Dear Editor,
The American way of war is not just a cliché about foreign policy. Since the tragic events of 9/11 its way of thinking and prosecuting wars has morphed into forever wars, undergirded and buttressed by national psychology, institutional incentives, moral philosophy, and the long arc of history. But what often gets missed in public debate is that wars are never only fought on distant battlefields. They also reshape the character of the State, the habits of citizens, the language of politics, and the moral thresholds of a society. Viewed through this broader lens is where an explanation for America’s forever wars lies.
The post-9/11 era will likely be studied alongside earlier turning points such as the Vietnam War and the Cold War—moments when external strategy deeply altered internal America. Historians may ultimately conclude that the greatest damage of the “forever war” period was not only what happened abroad, but what it normalized at home.
The history of great powers and their use of force teach us that when strength becomes habit, restraint can begin to look like weakness. Yet in history, disciplined restraint is often the higher form of strength. The question of America’s “forever wars” goes to the heart of one of the defining dilemmas facing modern America: whether the United States, after the September 11 attacks, entered not just a military campaign against terrorism, but into a permanent psychological, political, and institutional state of war.
Ben Rhodes latest Opinion piece in the New York Times (22nd April 2026) captures a serious critique: that “forever war” does not remain overseas—it migrates home, reshaping domestic culture, institutions, politics, and moral sensibilities. This is not merely rhetoric. There is substantial historical evidence that prolonged war often changes countries internally.
Before 9/11, the U.S. certainly engaged in wars and interventions, but the attacks created something new: a doctrine of open-ended preemption. The logic embraced a number of finely tuned nuances about threats. Threats must be stopped before they mature; geography no longer protects America; non-state actors can produce strategic shock; uncertainty itself constitutes danger therefore permanent vigilance is required.
This new doctrine not only transformed national security policy from reacting to concrete threats into anticipating hypothetical threats, but it also created a mindset among political and military elites that is dangerous, delusional and destructively diabolical. And that explains why the U.S. moved from War in Afghanistan to the Iraq War, then drone wars, covert operations, counterinsurgency campaigns, proxy conflicts, and an expanding global security footprint. The “war on terror” for example, had no clear endpoint because terror is a tactic, not a country. Hence a war against a tactic can be infinite.
Is something wrong with the American psyche and how they perceive the world outside of the US geography? While this may be too blunt a question, there are, however, persistent psychological patterns that are readily discernible. For example:
9/11 was a national trauma. Traumatized societies often overreach and overcorrect. They begin seeing future threats through the lens of the original shock.
Many Americans believe the U.S. is uniquely good and uniquely targeted. This can produce a mindset where any resistance abroad is seen as irrational evil rather than partly reaction to policy.
Modern media rewards alarm. Politicians gain support by appearing tough. Bureaucracies gain budgets by emphasizing danger. Defense contractors gain revenue through militarization. And fear has become institutionalized. This is the current state of the American mindset and its perception of threats, real or imagined.
Because most US citizens do not serve in the military, wars impose limited direct sacrifice on the majority population. In times of war, taxes, for example, are not sharply raised, rationing is absent, conscription is a “thing” of the past. Hence war became politically easier and distant from the population.
The Military-Industrial and Bureaucratic Incentive Structure
Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. His warning looks prophetic. The empirical evidence is clear: Permanent wars sustain defense budgets, expand information gathering and intelligence analysis, increase surveillance systems, enrich defense contractors, proliferate and galvanize think tank ecosystems, lobbying networks, and career advancement structures. Once large institutions depend on threat narratives, de-escalation becomes difficult. In this milieu, War becomes less a temporary response and more a governing model.
Rhodes moral argument deserves serious attention. When a nation routinely accepts drone strikes with civilian casualties, sanctions that cause and exacerbate humanitarian suffering, torture and unchecked brutality rationalized as necessity, collateral damage framed statistically, and anonymous distant deaths, it risks moral numbness. And that numbness can reappear and manifest itself domestically as: militarized policing, casual cruelty in politics, contempt for marginalized groups, and celebration of domination over deliberation. History shows empires often import methods developed at the periphery and brought back to the center.
The simple, straightforward answer is: NO. No conventional power can easily invade or conquer the United States. It has oceans, nuclear deterrence, alliances, and immense industrial capacity and military capability. But perceived threats do exist. They are not objectively real, and they are not external. Threats such as nuclear proliferation, cyber-attacks on infrastructure, pandemics such as Covid, climate shocks, terrorism (limited but real), domestic extremism, and political breakdown from within are what characterize the 21st century. They are not new. With the exception of political terrorism and Islamic Extremism, the greatest threats to America are increasingly internal and systemic, not foreign invasion. And this distinction matters immensely.
The U.S. often applies military tools to political problems. Examples abound: terrorism rooted partly in state collapse → military response; migration partly driven by instability → securitized response, regional rivalries → arms response, and ideological movements → kinetic response. Military power can destroy targets. It cannot by itself create legitimacy, institutions, reconciliation, or social trust. The US has trapped itself into a militarized cocoon.
Many critics argue that the post-9/11 war culture unleashed a devastating blow to the American psyche, and over time produced massively huge public debts; veterans’ trauma and suicide crises; distrust in government after false claims (especially Iraq WMD); political and societal polarization; normalization of secrecy; expanded surveillance powers; civic fatigue, and cynicism toward elite leadership. The Iraq War, in particular, damaged trust because it was justified with claims that were later discredited.
Not uniquely. All great powers develop recurring pathologies such as overconfidence, moral self-exemption, fear of decline, inability to imagine limits, and confusion of the use of power with wisdom. History is replete with examples: The Roman, British, and Soviet, and other imperial experiences show similar patterns. America’s challenge is not madness; it is imperial habituation and military and economic overreach.
A healthier security lens would ask a number of pertinent questions when pondering the use of military force: Is the threat real, immediate, and material? Can non-military tools work better? What are second-order consequences? What civilian cost is acceptable? What is the exit strategy? What happens the day after military force is unleashed? And does the use of military force strengthen or weaken democracy at home? Sadly, those questions were often sidelined after 9/11. The 2026 War on Iran is a glaring example of strategic blunder on a monumentally costly scale.
Since 9/11, the U.S. has often inflated threats, overused military solutions, and underestimated the domestic corrosion caused by permanent war. America is difficult to destroy from the outside. It is easier to weaken through fear, overreaction, rising debt levels, societal polarization, institutional decay, poor and unqualified political leadership at the highest level of governance and moral desensitization.
In this sense, Ben Rhodes’ warning is profound: nations sometimes lose themselves not by being defeated, but by becoming what endless wars require them to be.