No more war protests?

From the mid 60s to mid 70s, millions of people participated in protest against America’s Vietnam War. In organized and well attended gatherings. chanting crowds of protestors with signs and raised fists gathered and marched on campuses and in cities across the US. Many events attracted tens of thousands— some over one hundred thousand—at single demonstrations. Crowds of angry Americans, many near college age, demanded that the war be stopped. The great majority of demonstrators showed a different profile than the hippie stereotype some remember from that decade. Respected civil rights leaders, academics, clergy, and community leaders were enthusiastic and outspoken critics. Activists claimed the war to be senseless and unwinnable, and thousands of fighters came home in coffins as politicians extended the war. 

There is debate over whether the protests had much effect on political decisions, as Johnson and Nixon pushed back against the demands of the demonstrators, each carrying the fear of being the first President to lose a war. Many organizers of the protests, along with civil rights leaders and Black Panther leaders, were tracked closely by the FBI. Despite the government’s determination to continue to send troops into Vietnam, some believe the demonstrations and marches influenced public opinion, shortened the war, and saved thousands of lives. 

The question is: why have Americans stopped protesting U.S. involvement in conflict?  

A few theories:

-       The attack on America on 9/11, about 25 years after the Vietnam War, created an atmosphere of fury against Al-Qaeda, and public hatred of Middle Eastern countries. Shortly after the attacks on that date, George Bush’s approval ratings soared from 50% to over 90%. A large majority of the country approved war as revenge and it would have been surprising if any group attempted to protest against war in the Middle East.

Has that patriotism and support of American military action stuck in place over the last two decades? Grown stronger?

-       With the use of drones and unmanned aircraft, war has become a battle of technology. Has the death of fewer Americans made war more acceptable? The attention given by the media to three deaths of soldiers in the middle east in the last week (February 2024) contrasts sharply with governments in the 1970s quietly accepting over fifty-eight thousand armed forces deaths in the Vietnam War. In peak fighting years in the late 1960s, over five hundred dead a week were flown home.

-       There has been no conscription in the US since the Vietnam War, but military recruiting in all branches is now strained to fill current staffing levels and there has been a decline in troops of over sixty thousand in the last three years. Would a resumption of the draft change the way Americans feel about war?

-       Has Dwight Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex grown to the point that US military spending has woven the military tightly into our lives? A recently published book—The Trillion Dollar Silencer, by Joan Roelofs, makes a convincing argument that the military’s connection to civilian life is the principal deterrent to any serious anti-war sentiment. The US population is so closely tied to military spending—weapons manufacturing, bases and installations, contractors, state governments, and our educational systems, that we are economically and socially part of this system.

Do these factors combine to encourage American acceptance of war? Are some more significant than others?  

With two active wars involving American allies, is it possible that American soldiers could be called into battle on the ground?

Would people protest?