Where Is The U.S. Anti-War Movement? A Response to Eric Blanc
I recently came across a thoughtful article by Eric Blanc: Why Is There No Anti-War Movement in the US? As a combat veteran who joined Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) in 2006 after two deployments to Iraq with the United States Marine Corps, I have participated in antiwar activism for the past two decades. Blanc’s hypotheses provide a valuable starting point for exploring the lack of anti-war activism in 2026 and echo many of my reflections and conversations with fellow anti-war activists and veterans over 20 years.
In this essay, I will briefly reflect on the six main points of Eric’s piece, then add a few more toward the end. In my view, such conversations and debates are absolutely necessary, but should always take place in the spirit of solidarity. Right now, we need solidarity more than ever. Online bickering, personal squabbles, and other immature behaviors are antithetical to building mass movements, effective organizations, and long-lasting institutions. If creating a serious, committed, disciplined, and effective antiwar movement is the goal, people must reject radical posturing, sloganeering, and unserious criticism.
1) Americans Feel Powerless
Anyone who has organized people in challenging socioeconomic environments understands this on a profound level. The primary challenge we faced in organizing people in the deindustrialized landscape of the American Rust Belt wasn’t convincing them that elites were destroying our lives. People living in Northwest Indiana and on the South Side of Chicago understood that quite well. Our primary obstacle was persuading poor and working-class people that they have the power to effect radical and necessary political changes in this country. The collective sense of powerlessness is overwhelming.
Additionally, the left often underestimates ordinary people. My non-politically engaged friends, coworkers, neighbors, and family have watched Americans mobilize for various causes over 20 years, but rarely do they witness any significant victories. In fact, quite the opposite: every aspect of our lives has rapidly deteriorated over the past several decades, from the Global War on Terror, which unleashed 25 years of nonstop illegal military actions, destroyed civil liberties, consolidated power in the executive branch, and drained $8 trillion from our nation’s coffers, to the Great Recession, COVID, January 6th, Ukraine, Gaza, ICE, Iran, AI, and beyond. It’s not irrational for people to feel disheartened and disempowered.
In my view, a significant portion of people’s collective sense of powerlessness stems from their misguided approach to political engagement. Organizing and mobilizing are two fundamentally different methods, a point Blanc addresses later in his essay, but also one that explains why so many Americans feel powerless. If Americans are led to believe that simply showing up to a few rallies will stop a war or prevent Trump from enacting draconian policies, they will inevitably come to the conclusion that what they’re doing isn’t working, so why bother? Nonstop mobilizing without a deeper, broader, and more long-term approach to organizing burns people.
2) People Are Hoping the War Ends Quickly
Blanc is correct to assert that “even if Trump does call victory [in Iran] in the next few days or weeks, this is unlikely to put a stop to his imperial ambitions.” True, no doubt. As Blanc notes, simply ending the war in Iran isn’t good enough. Trump and Co. have their sights aimed at Cuba, Gaza, China, and beyond. Not to mention, Uncle Sam’s ongoing support for the disastrous war in Ukraine, expanding the geographical territory of the United States, assassinating civilians in the Caribbean, threatening military action in Mexico, and so on. Here, any new incarnation of the anti-war movement must challenge the US Empire as a project, not simply the individual military actions of each administration.
3) Trump is Doing So Many Horrible Things
Without question, Americans are overwhelmed by the volume and intensity of Trump’s wide-ranging belligerence. At the same time, they are also increasingly critical and unhappy with Trump’s policies. I consistently hear this from my family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Part of the problem, with regard to people feeling overwhelmed, is that people spend far too much time online. The algorithms reward sensational headlines. Sensational headlines elicit attention, hence clicks. And that’s precisely what the tech oligarchs want: distracted and dumbfounded consumers posting, liking, sharing, and disparing.
Outrage that was once expressed at a rally or organizing meeting is now displayed in the digital realm. Social media has not helped Americans build political power. In fact, quite the opposite: social media has created a cultural sphere where people are duped into believing their pithy posts and cutting memes matter. They don’t. In my view, they are an impotent form of political protest and contribute nothing substantive to our collective culture. During the height of the Iraq War, Americans gathered in physical spaces and engaged in one-on-one conversations and collective debates to discuss how they could contribute to ending the war. Today, people spend an inordinate amount of time online, and it’s a major problem.
4) People Confuse Mobilizing with Organizing
This point can’t be stated enough. Americans have confused mobilizing with organizing for far too long, and in virtually every arena of political activism: the anti-war movement, the racial justice movement, the environmental movement, the feminist movement, the labor movement, and so on. Without question, this is the primary reason we do not have anti-war institutions and organizations in the US in 2026. To think, I had been an anti-war activist for over twelve years before I even knew the difference between the two approaches. This is unacceptable.
Speaking from personal experience, the anti-war activists from the 1968 generation didn’t provide us with much organizational knowledge or guidance during the anti-war protests that took place under Bush and Obama. It would be untrue to suggest that the anti-war activists and organizations remaining from the Vietnam era were well-versed in the sort of organizing approaches championed by people such as Jane McAlevey. And for the most part, we took their guidance. They were, after all, in charge of most of the anti-war protests, actions, and organizations that existed following 9/11.
To be clear, I’m not taking a shot at the 1968 generation: I learned much from their experiences, stories, and knowledge. To this day, some of my best friends are veteran activists from that era. We are indebted to their efforts, patience, and wisdom. But we must also learn from their mistakes in order to become more effective. The social, political, technological, cultural, ecological, and economic context is radically different from that of the 1960s and 1970s. Yes, let’s learn as much as we can from previous generations, but let’s also adapt and improve upon existing methods.
5) No Draft
While it’s virtually impossible to quantify how much of a role the draft played in the upsurge of antiwar activism during Vietnam, it’s also wise of Blanc to acknowledge that the draft did, in fact, play a role. Over the years, I’ve listened to many debates between Vietnam veterans, such as Barry Romo and Kim Scipes, who disagreed on the topic. Barry always downplayed the role of the draft, whereas Kim insisted that it played a consequential role. That said, there’s no doubt that Americans would become very interested in US foreign policy if they knew there was a chance that they or their children, cousins, or friends could be sent to fight and die for another bullshit war. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could argue otherwise.
6) Sectarianism Has Helped Marginalize Anti-War Activity
I grew up in a union family. Everyone served in the military, and everyone voted for the Democratic Party. No one in my family identified as a socialist, communist, or anarchist. My father raised me with good class politics, but I didn’t know the difference between Leninists and Trotskyists until I became involved with the anti-war movement. I’d never even heard the term ‘sectarianism’ prior to attending college anti-war protests and conferences.
I remember attending the Winter Soldier Hearings in 2008, where I testified about war crimes and atrocities that I had witnessed during my deployments to Iraq. Immediately, there was a huge blowout argument because the International Socialist Organization (ISO) attempted to stack IVAW’s board of directors with some of its members who were also veterans. At the time, I had no frame of reference. I just remember thinking to myself, “This is all very confusing, strange, and unwelcoming.” If I felt that way, surely any ordinary person would feel the same.
On another occasion, I was invited to speak on a series of panel discussions at the University of Iowa, where a campus anti-war organization was holding its annual conference. After the conference was finished, the college students held a small protest through the streets of Iowa City. During the march, someone handed me an American flag to hold. Afterward, many of us went to a local pub to grab some food and drinks. A couple of hours passed, and a college student walked up to me and started aggressively questioning my anti-war credentials and whether or not I was ‘truly anti-imperialist’ if I was willing to hold an American flag.
Again, weird and off-putting. The sort of stuff that turns people off. Fortunately, I was so angry about the war and so committed to doing something about it that none of those experiences deterred me from participating in future anti-war events. But that’s not true of everyone, especially people who have families, multiple jobs, children, elderly parents, and various other responsibilities that limit the amount of time they can spend doing anti-war organizing work. Those are just a couple of anecdotes. I could cite several dozen similar instances of bizarre sectarian behavior.
Leaving that aside, for now, Blanc also brings up a great point about the anti-war left’s urge to justify the regressive politics of those on the receiving end of US militarism. One of the biggest differences between the Vietnam era and the post-9/11 era is that the Vietnamese resistance espoused an ideology that left activists could get behind. Anti-colonial and nationalist movements around the world provided not only sympathetic victims of US imperialism, but also movements and leaders American leftists could identify with and support.
None of that is true in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, and so on. Yes, leftwing movements do exist in those countries, but they are extremely isolated and powerless. More importantly, those forces did not form the primary resistance against the US military. The most effective forces fighting against the US Empire, especially in the Middle East, were and remain very regressive entities. This poses a challenge for left-wing activists in North America, Europe, and Australia.
For example, we don’t have to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but we should seek to understand why Russia invaded Ukraine and the role the US has played in forcing Russia’s hand. Likewise, anti-war activists in the US shouldn’t feel compelled to defend or glorify the Iranian regime in order to make the case that US intervention is a bad idea. At the same time, I don’t think anti-war activists in the US should go out of their way to denounce foreign regimes, especially at a time when the US government is chock-full of authoritarians and wannabe fascists. Here, some nuance and humility is required.
Moving along, I wouldn’t worry too much about the people who spend their free time denouncing Bernie and AOC for not being radical enough. Most of the people engaged in that sort of rhetoric are keyboard warriors, YouTube influencers, and hardcore ideologues who represent no one. That said, anti-war activists are correct to push politicians like Bernie and AOC to take on the US Empire more directly, to make the issue central to their worldview and political programs. In the absence of a powerful anti-war movement, activists in the US shouldn’t expect politicians to prioritize fundamentally altering the trajectory of US militarism.
Finally, while it’s true that college activists have been the vanguard of anti-war activism, it’s also true that military veterans have played a key role in anti-war efforts during the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. We need both groups, no doubt. However, I believe that anti-war veterans are better positioned to lead the anti-war movement, and for several reasons. First, because veterans are still one of the most respected segments in US society and culture. Second, because veterans are disciplined, committed, and serious about ending the wars. For us, war is not abstract. It’s life or death. We’ve experienced the horrors of war firsthand. We’ve smelled it. We’ve tasted it. We live with the consequences of Uncle Sam’s imperial ambitions.
Additional Reasons for the Lack of an Anti-War Movement in the US
- The previous antiwar movement during the lead-up to the Iraq War and stretching into the Obama era didn’t leave behind any worthwhile institutions, organizations, or infrastructure that could be inherited by the current generation of activists. Much of that has to do with prioritizing mobilizing over organizing. But it’s also because building institutions that lasted beyond our efforts wasn’t a key focus. And it wasn’t a key focus because antiwar activists during the Bush and Obama administrations weren’t viewing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria as part of the larger project of the US Empire.
- Because the antiwar movement, including IVAW, never developed a framework for the US Empire, each individual military action was scrutinized and debated accordingly. Iraq was easy to oppose. By 2010, it became apparent to many of us that IVAW should also oppose the war in Afghanistan. Of course, in hindsight, it should’ve been opposed from the very beginning, but that’s a conversation for another day. Then, Libya under Obama. And Syria. And the drone program. And Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, and Palestine. Each time, a new debate emerged. Each time, rabid sectarianism and a lack of understanding of the US Empire prevented IVAW and various other antiwar organizations from properly addressing the latest war effort. People jumped from one war to the next.
- The lack of an electoral strategy also hampered anti-war efforts during the Bush and Obama administrations. At the height of anti-war resistance to the Iraq War, activists either reluctantly voted for Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections or avoided the elections altogether. The Democratic Party took both the US House and Senate in 2006, but with no viable strategy to end the war. Their victory, in hindsight, was symbolic, at best. Since anti-war activists didn’t engage with most of those electoral campaigns, there were no specific policy demands — such as cutting off funding for the war — once the Democrats took power. Moreover, by avoiding elections, the anti-war movement missed the opportunity to connect with ordinary Americans. After all, elections are when tens of millions of non-politicized Americans engage in the political process. Moreover, the anti-war movement (and the broader left) never conceptualized a US state apparatus demilitarized. In the end, someone will run the empire. Someone will make parliamentary decisions. Someone will direct the state and its resources. The anti-war movement never thought about, let alone discussed or debated, what it would do if, in fact, it was powerful enough to take over the state. How should the US interact with other nations? What should the US do with its hundreds of military bases and outposts scattered across the globe? How should the US relate to authoritarian regimes abroad?
- Conspiracy theories also played a role in hindering anti-war efforts. In my experience, the anti-war movement allowed far too many kooks and fringe organizations into our cultural and social spheres. 9/11 truthers. The ‘New World Order’ Alex Jones crowd. Quaker pacifists. And a whole range of groups that have very small constituencies, but oversized voices. This dynamic became more pronounced in the wake of the WikiLeaks revelations. For whatever reason, Julian Assange attracted a multitude of socially inept activists who simply turned people off. The same is true of groups such as Code Pink. The internal culture of such groups doesn’t lend itself to mass participation.
- Identity politics also proved toxic in anti-war circles. I remember attending an anti-war strategy retreat in Baltimore during Obama’s first term, where the organizers of the event asked the conference attendees to introduce ourselves by stating our preferred pronouns. This turned people off, as did the organizers’ request that attendees identify their sexuality and race/ethnicity. Again, this isn’t the way to attract alienated and disempowered Americans, many of whom are completely unaware of the semantics and nuances of gender politics, racial justice, queer theory, etc. How anyone at the time thought such an approach was acceptable or productive will forever bewilder me.
- Subsequent social movements — organized labor, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 campaigns, environmental organizations, and so forth — did not prioritize opposing US militarism, nor did they make the clear connection between the US Empire and their respective efforts. Each of these movements and organizations missed a great opportunity to connect the US Empire to austerity politics and authoritarian, racist, ecocidal, patriarchal rule at home. The more money we spend abroad, the less money we have for social needs. Civil liberties are always curtailed during wars. Police departments receive training and weapons from the military. And so on. The connections are apparent.
- The NGO complex, in short. Nonprofit organizations dominated the anti-war scene under Bush and Obama. Leaving aside the myriad of reasons why that’s a problem, and the numerous and obvious limitations of advocacy as compared with mobilizing or organizing, it’s safe to say that independent political organizations, unions, or party apparatuses provide more opportunities than NGOs.
Each of the points raised above requires further examination and debate, but Eric’s essay provides a good start. If we hope to create a robust and powerful anti-war movement, we shouldn’t avoid difficult conversations with our allies and friends. Right now, we need a successful left-wing more than ever. The most regressive forces in US society and culture are driving the country and the world to the brink of disaster. The US Empire, like many declining empires throughout history, lashes out as the republic crumbles from within. Trump’s imperial ambitions, while notably unhinged and destructive, won’t be the last military campaigns launched by a US President.
For every article analyzing what Trump and Co. are thinking or doing, there should be ten or twenty articles examining what we could be doing to prevent or stop them. Without doubt, there’s far too much analysis and not nearly enough action. Articles, podcasts, conversations, songs, and films dedicated to activating, mobilizing, and organizing people should take precedence over the never-ending critiques and denunciations I read on a daily basis. It would be wise for Americans to learn from the failures and successes of previous political movements. We have a lot of work to do.
