Why can’t the U.S. win its wars?

Summary

Front Burner (CBC)
Episode: Why can’t the U.S. win its wars?
Date: April 24, 2026
Host: Jayme Poisson
Guest: Seth Harp (Journalist, author of The Fort Bragg Cartel, Iraq War veteran)

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Episode Overview

This episode investigates a persistent question in American military history: Why has the United States struggled to win its major wars since 1945? Jayme Poisson is joined by investigative journalist and former soldier Seth Harp, who draws on his reporting, military experience, and research into the troubled life of the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg. Together, they dissect the failures of American foreign policy, the structural weaknesses within the military, and the broader societal dynamics that have contributed to a cycle of inconclusive, costly conflicts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Paradox of American Military Power

• Despite being the "most powerful, well resourced and battle tested military in the world," the U.S. has lost or failed to achieve its aims in nearly every major war since 1945, with the likely exception of the Gulf War.
  • (Jayme Poisson, 00:59)
• Seth Harp recalls last year’s $30 million military parade in Washington, designed as a “show of power and dominance,” but experienced as “disappointing...frankly pathetic,” exposing visible strains within the armed forces.
  • “The overwhelming impression that I had of the parade was one of disappointment, let down, being underwhelmed. It was frankly pathetic.” (Seth Harp, 02:51)

2. Morale and Crisis Inside the Military

• Harp describes Fort Bragg as a symbol of the U.S. military’s struggles: rampant crime, suicides, and drug overdoses.
  • “High levels of suicide and drug addiction… violence against women, other forms of criminality are characteristic of life at Fort Bragg.” (Seth Harp, 05:10)

3. Why Can’t the U.S. Win Its Wars?

• American failures run deepest in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea—all conflicts where the stated objectives never materialized.
  • “If you look at the stated aims of the United States in advance of each major military operation, you will find that they have never come to fruition.” (Seth Harp, 07:51)
• The U.S. succeeds in small, rapid interventions (Granada, Panama), but these are more “police actions” than true wars.
  • (Seth Harp, 06:55)

4. Explanations for U.S. Defeat: Myths and Reality

• Jayme lists the main popular rationales: changing nature of war (insurgencies), strategic mistakes, or fundamental shifts in U.S. strategy. Seth Harp calls these “cop outs.”
  • Harp’s criteria for victory:
    1. Popular Buy-in: Wars need broad public support.
    2. Mass Commitment: Wars require large-scale deployment of conventional forces.
    3. Willingness for Casualties: The U.S. lacks tolerance for heavy losses.
    • (Seth Harp, 09:14)
• He contrasts with Russia’s approach in Ukraine as an example, noting Russia’s readiness to accept heavy costs and deploy mass force.
  • “Russia has prevailed in Ukraine at least to a limited extent. I mean, they have more territory than when they started.” (Seth Harp, 11:05)

5. Asymmetry, Limited Wars, and Home Court Advantage

• For America, most wars are “limited”—one of many priorities; for opponents, it’s existential.
  • “For the Iranians… it’s an existential war… for us it’s nothing. It's like a game show almost.” (Seth Harp, 13:27)
• The U.S. is always a foreign invader, fighting wars far from home against adversaries with local support—a fundamental strategic disadvantage.
  • “The army that's fighting on its own territory has an advantage inherently… The United States in all of its wars is a foreign aggressor.” (Seth Harp, 14:37)

6. The Changing Meaning of “Victory”

• Modern wars lack clear objectives or measurable gains; victory becomes an elusive or illusory concept.
  • “They’re harder to pin down because the rationales given are lies for the most part.” (Seth Harp, 17:13)
• The U.S. hasn’t fought a defensive war on its own soil in living memory; its interventions are far from existential.
  • “We're perfectly safe over here, and we don't have any need to be going around the world in search of monsters to destroy. But that's exactly what we've done since the conclusion of World War II…” (Seth Harp, 18:30)

7. Inability to Exit Wars & Profiteering

• Once a conflict sours, presidents routinely “hand the problem to the next guy.”
  • (Jayme, 19:52; Obama quote, 20:26)
• Military-industrial and political interests are heavily invested in the continuation of conflict.
  • “There is a powerful, powerful incentive to keep wars going once they have started because people are making generational fortunes… That's the real game…” (Seth Harp, 20:34)

8. The Age of Drones, Special Forces, and Shadow War

• Preference for drones, special ops, and proxy fighters—methods that minimize U.S. casualties and shield the public from the true costs of war.
  • “One of the only real democratic checks on the profit making bonanza entailed in wars is the American public's intolerance for casualties.” (Seth Harp, 23:52)
• These methods rarely produce political success or lasting stability.
  • “This never brings about a positive political outcome.” (Seth Harp, 27:28)

9. War Comes Home: The Boomerang Effect

• Militarized practices, technologies, and attitudes developed abroad are now deployed against Americans domestically: militarized police, surveillance, and erosion of civil liberties.
  • “It couldn't be more clear that that's exactly what's happening in the United States… All the tools that were developed abroad are getting used on Americans…” (Seth Harp, 28:26)
• Harp notes the “ominous” strengthening of the national security state as public trust and democratic participation wane.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We never lost a war. Now we never win a war.”
  —Donald Trump, quoting his younger-self’s impression of America. (00:51)
• “The overwhelming impression that I had of the parade was one of disappointment, let down… It was frankly pathetic.”
  —Seth Harp, on the Washington parade (02:51)
• “High levels of suicide and drug addiction… characteristic of life at Fort Bragg. But really it was the suicide and drug overdose epidemics there that I mainly focused on in the book.”
  —Seth Harp (05:10)
• “If you look at the stated aims… you will find that they have never come to fruition.”
  —Seth Harp (07:51)
• “I think those are all cop outs…”
  —Seth Harp rejecting common explanations for U.S. military failure (09:14)
• “Russia has prevailed in Ukraine at least to a limited extent… The casualties may be as high as more than a million on each side…”
  —Seth Harp, using the Russia-Ukraine war to illustrate differences in approach and outcomes (11:05)
• “For Americans, it’s a limited war; for enemies, it’s existential.” (paraphrased, 12:55-13:27)
• “The United States in all of its wars is a foreign aggressor and invader…”
  —Seth Harp on home court advantage (14:37)
• “They're harder to pin down because the rationales given are lies for the most part.”
  —Seth Harp on the moving goalposts of American “victory” (17:13)
• “There is a powerful, powerful incentive to keep wars going… That's the real game that's going on behind the scenes while the press is having these kind of debates.”
  —Seth Harp on profiteering and endless war (20:34)
• “One of the only real democratic checks… is the American public's intolerance for casualties.”
  —Seth Harp, on why new strategies (drones, Special Forces) emerged (23:52)
• “It couldn't be more clear that that's exactly what's happening in the United States... All the tools that were developed abroad are getting used on Americans.”
  —Seth Harp, on the boomerang effect (28:26)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:51: Seth Harp describes the disappointing Washington military parade.
• 05:10: Fort Bragg as a symbol of internal military crisis.
• 07:51: Discussion of America’s post-1945 military failures.
• 09:14: Harp lists what’s required to win modern wars.
• 11:05: Russia-Ukraine contrast.
• 13:27: On the “limited war” versus “existential war” dynamic.
• 14:37: Why America struggles with asymmetrical wars.
• 17:13: The shifting and often illusory concept of victory.
• 20:34: Defense profiteering as a barrier to ending wars.
• 23:52: Rise of covert, low-casualty warfare (drones, Special Forces).
• 28:26: The boomerang: militarized tactics and technologies returning home.

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Tone and Style

The conversation is thoughtful, critical, and direct, mixing personal experience with wider historical and political analysis. Seth Harp’s language is blunt—often skeptical or cynical—about U.S. motivations and institutional incentives, but rooted in close observation and deep subject knowledge.

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Summary Takeaway

Despite its unmatched resources, the U.S. military’s long record of inconclusive, failing wars is rooted in a dysfunctional foreign policy, domestic reluctance for sacrifice, crises within the military itself, and a system incentivized to maintain endless conflict. Attempts to avoid public scrutiny and casualties (via drones and covert operations) have only perpetuated the cycle. Meanwhile, the legacy of foreign warfare is coming home—as the tools and mindsets of American “war making” become a fixture of domestic policing, surveillance, and authority.

Transcript

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[CBC Podcast Announcer]

this is a CBC podcast.

[Jamie Poisson]

Hey, everyone, I'm Jamie Poisson. Just one month into his first term as president, Donald Trump told a group of US Governors.

[Donald Trump]

When I was young, in high school and college, everybody used to say we never lost a war. Now we never win a war.

[Jamie Poisson]

Trump's claim is shared by all kinds of military historians and analysts who believe that the US has lost or failed to meet its strategic objectives in virtually every war it has fought since 1945. This includes the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And while it's not over yet, Iran, where the government remains intact, the local population has not risen up, the country has a kind of contested ownership over the Strait of Hormuz, has marshaled attacks on US Military bases and energy hubs across the Gulf, and maintains its nuclear ambitions, be they civilian or military. So today we're asking, can the most powerful, well resourced and battle tested military in the world win its wars? We're joined by Seth Harp, journalist and author of the best selling book the Fort Bragg Cartel. Seth served one tour in Iraq as a member of the US Military and previously worked as the Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas. Seth, hi. Thanks so much for coming onto frontburner. It's really a pleasure to have you.

[Seth Harp]

Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be with y'.

[Jamie Poisson]

All. We're a big fan of your work, so it is really great to have you. I want to begin with your reporting from last year's US military parade in Washington, a $30 million spectacle, the first procession of military forces past the White House since the end of the Gulf War, I believe, and something, you know, a lot of people might relate to places like North Korea or China, but you write about this contradiction at the heart of what you are seeing. On one hand, a show of power and dominance, and on the other, you were seeing a military under real strain. And just take me Back to that day, what did you see, what struck you and what do you feel like it all represented?

[Seth Harp]

The overwhelming impression that I had of the parade was one of disappointment, let down, being underwhelmed. It was frankly pathetic. People had in mind or were expecting beforehand, like you said, the first procession of military forces through Washington D.C. in many years. And people I think had in mind an expectation of some North Korean style display or some display like you would see the Chinese Communist Party put on, of masses of military troops that were highly drilled and you know, wearing pristine uniforms and, and parading their equipment along. But it wasn't like that at all. It was quite a shambolic, disorganized affair

[CBC Podcast Announcer]

from Fort Bragg witness a powerful demonstration of strength, purpose and the unmatched capability of today's army.

[Seth Harp]

And as I was watching the military equipment go by, you know, I was thinking and reflecting on how, how many years it has been since the US has updated its basic equipment. You know, the Army's armored land vehicles that it uses are all 40 plus years old. All of its aircraft is like 40 years old, if, if not older. Many failed attempts to update this systems. And so that kind of spun out into a kind of a broader reflection on the state of the, of the military industrial complex. Quite apart from, you know, my views on American foreign policy and foreign wars,

[Jamie Poisson]

the parade was also an opportunity to kind of display servicemen and women, thousands of whom were flown from bases across the country into Washington. And you mention a number of these divisions and bases in your writing, but one that comes up more than any other was also the subject of your best selling and very cool book, and that is Fort Bragg, a US military base located in North Carolina, which you refer to as, quote, a kind of Bermuda Triangle of unexpected, explained or covered up crimes, accidents, murders and sabotage. What does the story of Fort Bragg ultimately tell you about the US Military today?

[Seth Harp]

In Fort Bragg I locate a kind of symbolism for how really run down and demoralized the military was, at least at the moment in time that I chose to focus on in the book, which was right around the end of the war in Afghanistan. Kind of like the very high levels of suicide and drug addiction are, I think, the two main things. I really focus on other things as well. Violence against women, other forms of criminality are characteristic of life at Fort Bragg. But really it was the suicide and the drug overdose epidemics there that, that I mainly focused on in the book. And as a way of indirectly critiquing the foreign policy of the United States for the last 20 years. In waging these wars that have very little to no popular support,

[Jamie Poisson]

You've written, quote, the United States has either failed to achieve its stated aims in or outright lost every major war it has waged since 1945, with the arguable exception of the Gulf War. And it only seems to be getting less effective as defense expenditures continue to rise. And I'd like to spend some time interrogating that central claim with you today that the US has lost every war since 1945, practically. This would include the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why is it that the most powerful military force in the world can't win its wars?

[Seth Harp]

Well, that's a great question. You know, I say every major war because some, like Granada and Panama, have been in the nature of police actions that lasted only a few days and were tactical successes. And I point that out especially because we just saw the raid that captured Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. So it's not my claim that the military is so ineffective at fighting that it's unable to carry out, you know, operations, small scale operations like that. However, I would argue that all of the major wars that you just listed were indeed losses, including the Korean War, including obviously Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam. I think those three are incontestable. And it's a matter of looking at the United States stated aims in advance of these, not, not the, not the narratives that come to prevail during the war and after the war in which, you know, the story kind of changes to some degree. And now we're over, now we're in Iraq because to establish democracy, that was actually our goal all along. No, actually we said that we were going there to disarm the Saddam Hussein's regime of weapons of mass destruction, which didn't exist. And so, you know, if you look at the stated aims of the United States in advance of each major military operation, you will find that they have never come to fruition.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah, I mean, just. I just kind of want to interrogate more why you think that is. I mean, just for me, in reading about this, there seems to be a few different kind of popular explanations here. Some say the nature of war itself has changed, that the US Is now largely fighting insurgencies, decentralized wars, or civil wars where victory is harder to define, where weaker actors can survive simply by enduring. Others argue it's a failure of strategy, that American leaders, leaders have repeatedly failed to define achievable goals or to think seriously about what comes after initial military success. And then there's some of what you've written about, which is that something deeper has shifted, that the United States has built a way of waging war that is more covert and technologically precise, but one that can go on indefinitely. And like, just which one of these explanations feels closest to the truth? Gu, like how would you kind of talk about that?

[Seth Harp]

I think that all of those sort of rationales that you articulated very accurately on behalf of sort of the foreign policy elite debate in the United States and elsewhere in Europe and so forth, I think those are all cop outs. And that in reality it is very possible to win wars in the modern era. And you kind of need three things. One is the, is popular buy in among your population that they, you know, in general people in your country support the war. Number two, you need a mass commitment of conventional troops. None of this fancy like trying to win wars on the cheap with just airstrikes and special forces. That absolutely does not work. And then third, you need a willingness to absorb mass casualties which the United States also doesn't have. That's very much related to the first, the first factor about having popular support for the war. And to see an example of what I'm talking about, you need look no farther than Russia and Ukraine and at the, the reality of the war, the material reality of the war. Russia has prevailed in Ukraine at least to a limited extent. I mean they're, they have more territory than when they started with. Ukraine has less. Therefore Russia is currently the winner. And I don't think there's much doubt that they will remain in that position where they've taken basically all the territory that is important to them. The Russian speaking parts of Ukraine, the parts of Ukraine where the population is, is friendlier to Russia than they are towards the West. And Russia achieved that just in the ways that I'm talking about. I mean, on both sides the casualties have been absolutely massive. I mean there's been so much attention to the wars in the Middle east over the last months for, for obvious reasons, rightly so. But we, you know, the, the casualties in Ukraine and Russia are so much higher. You know, Donald Trump let out in one of his speeches recently that the, the casualties may be as high as more than a million on each side. He, he spoke about millions of casualties using plural millions, suggesting that both Ukraine and Russia may have lost a million troops each. So there's a conventional war in which one side has, has come out ahead in modern times and the United States doesn't do that, doesn't, we don't wage wars of that type anymore for the most part because we don't have immediate security threats of the kind that would necessitate a mass mobilization and deployment of troops in which there would be large popular support among the population.

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[Jamie Poisson]

You know, just coming back to the U.S. a military power that essentially stretches across the world, any single war is just one of a number of competing security commitments around the world at any given time. But for an enemy, a conflict with the United States is an existential event which occupies its entire attention. Right? And as one writer put it, it's a limited war for Americans and total war for those fighting Americans. Is that an assessment that you would be compelled to agree with, or do you see it kind differently?

[Seth Harp]

No, that sounds exactly right. For the Iranians, for example, it's an existential war that they're in right now with us, whereas for us it's. It's nothing. It's like. It's like a game show almost that there's no. I mean, there are now some real world consequences with the closure of the straight of horu. Certainly they're second order things, but even those will be blunted with their impact on North Americans. So absolutely. Like the countries that fight us are. And I mean, maybe you're suggesting that that's part of why the United States loses wars.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah, I am.

[Seth Harp]

Yeah, I completely agree with that. That's absolutely right.

[Jamie Poisson]

Another kind of key theme here is the US military's inability to win what are referred to as asymmetrical wars. Essentially a conflict between parties in which there is a wide gulf in resources, power, the kind of war which pits a conventional military against insurgents or guerrilla forces, the Taliban or the National Liberation Front in Vietnam or the Houthis in Yemen. And just like why do you think the US struggles in asymmetrical wars where there exists such broad power differentials?

[Seth Harp]

I mean, in addition to all the factors that we've just covered. There's also a home court advantage in warfare is well known since antiquity. The. The army that's fighting on its own territory has an advantage inherently because they know it and because they have the support of the population there, or they can rely on the population. The United States in all of its wars is a foreign aggressor and invader. And I think that's an important. I mean, what does that tell you? It shows that, you know, basically none of the wars, although almost always couched as defensive, even Vietnam was couched in defensive terms. In reality, their projection of troops around the world thousands of miles to pursue abstract foreign policy goals that mostly matter to the, to the elite in Washington D.C. which have to be justified by often highly tenuous and intellectual paradigms that we have to be fighting in Korea for this reason and Vietnam for that reason, in Iraq and Afghanistan for all of these different reasons, but having to project force around the world thousands of miles and keep it up and maintain it and fight foreign adversaries where they live, often tangling not only with the conventional militaries, but with insurgencies that develop in these places. Self defense militias, various types of nationalistic insurgencies and guerrilla movements that arise in opposition to foreign invasion. So that's yet another reason why the US has been at a disadvantage and has a track record of failure since 1945.

[Jamie Poisson]

I guess another point of clarity is what is even meant by victory in the context of war anymore. Many will probably remember George Bush's Mission Accomplished address and banner aboard an aircraft carrier in 2003, declaring this like premature victory in Iraq.

[Seth Harp]

In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed and Iraq is free.

[Jamie Poisson]

Trump declared victory last year following a month long war with the Houthis. He's declared victory in Iran multiple times.

[Donald Trump]

And we've won. You know, you never like to say too early, you won, we won.

[Jamie Poisson]

In earlier wars, victories signaled things like expanded territory or surrender, right? But in modern context, these goals feel harder to pin down, especially with America's wars. So I wonder, this concept of victory, what does it even mean today for America?

[Seth Harp]

They're harder to pin down because the rationales given are lies for the most part. And when there are wars in which victory is possible, that's not necessary because people are confronted with the reality of needing to defend themselves. Americans are basically never put in the situation Canadians do, except, I think, in a very limited circumstances more than 100 years ago when our countries had some border conflicts. But we almost never have had the experience of a foreign invasion on our soil or any kind of necessity of actually defending the United States. Like the United States has not had to actually defend itself even in World War II. It really didn't have to defend itself because we have an entire continent to ourselves over here. It's protected by two mighty oceans on both sides. The United States is geographically impregnable. Even the attack on Pearl harbor, what was Pearl Harbor? What was Hawaii? I mean, that was just a territorial acquisition done halfway across the Pacific in order to create a military base and project power towards Japan. I mean, that's why the Japanese attacked it. There was 9 11. But, you know, Al Qaeda doesn't exist without. Without the CIA and US intervention in Afghanistan. Covert war there. 911 is a foreign blowback from America's covert war in Afghanistan. So that too is complicated. The reality that Americans don't want to confront because they want to see themselves as a warlike people is that we're perfectly safe over here, and we don't have any need to be going around the world in search of monsters to destroy. But that's exactly what we've done since the conclusion of World War II is go around the world in search of monsters to slay. I'm paraphrasing our early president who warned against the dangers of exactly that. And the reason why it seems like victory is illusory or, you know, intangible in these cases or out of grasp or it's almost impossible even to define, is because each of these expeditionary wars has to be premised upon attenuated rationales that just don't hold up over time. I mean, the one that you just mentioned about Yemen, I can. I can't even remember what they said. The excuse for. For that was. I mean, the reality of it was defending Israel and punishing them for throwing in militarily with the Palestinians.

[Jamie Poisson]

You know, another major issue associated with war in America has been the difficulty of leaving a conflict once it becomes a quagmire. Right. One military writer wrote the following quote, For 200 years, no American president has managed to end his own major war once it's taken a turn for the worst. Truman in Korea, Johnson in Vietnam, and Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq all handed the problem to the next guy. On this point in 2014, Barack Obama said, I think Americans have learned that

[Seth Harp]

it's harder to end wars than it is to begin them.

[Jamie Poisson]

And do you think this trend is part of the issue here as well?

[Seth Harp]

Yes. Yes, it definitely is. I think one issue that we have not touched upon is how profitable these wars are for political insiders and politically powerful entities and groups in the, in the United States. And that has a lot to do with why wars don't end. Not just, you know, these, the quagmires that they get drawn into, but also the enormous fortunes that are being made off of these, off of these wars. And that's why in a time of declining rates of return on capital and declining returns on investment and a lot of investment cash seeking returns, especially like in Silicon Valley, more and more they're going to, directly to government contracts and trying to work for, you know, you see these unsuccessful AI companies and these other unsuccessful tech companies whose, you know, grandiose visions of technological development have not come to fruition. They will sort of, the next move will always be to try to reinvent themselves as defense contractors. So that way they get plugged directly into the cost plus contracts, the no bid contracts, all of the politically favorable contracts that get issued in the course of wars, often with the justification of the need for national defense, justifying all kinds of exceptional protections around them. It's very hard to figure out where the money is going because it's also secretive. You know, formations like the ones that I write about, organizations like Chase or the American Army Special Forces, you're never going to find out where those contracts are going. That's all secret. And so there is a, there is a powerful, powerful incentive to keep wars going once they have started because people are making generational fortunes where they're, they're going to be rich, their great grandchildren are going to be rich, and that's the real game that's going on behind the scenes while the press is having these kind of debates really about like, well, should we or shouldn't we or are we winning or are we not? There are people who, who really have the power. They're winning and they don't care how many people that they kill and they don't care what happens to the United States as a political entity after, you know, they've made their generational fortune. And if that's a cynical view of things, it's very much borne out by the reality. For a long time now,

[Jamie Poisson]

We've seen war change most meaningfully maybe in the last couple of generations. Drones and Special Forces are now the primary ways which the US military wages war. After 9 11, the CIA went kind of from a surveillance apparatus to more of like a paramilitary operation focused on targeted killings and assassinations and clandestine violence. And I know that your work has really brought us inside this World via units of the military like Delta Force. But how did this strategy kind of become one of the dominant ways the US fights its wars today? And what, what are the kind of limitations of it?

[Seth Harp]

Yeah, so one of the only real checks, one of the only real democratic checks on the profit making bonanza entailed in wars is the American public's intolerance for casualties. You can bomb Yemen, bomb Iran. All of these actions that are unconstitutional and reckless and violent. They kill large numbers of foreigners. Really. Sadly, that doesn't get through to the American people because most people are just kind of checked out, they don't watch the news. But the big exception to it, and they especially don't care about foreign policy, there's only a small portion of the population is even attuned to what's going on in the foreign policy realm. And the big exception to this is when people, when American soldiers start coming home in body bags, that changes the calculus. Absolutely. That is when you start to get a mass social rejection of Washington's war policies. And the last time we really saw that was in Iraq because, you know, the number of casualties that the United States sustained there was not that high and 5,000 or so, but it was enough that there were people that were, that were killed and they had their face burned off or they had their legs blown off in basically every community in America that you didn't have to look far to find someone who had been directly affected by the Iraq war. And so people very quickly turned against that and it became an albatross around George W. Bush's neck and sunk his presidency. And so ever since then, American presidents have tried to sustain the permanent war paradigm to where that they're starting a new war every two years for fun and profit, but without incurring American casualties. And the way that they've tried to square this circle is by doing it all through airstrikes and through special operations raids and proxy forces. Obama, I think President Obama was kind of the progenitor of this, this paradigm of American war making in Syria a war that was waged in almost total secrecy, without any kind of declaration of war, of course, with, with black operations troops who, who were there not under any color of law, just deployed there in secret. Eventually. I mean, this took a very, very long time and only has only recently come to its full fruition where we have a radical Sunni extremist Al Qaeda, you know, in charge in Syria as the actual government of Syria. And all of that was brought about without, I don't know how many American Casualties total we incurred in Syria, but it's definitely fewer than 100. I mean, I would guess off the top of my head that it was like 50 guys and women, too, American personnel that were killed there. And that same pattern has been applied in Libya and other conflict zones, and they're currently trying to do it in Iran. Although I will say that Trump has held back the American special forces aspect of it and is trying to do the entire thing through airstrikes. And as I was kind of trying to develop in the example of Syria, this is never successful. This will. This never brings about a positive political outcome.

[Jamie Poisson]

I'd like to end here. There is now a lot of attention paid to the way that Donald Trump has decided to use the US Military as a weapon against Americans at home, deploying soldiers into major American cities, for example. For a long time as well, people have noted the militarization of the police, the fact that some police departments in America have larger annual budgets than the militaries of some sovereign nations. Also, your reporting focuses a lot on the degree to which soldiers come back home and as we've talked about, break the law, inflict extraordinary violence on people, and the fact that the system as it currently exists has not been able to hold them to account or to help them. There's a phenomenon called the boomerang theory, essentially, that the violence and surveillance the country set out in the world eventually comes back home to be used on their own citizens. And I wonder what you make of that theory and whether you see any evidence of it in the US Today.

[Seth Harp]

I mean, it couldn't be more clear that that's exactly what's happening in the United States. I don't want to exaggerate, because over the past 25 years, the US has killed millions of people in foreign countries, despite bombing, you know, apartment buildings and hospitals and schools and all kinds of civilian infrastructure, totally crushing and destroying countries to where they never return to where they were before, like Libya or Iraq. So I don't want to suggest that, you know, like, American protesters are subject to the same extreme violence and oppression that the victims of American imperialism have been. But certainly in the case of, you know, the police militarizing and police surveillance, all the tools that were developed abroad are getting used on Americans, on American citizens in order to, not only in the moment, control, you know, what people are doing or monitor what people are doing, but I think also to conceivably prepare for a future in which the government is even less legitimacy. I mean, the Donald Trump's administration is incredibly unpopular before him, Joe Biden was almost as unpopular. Whoever is president next is very unlikely to be someone with mass political support because our democracy is such a shell of what it once was and all of the means of exercising a democratic input on the government are so debilitated and limited. We're really only able to push this button or that button for one or another member of basically the same click, same ruling class clique who all, for the most part, share the same, you know, beliefs, particularly about foreign policy, that are not shared by Americans in general, in which Democrats and Republicans enact highly unpopular policies across the board. They don't do any of the things, any of the popular policies that they run on once they get in office. And so, you know, the strengthening of the national security state is ominous in this regard because you're conceivably looking towards a future in which, you know, people are so dissatisfied with the degradation of material conditions and the, and the corruption, the just out and out corruption that we see in, in the administrations and in our Congress that they try to actually do something about it. And in that case, that's when you really might see, you know, the war, the wars coming home.

[Jamie Poisson]

That feels like a good place for us to end. Seth, thank you so much for this. This was great. Really appreciate it.

[Seth Harp]

Thank you for having me.

[Jamie Poisson]

All right, that is all for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Matthew Amha, Joitha, Shan Gupta, Kevin Sexton, Mackenzie Cameron and Juliana Romanik. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shabazin. Our senior producers are Imogen Burchard and Elaine Chow. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe Blocos. And I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next week.

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