The Myth Of A War Weary Nation

      The concept of war weariness in a nation is predicated upon the people of that nation having had to endure hardship as a result of the war effort of their country. Many pundits on the Left and the Right use war weariness today as a reason to avoid military conflict throughout the world. The theory goes that because of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over the last ten years, the American people are incapable of mustering the strength to support even a necessary military action anywhere in the world.
     I agree that to a certain extent the American people  have become somewhat psychologically stretched by a Leftist media and politicians as it applies to support for war. But let us face facts, our two most recent wars were not the long distance race run by the peoples of Athens and Sparta in the Peloponnesian wars of the fifth century B.C. They were not even the time of sacrifice endured by those who lived through World War II. Except for the brave American soldiers that fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families, no one else in American society saw any real change in their lives as a result of those conflicts.
     During the second world war, the average citizen had to sacrifice rubber, steel, nylons, gasoline, and more to contribute to the Allies victory. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the average citizen was able to ignore the conflict on the other side of the world in which their country was engaged with freakishly larger screen televisions, free appetizers at their local Applebee's, long road trips in their SUVs, and mind-numbing reality television shows. All of which our World War II ancestors did not have, making them weary, and us just overweight which necessitated another one of our distractions, i.e. gym memberships and billions of our dollars spent on a burgeoning diet industry.
     And so we have arrived at the current conflict in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin. I am by now means saying we should have a boots-on-the-ground conflict with the Russians. But I find it interesting that our president, His Holiness, Barack Obama, early in the conflict made it clear to the Russian president that our commitment to another nation's sovereignty was stretched to its limit by sanctions alone. Even some on the Right used the myth of a war weary nation as a reason not to give a full-throated response to the Russian incursion across the border of one of its neighbors. Removing a military response as an option from the beginning of the conflict is analogous to playing poker with all your cards face up.