Casualties, Public Opinion and U.S. Military Intervention. Implications for U.S. Regional Deterrence Strategies

摘要

A view commonly held by America's military and political leaders as well as by America's potential adversaries is that the U.S. public is particularly sensitive to casualties and that, if met with a great number of casualties in a regional military intervention, the U.S. public will demand a withdrawal of America's commitment. Sensitivity to casualties, then, is believed to be America's Achilles' heel. America's absolute military power makes it extraordinarily unlikely that any regional adversary could defeat U.S. forces if the United States were to mobilize fully. However, potential adversaries hope that, if met with a high cost in U.S. lives, America will withdraw from a military intervention, believing that an all-out effort would entail a prohibitive number of casualties. This belief is supposedly supported by the U.S. experience during the Vietnam and Korean conflicts. In these conflicts it is believed that, largely because of mounting casualties, U.S. public opinion became increasingly disenchanted with American military involvement, provoking popular support for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from these wars. A detailed analysis of polls taken during both wars shows that as the conflicts continued and as casualties and other costs of intervention mounted, public opinion did indeed become disillusioned with America's involvement, with more and more Americans regretting the original decision to intervene.