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WAR WEARINESS: WITHIN THE 21ST CENTURY & IN THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR By Kenny Nguyen Department of Political Science Primary Thesis Advisor Michael Kanner, Department of Political Science Committee Members E. Scott Adler, Department of Political Science Michael Kanner, Department of Political Science Jeff Motter, Department of Communication University of Colorado Boulder Defended March 29th, 2016 Abstract By the end of the 2010s, the United States of America had been in several military campaigns in the Global War on Terror. In the past, U.S. interventions often were swift and decisive campaigns and rarely lasted more than five years. This research paper’s main purpose is to publicize attitudes in relation to military and foreign policies within the 21st century. This was accomplished by analyzing two primary variables. This research paper looks into the correlation between military casualties in the War on Terror starting from 2004 to the present. The independent variables of this paper will be military fatalities with both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while the dependent variable will be the support of U.S and its allies in the War on Terror with regard to if they are winning or not. Alongside this, a Fixed Effects model using years as a metric will be used to also analyze the results of this research. President Approval polling is also used as controlling measurement of framing within the U.S. political decision making elites. The results of this research paper indicate that there are significant correlations between approvals by the American public at varying points in time. 2 Acknowledgments I would like to first thank my advisor, Michael Kanner for his guidance and support throughout my entire thesis process. His comments, feedback, suggestions, and opinions helped shaped this paper throughout the academic year. This paper represents months of hard work and much patience and feedback from him. I am also grateful for Scott Adler for allowing and permitting me to be part of this process and offering invaluable advice and words during the process. Thank you, Megan Roosevelt for giving insightful information and comments assisting with me on my data and methods. Finally thank you to the I Have a Dream Foundation for allowing me to continue my higher education and to my friends, family, those who also supported me throughout this year. It is my dream and hopes to make you all proud. 3 Introduction General Fred Weyard Chief of Staff of the U.S Army explained the situation of the end of the Vietnam War by stating: “Vietnam was a reaffirmation of the peculiar relationship between the American Army and the American people. The American Army really is a people’s army in the sense that it belongs to the American people who take a jealous and proprietary interest in its involvement. The Army, therefore, cannot be committed lightly” (The New World Strategy pg. 20) The end of conscription disconnected the relationship between civilians and soldiers. This disconnect has continued into the 21st century as the U.S. continued to have an all-volunteer military force. Nowadays, the only way that the American public maintains a relationship with the military is through politicians and the decision-making elites. The most important aspect of the U.S military is that it relies heavily on the American public’s support; under the United States system the military does not have the option of acting independent from democratically elected officials. The leader of this government, the President of the United States of America, must be able to sustain popular support in order to continue to engage in long conflicts. As noted during the Vietnam War, once a majority of public opinion began to disapprove of a war, U.S presidents implemented policy changes to address disapproval such as the gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam in 1973. Recently we have seen symptoms of war weariness or war fatigue (defined as public disapproval of a prolonged conflict) in reaction to the U.S.-led coalition in the Global War on Terror. Under President George W. Bush‘s Administration, the national security focus of the nation was changed with the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001 by Al- 4 Qaeda. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S shifted its policies from conventional warfare and the use of deterrence against other states to counterterrorism. In a speech given at West Point in 2002, then President George W. Bush declared that: “For much of the last century America's defense relied on the cold war doctrines of deterrence and containment. But new threats also require new thinking. Deterrence, the promise of massive retaliation against nations, means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.” The conflict has gone on for more than 10 years, and spans locations from Afghanistan to Iraq. What makes the topic of the Global War on Terror so significant is the fact that it is one of America’s longest wars in recent memory. The war has been waged across multiple continents and continues to play a major role within U.S. foreign and military policies. This research paper will attempt to analyze polls and public opinion of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the prolonged conflict, and changes with regard to public support. It is the goal of this research paper to discuss whether Americans value the cost of human fatalities within war. The goal of this research paper is to analyze the consequences on foreign and security policy by understanding the effects of war fatalities on public opinion. Yet while understanding war weariness with insights on fatalities and public opinion, it must be noted that within democracies, there is a connection with the framing of war weariness by the political elite decision makers. Framing can be done through political leaders such as the President of the United States and has often guided or established popular support on particular military and foreign policies. Framing is a key concept to understanding the relationship of war weariness. Often when political actors fail to frame a conflict, the popular support will decrease 5 as the framed policy has either failed expectations or has been ineffective in maintaining policies. This research paper will also discuss and analyze the relationship between President and popular support for wars. Presidents can be described as the main framer for foreign and military policies within wars. The United States has seen this rise with President George Bush framing policy in order to convince the American public that invading Iraq was a necessity for security policy essentially without providing substantive evidence or an international mandate. Regardless, the using action was the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with (not particularly overwhelming) public support. Due to this prolonged conflict, the beginnings of war weariness or war fatigue have begun to appear throughout the United States public, and public support has slowly declined over the years with the Global War on Terror. War weariness as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “a state of disillusion or depression felt toward the end of or immediately after a protracted war”. The public has experienced several cases of war weariness such as in the Vietnam War. Recently war weariness has appeared in the American public due to the prolonged conflict of the War on Terror. This is true as combat operations in Iraq have continued after the 2011 U.S. withdrawal and with the expansion of airstrikes into Syria under OPERATION INHERENT RESOLVE. This operation was executed with an estimated 5000 troops within Iraq followed by an increased expansion of U.S. personal being involved within Syria. Yet American support and willingness for “boots on the ground” is limited by both political leaders and the American public. The public was asked by CNN/ORC Poll in December 17th-21st of 2015 with "Do you favor or oppose the United States sending ground troops into combat operations against ISIS forces in Iraq or Syria?" 55% of Americans stated that they opposed ground troops in Syria (Polling Report, 2016). This indicates that a clear majority of Americans support an air campaign 6 in Syria and oppose American ground combat forces in Syria. A reason for this is that many Americans view air operations and ground operations as different levels of intervention within a foreign state. President Barack Obama announced an end of all U.S. combat operations within in Afghanistan back in December 2014. Yet the country is still in civil war as indicated during the Battle of Kunduz in late 2015 with the Taliban capturing a provisional capital from local U.S.- trained Afghan forces. This prompted U.S. airstrikes to intervene and support Afghan Security Forces in fighting back the Taliban. In October 15th of 2015, President Obama announced plans to maintain troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016 for the purpose of continued support for Afghan Security Forces through the Status of Forces Agreement. Presently the U.S. maintains roughly 5,000 troops assisting in Iraqi Security Forces in the U.S. led intervention in Iraq against the Islamic State in 2014. However, the Obama Administration has stressed that it is unwilling to send combat troops into the region. Yet it has coordinated air strikes with the Kurdish Peshmerga alongside Iraqi Security Forces and even with Shiite militias during the battle of Tikrit in Iraq (Nissenbaum, 2015). These events have led to the continuation of American presence and military forces in the Global War on Terror.
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