This article was originally published in early November 2025, in issue #2 of International Marxism, international political journal of International Socialist Alternative. Click here to subscribe or to buy a copy of the full issue.
On the surface, the right and left don’t agree on very much in the U.S., where political polarization is at an all-time high. One significant exception, which was highlighted by the run up to Trump’s recent bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, is that people across the political spectrum are against sending American troops into wars on foreign soil. The experience of the adventuristic “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan—their astronomical cost both in lives and the literally trillions of dollars spent on them, and their end in failure—has created a lasting legacy of opposition to U.S. “boots on the ground.” This legacy will have to be reckoned with if U.S. imperialism, with Donald Trump at its head, is to emerge victorious from the increasingly direct rivalry it is currently engaged in with its archrival, Chinese imperialism.
The signs that we have entered a new age of nationalism and war are everywhere. Trump recently renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War. His “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed earlier this year, pushes annual defense spending to over $1 trillion. His first month in office was, among many other things, notable for aggressively expressing interest in acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal. Currently, the U.S. military is deploying warships and at least one nuclear-powered submarine to the southern Caribbean, where it attacked a boat carrying what the Trump administration claims were drug smugglers, summarily killing the 11 people aboard.
Trump has greatly intensified U.S. militarism and aggression, but this is not only a U.S. focus. Western capitalism in general is united on the need to counter China and its allies’ military might. Focusing U.S. attention on the western Pacific in terms of trade policy and military strategy has been a bipartisan policy in the U.S., with the Democratic establishment fully on board. The Biden administration increased tariffs on China, cut it off from advanced technologies with the CHIPS act, and had increasingly tense relations with the Beijing regime. Strengthening and modernizing U.S. military power is also a bipartisan project, and overcoming broad reluctance in the U.S. population to deploy soldiers to foreign conflicts is a key goal now, as it was after 9/11 when the U.S. initiated its “war on terror.”
The War on Terror
The “war on terror” was a campaign by U.S. imperialism, led by its neoconservative wing, to deepen its domination of the oil-rich Middle East and of the world. At its outset in 2001, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan—presented as aimed at al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden—had mass support among the U.S. population, which was profoundly shocked and horrified by the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. In 2003, the George W. Bush administration dramatically widened the offensive by invading Iraq on the premise that the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction,” and was involved in the 9/11 attack, a premise that the neoconservatives in the Bush administration knew to be false from the get-go. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were billed as easy victories for the mighty U.S. military, but both stretched on for years, were ultimately military failures, and represented major setbacks to U.S. imperialism, in terms of its goals in the Middle East, its prestige as the dominant world superpower, and in terms of U.S. public support for overseas military adventures.
One of the popular anti-war slogans in the U.S. to oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003, “No War for Oil,” correctly opposed the long-standing interest of the U.S. capitalist class in controlling the oil supplies in the Middle East. However, the war was not primarily about oil. The concept of “full spectrum dominance” was a guiding principle of U.S. imperialism during the Bush years, and refers to the idea of a unipolar world with the U.S. at its center, dominating the rest of the world economically and militarily. Western capitalism, led by the U.S., was full of hubris after the collapse of its longtime global rival, the Stalinist regimes of the USSR and eastern Europe, and the subsequent restoration of capitalism in those countries.
But “full spectrum dominance” wasn’t possible without overcoming the “Vietnam syndrome,”—the widespread aversion to sending troops to conflicts on foreign soil on the part of the U.S. public, which developed out of the Vietnam War.
Ultimately, the U.S. was forced to withdraw the troops from Vietnam because military discipline began to disintegrate. The draft was eliminated in 1973, and the armed forces became all-volunteer in response to the breakdown of military command. Part of the U.S. capitalist class’ motivation for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq thirty years later was to finally shake off the “Vietnam syndrome,” to reestablish U.S. military might and the ability to deploy it around the globe.
It can also be argued that, because of the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Vietnam, the U.S. was not able to intervene militarily in situations it would have otherwise in the 70s and 80s. This included southern Africa, where a number of countries gained independence and became allies of the Soviet Union. Cuban troops came to the aid of the Angolan government, sending tens of thousands of troops in 1976, and again in the 1980s and dealing major military defeats to South Africa and its allies. Of course, most important for Western imperialism was the threat of workers’ revolution in South Africa itself. Both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan supported the apartheid regime as a bulwark against “communism.”
Initially, particularly in the case of the invasion of Afghanistan, there was success in mobilizing support for U.S. troops being sent overseas. As the invasion began, less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush’s approval ratings were 90%. There was a widespread mood of national unity and resolve to end the terrorist threat. Over time, however, opposition to the war in Afghanistan began to build, and as the U.S. invasion of Iraq appeared imminent in early 2003, protests that were truly massive occurred in some U.S. cities, including several hundred thousand in New York City, and upwards of 150,000 in San Francisco. The global movement against the U.S. invasion of Iraq was historically massive, with many millions protesting in some 800 cities around the world in February of 2003. In the U.S., however, opposition to the war in Iraq was still a minority position. Yellow ribbons, a symbol of support for U.S. troops, were displayed on homes and businesses across the country.
The U.S. initially met limited resistance in taking control of Baghdad. George W. Bush was later pilloried for his speech from the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier declaring “Mission Accomplished,” and the end of major combat operations in Iraq, shortly after the initial invasion. In fact, the biggest battles were still to come in a war that would stretch on for years. The Bush administration was forced to mobilize an additional 20,000 troops in 2007 to try and gain control over the situation. Bush’s “surge,” as it was known, resulted in 170,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq. It would be eight years of war in all before Obama was able to withdraw most troops.
The Long Withdrawal
It took almost twenty years for the U.S. to finally withdraw from Afghanistan, in a humiliating scramble of a retreat as the Taliban advanced on Kabul while U.S.-trained Afghan military forces posed no resistance and in many cases simply disappeared into the population. The neoconservative dream of “full spectrum dominance” disintegrated on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. A brutal and extremely bloody sectarian civil war between Sunni and Shia militias developed in Iraq out of the vacuum created by the U.S. invasion. In both countries, there was chaos and societal breakdown for years as multiple fighting forces fought bloody battles for control over different regions.
The war on terror was utterly catastrophic for many millions of ordinary people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the wider Middle East. The staggering death toll from the “war on terror” can’t be precisely calculated. Over 400,000 civilians were killed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 4.7 million people died in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen, when both direct deaths from war and indirect deaths from the chaotic breakdown of society that resulted are included, according to a Brown University study. Women and children were disproportionately impacted by disease, malnutrition, ongoing violence and other causes related to war. The return of the horribly reactionary Taliban, a disaster for Afghanistan, especially women, is also a complete condemnation of the occupation.
Pro-war sentiment in the U.S. that existed at the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq gradually wore away as the real impact became clearer. Instead of creating new democratic governments that would improve the lives of millions of Afghans and Iraqis as was promised, the wars were horrifically violent, destructive and devastating to the people of the Middle East and to many of the mostly working-class U.S. soldiers who fought in them. Close to 7,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and another nearly 3,000 had major limb amputations. The terrible impact of psychological injuries stemming from war on soldiers and their families is a well-known phenomenon in U.S. society. Estimates of the prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in soldiers who fought in post-9/11 wars are varied, but may be as high as 36% according to a Pew Center poll. The rate of suicide among post-9/11 veterans has outpaced that of the general population, which is a reversal of previous trends, and over four times as many veterans have died of suicide compared to soldiers killed in combat.
Scandals such as Abu Ghraib and the friendly fire death of NFL star and Army Ranger Pat Tillman damaged the prestige of the U.S. military. In 2004, the torture chambers in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, run by the CIA and members of the U.S. Army, became headline news with graphic photos that included U.S. military personnel smiling in front of prisoners being tortured and humiliated. There were even photos of soldiers posing with the body of an Iraqi man who had been tortured to death inside the prison.
Pat Tillman’s family was originally told that he died fighting enemy combatants, but weeks after his funeral they were told the truth, that he was shot by members of his own platoon who mistook his unit for the enemy. Top army brass likely wanted to use the story of Tillman dying from enemy fire as a recruitment tool, but his family was understandably outraged at the deceit. Tillman himself considered the invasion of Iraq to be illegal and he was reported to have set up a meeting with Noam Chomsky, the anti-war leftist intellectual.
Deep Opposition to Military Adventures
Nearly 25 years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the “Vietnam syndrome” has become the “Afghanistan/Iraq syndrome,” and U.S. imperialism continues to struggle with a broad and deep opposition to sending troops overseas among Americans. The U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites and the subsequent ceasefire in Israel’s 12 day war with Iran were ultimately a win for Trump. However, the episode revealed major opposition to war with Iran and especially to any notion of “boots on the ground,” coming from both the right and left.
Right-wing figures like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon opposed U.S. involvement in Iran when Trump began raising the prospect. Tucker Carlson’s interview of Iran-hawk Senator Ted Cruz turned into a shouting match on whether the U.S. should intervene in Iran. After the ceasefire was reached, Republicans mostly fell in line, but the rare show of opposition to Trump from the right was striking, and revealed cracks in the Trump coalition.
For a section of Trump voters, many of whom are working-class, Trump’s critique of the “forever wars” was an important part of his appeal. However, MAGA luminaries like Greene, Carlson and Bannon aren’t against war, only some wars. Bannon, for example, is an extreme China hawk who recently argued for a total decoupling with China and suggested that Chinese students in U.S. universities should all be deported. As the conflict between Chinese and U.S. imperialisms intensifies, the entire political establishment will try to drum up anti-China sentiment, but the “isolationism” at the base of right populism could become a real obstacle.
The bombing of Iran occurred on the heels of Trump’s June 14 military parade, which had an anemic turnout, and was dramatically overshadowed by the millions who turned out in the streets to protest Trump at the “No Kings” demonstrations the same day. Democratic Party candidate for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani made a statement condemning the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, which occurred just two days before the primary election night when Mamdani’s victory became national news. A CNN poll taken shortly after the bombing showed 56% of Americans opposed the bombing, including 88% of Democrats. When Bernie Sanders, during his mass meeting in Oklahoma, announced that the bombing had begun in Iran, a chant of “No More War” broke out as the crowd came to its feet and Sanders had to wait for it to subside before he could continue speaking.
Opposition to foreign wars in the U.S. is a huge problem for Western capitalism and a huge opportunity for the working-class movement. Without a doubt, the raw material exists for a powerful antiwar movement in the U.S., which would have to be fully independent of both capitalist parties. Ultimately, the militarism and drive toward war on the parts of the U.S. and Chinese imperialist regimes, and many other regimes around the world, will only be stopped by a mass movement of working-class people, including soldiers themselves.
Photo: Headwes, Wikimedia
