War is interested in us

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

This quote warns us that war has a tendency to engulf even those who wish most to avoid it. When waves of destructive power are unleashed on the world, even the most devout isolationists and pacifists are swept away by its rapids.

For more than 80 years, under the leadership and commitment of the United States and its allies, the world has enjoyed relative peace compared to the carnage of two world wars that claimed tens of millions of lives. That’s because the average American in the early 20th century learned what happens when an isolationist America rejects global leadership and fails to deter its enemies.

After World War II, many Americans supported an international system that would prevent new large-scale conflicts by establishing deterrence with allies. They did so because they saw that in the prewar world, without American leadership, tyrants were tearing the fabric of peace to shreds.

In other words, the Greatest Generation learned that while they had no interest in war, war did interest them. Peace surely had to be preceded by strength — American strength.

I am the descendant of two families that proudly answered the call when it came and learned firsthand the failure of deterrence.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, there were no members of my family in the military. We were average, blue-collar Americans working to make a living in Virginia and Oklahoma after the Great Depression. They were cooks, welders, railroad brakemen, nurses and more. Like other Americans, they had no idea that events halfway across the world would soon engulf them. But they did.

One family watched three brothers endure combat overseas: their youngest son died under artillery fire on the German front line, a memory they will never forget; a second brother was seriously wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and suffered bullet wounds and frostbite for decades; and a third brother was a Navy nurse who triaged the wounded near the front lines and died holding the hands of dying young Americans.

Another family didn’t fare much better: two brothers and a cousin went to war there. One brother died in a tank after fighting General Patton’s army, leaving behind his wife and two children; another flew dozens of combat missions as an aircraft gunner over Europe but broke his spine in a crash landing; and a cousin was seriously wounded by small arms fire in Belgium.

Families across America have similar stories of those who served and died in World War II. Many of that war’s survivors were hesitant to talk about it, but those experiences would shape their worldview for years to come. For my family, the lesson about deterring war was clear: the best way to prevent World War III was to support a rebuilt world centered on American leadership and anchored by American strength.

My predecessors strongly supported American commitment and determination to bring peace to the postwar world. They felt that a return to isolationism or indecision would bring about new catastrophe. In the end, a strategy of peace through strength won the Cold War and, as President Reagan said, “Our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the Nazi advance were not killed in vain.”

But today there are people on both the left and the right who find common purpose in ignoring the hard lessons learned by people like my family in the 1940s. They sound little different from their narrow-minded predecessors before World War II, who proclaimed, “Let the Europeans fight their own battles; they mean nothing to us,” not realizing that their views played into the hands of their enemies.

Whether it’s withholding weapons supplies to our ally Israel, blocking aid to Ukrainians risking their lives, abandoning our partners in Afghanistan who fought alongside us, or supporting a NATO withdrawal, too many Americans are sending a message to our enemies that we no longer intend to keep our promises. The red lines we are willing to let our enemies cross threaten the peace that our forefathers died to secure.

Americans who advocate isolationism and withdrawal today are making a mistake and making war more likely. The strength and leadership of America and its allies have been the glue that has held the world together for decades, a world forged by the wisdom of our forefathers who sacrificed so much for it. On this Memorial Day, as we consider our future role in world affairs, we should remember: We may not be interested in war, but war is interested in us.

Jimmy Byrne is a descendant of American veterans dating back to the Revolutionary War, a former U.S. Army captain, a West Point graduate, and a board member of the national security nonprofit Veterans On Duty.