Introduction

Public outlook plays an important function in shaping principle on war and peace issues. The United States has engaged in a number of wars and military interventions since the starting of public attitude polling in the 1930s. The results of these polls allow analysts to draw certain conclusions about the attachment between public attitude and military ventures.

For the most part, Americans' principal focal issue is on domestic matters; they are inclined to pay little concentration to foreign principle issues, encompassing those of war and peace, unless there appears to be a direct risk to the United States. Their attention can be caught by major threats or by explicit, specific, and dramatic dangers to American lives overseas, but one time these concerns fade, persons come back their attention to domestic issues with considerable alacrity—rather like “the snapping back of a strained elastic,” as one analyst has put it (Almond, 76).

For example, in the 1930s domestic problems dominated Americans' attention even as a major war loomed in Europe. Only when war actually began after Hitler's forces invaded Poland in September 1939, and as war against Japan approached in the Pacific from late 1939 through November 1941, did foreign affairs arrive to the forefront of Americans' professed concerns. Once World War II completed, attention to international concerns fallen to almost nothing. Intermittent interest arose at various points throughout the crises and wars of the Cold War, but only a very couple of issues and incidents—most notably the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—have superseded domestic concerns since 1973.

 

Public Evaluation of Military Engagements

In general, the American public seems to apply a fairly reasonable, commonsense standard of advantage and cost when evaluating issues of war and peace. An assessment of probable and potential American casualties is particularly important in this evaluation. Accordingly, in contemplating the application of military force, a president typically considers the stage to which the public values the project, the stage to which it is eager to tolerate U.S. battle deaths to accomplish the goal, and the potential for the political opposition to exploit the situation should American deaths surpass those considered tolerable by the public.

After Pearl Harbor, the public had no adversity accepting the necessity, and the cost, of tackling the threats presented by Germany and Japan. After the war, it came to accept international communism as a similar threat and was eager to go in the wars in Korea and Vietnam as part of a seen necessity to battle communist challenges in those countries. However, as the Cold War's two warm wars progressed, they were continually reevaluated, and misgivings climbed on about the wisdom of those wars. This down turn of support appears to have been related primarily to climbing on American casualties, not to television coverage or antiwar protests; the down turn of enthusiasm pursued the same pattern in both wars, although neither public protest ...