US Public Confidence in Military Declined Over Past Five Years to 26-Year Low - Poll

According to a new report published by Gallup, public confidence in the abilities of the US military is at its lowest point in more than two decades, and the decline has accelerated over the last five years.

The poll, conducted between June 1 and June 22, found that just 60% of Americans are likely to express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the US military. That number hasn’t been that low since 1997 and hasn’t been lower since 1988, the analytics company noted. It’s also not far above the low confidence seen during the Vietnam War era, when between 50% and 58% of Americans expressed high confidence in the armed forces.

What’s more, much of that decline has happened in the last five years. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, public confidence spiked and held above 70% for nearly two decades, declining to 69% in 2021 and reaching 60% two years later.

It’s hard to say exactly why the decline occurred, but Gallup noted a precipitous drop following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The 20-year-long war and reconstruction effort was supposed to create a democratic state capable of defeating the Taliban* insurgency and possibly even reintegrating former Taliban fighters into a new, more liberal Afghan society.

Instead, when the Islamist group launched a new offensive in the months prior to the US departure, the US-backed government crumbled so quickly the Taliban recaptured Kabul even before US forces had left. It left the two rival militaries in an awkward position as they attempted to run security for tens of thousands of would-be refugees, many of whom were collaborators, as a Daesh-aligned** group opposed to both US and Taliban rule staged attacks against them and vulnerable civilians.

The spectacle of US forces fleeing Kabul airport with thousands of refugees in tow as their erstwhile enemies solidified their control outside the airport gates was seen by many as summarizing the 20-year-long war as a failure.

Самолет C-17 в аэропорту Кабула

© AP Photo / Shekib Rahmani

According to the poll, both Democrats and Republicans are more likely to express high confidence in the military, but not by much: 68% of GOP voters and 62% of Democratic voters responded as such. Political independents - a kitchen sink category of nonalignment with the two major parties that has increased to its largest-ever proportions in recent years - were less likely than the average, with just 55% saying they’d express high confidence in the US military.

Gallup also noted that the decline in confidence in the military paralleled waning public confidence in other national institutions as well, including small businesses, the police, the medical system, the US Supreme Court, banks, and labor unions. Many of those institutions registered their lowest-ever state of public confidence in the poll.

*The Taliban: a group under United Nations sanction for terrorist activities.

**Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia and many other states.