Tag iran

Looking Back at Young Americans’ Support for the War in Iraq

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Today, the New York Times and other news outlets reported that the U.S. military announced that its withdrawal of troops from Iraq is complete, closing the latest chapter in more than two decades of American military involvement in the country. U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003 and withdrew in 2011, before returning in 2014 as part of the campaign against ISIS. The current withdrawal follows an agreement between the United States and Iraq to wind down that mission.

For us at GenZMilitary, today’s news also provides an opportunity to look backward. We have been studying young Americans’ attitudes toward this and other wars and conflicts since the years immediately following 9/11. In a 2006 article in Armed Forces & Society, David Rohall, Morten Ender, and Michael Matthews compared West Point cadets, ROTC cadets, and civilian college students. We found that the military-affiliated students were more supportive of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan than civilian students, although much of that difference could be explained by gender and political identification.

We continued following these attitudes as the wars continued. That work eventually included a chapter examining trends and variations in American undergraduates’ attitudes toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in The Routledge Handbook of War and Society: Iraq and Afghanistan (Ender, Rohall, and Matthews 2010).

With the latest U.S. military mission in Iraq now ending, we returned to those surveys to ask a simple question: What happened to young Americans’ support for military action in Iraq over time?

What Our Surveys Found

The figure below shows the percentage of civilian students and military-affiliated students (ROTC and service academy cadets) who favored military action, including the use of ground troops, in Iraq between 2002 and 2016.

Two patterns stand out.

First, support for military action was consistently higher among students affiliated with the military. During the early years of the Iraq War, roughly seven in ten or more military-affiliated students favored military action. Civilian support was substantially lower.

Second, support among military-affiliated students was remarkably persistent. It declined from more than 75 percent during the early years to around 50–60 percent during much of the later period, but a majority generally continued to favor military action. Civilian opinion was not only lower but considerably more variable, frequently falling below 30 percent.

There is one particularly interesting exception. In 2014, civilian support jumped to 50.7 percent, nearly matching the 55.4 percent support among military-affiliated students. That year coincided with the rapid rise of ISIS in Iraq and the return of U.S. military operations to the country. The survey cannot establish that those events caused the increase, but the timing makes the convergence particularly noteworthy.

Looking Back

More than two decades after the 2003 invasion, today’s withdrawal provides a natural point to revisit the attitudes that accompanied America’s long involvement in Iraq. Our surveys show that support for military action was never static. It changed as events changed and as successive cohorts of young adults entered college.

These descriptive data cannot tell us by themselves why that difference existed. Our earlier research suggests that some of the apparent military-civilian divide reflects differences in the characteristics of the people who select into military and civilian institutions—including gender and political identification—rather than simply an effect of military culture itself.

As the last American troops leave Iraq, these surveys provide a record of something that can easily be lost when we look back at a war decades later: what young Americans—both those preparing to serve and those remaining civilians—thought about the use of military force while the events themselves were still unfolding.

References

Rohall, David E., Morten G. Ender, and Michael D. Matthews. 2006. “The Effects of Military Affiliation, Gender, and Political Ideology on Attitudes toward the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Armed Forces & Society 33(1): 59–77.

Ender, Morten G., David E. Rohall, and Michael D. Matthews. 2010. “American Undergraduate Attitudes Toward the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: Trends and Variations.” Pp. 294–305 in The Routledge Handbook of War and Society: Iraq and Afghanistan, edited by Steven Carlton-Ford and Morten G. Ender. New York: Routledge.

Venezuela, Iran, and Why Support for Military Force Breaks Down

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As the United States continues its military involvement with Iran, public opinion shows that many Americans disapprove of the conflict, although clear majorities are not present. For instance, an AP/NORC poll finds that 39% of Americans somewhat or strongly oppose airstrikes in Iran, while 33% approve. Similarly, in Venezuela, a YouGov analysis shows a narrow margin of opposition: about 45% of Americans oppose U.S. military efforts to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, compared to 40% who support it.

Across cases, the pattern is consistent: some support exists, but it is cautious, conditional, and often declines as missions expand.

In a previous post, we introduced the idea of a “legitimacy ladder.” This is a way of thinking about how support for military action changes depending on the mission. At the top are traditional war-fighting roles, while at the bottom are more ambiguous or politically complex uses of force. We also see this pattern using survey data from civilian students, ROTC cadets, and military academy cadets collected between 2017 and 2025 (n = 4,412). It includes the percentage of respondents who believe each role of the military is appropriate (combining “very” and “somewhat” responses) displayed by affiliation:

  • Fight American Wars
    Civilian (90.9%) | ROTC (98.4%) | Academy (97.9%)
  • Foreign Policy Instrument
    Civilian (80.8) | ROTC (92.2%) | Academy (90.3%)
  • Combat Drug Trafficking
    Civilian (74.8%) | ROTC (77.5%) | Academy (74.5%)
  • Intervene in Civil Wars
    Civilian (57.1%) | ROTC (61.5%) | Academy (58.7%)

(All but the final category are statistically significant.)

A Simple Pattern

What stands out is not division, but a clear gradient.

Support is strongest when the military is used for its most traditional role: fighting and winning wars. Among ROTC and academy students, support is nearly unanimous.

Support remains high when the military is described as a tool of foreign policy. But here, we begin to see the first signs of caution, especially among civilians. The sharper shift comes in the final two categories.

When the military is used to combat drug trafficking, support drops into the mid-70 percent range. That is still a majority, but it is no longer overwhelming. These missions begin to blur the line between military force and law enforcement.

Support drops further when it comes to intervening in civil wars. Only about 57–62 percent of respondents see this as appropriate, and differences between civilians and military-affiliated students largely disappear, the only category where those differences are not statistically significant.

In other words, skepticism increases as missions become less clearly tied to national defense.

Connecting the Data to Current Events

This pattern helps make sense of recent public opinion. In Venezuela, Americans were wary from the beginning. Support was limited, and concern about deeper involvement was widespread.

In Iran, that skepticism has become even more pronounced. While Americans may support broader strategic goals, they are far less certain about the use of military force to achieve them.

Taken Together

Americans, especially younger Americans, do not reject military force. But they do place limits on it. Even in the least-supported category, a majority of respondents still express some level of approval, more than the level of support seen in current public polling on Venezuela and Iran. This suggests an important distinction between general attitudes and specific conflicts.

It may be that, in theory, people are open to these types of missions, but in practice, support depends on whether political leaders clearly define the goals, limits, and connection to national defense. More research is needed that examines support for the political leadership at the time of a particular intervention. That may be the key to building broader support, particularly among younger Americans.