As Dangers Rise Elsewhere, Americans Tire of Russia-Ukraine Quagmire

POLLING: Americans are willing to disengage from the Black Sea standoff

U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear capabilities should compel a sensible analysis of where America’s focus, military assets, and limited fiscal investments should be directed. Even armed forces as vast as America’s cannot be everywhere, nor can our debt-laden nation afford multiple massive global commitments at once.

So, are Americans ready to effectively walk away from the standoff between Putin and Zelensky? Now that so much of America focuses on the Middle East, will some strategic indifference from the United States actually force both Moscow and Kyiv to get serious about reaching a peaceful resolution to the brutal three-year conflict that has brought such misery to both nations and gargantuan financial costs to the people of America?

Even before the recent Middle East events, the frenetic pace of the Trump-era news flow started to move noticeably away from the regional war in the Black Sea. Plus, new conclusive polling evidence reveals that sentiment grows materially across the United States toward a disengagement from that war, if both parties do not get serious about a peaceful, diplomatic compromise solution to end the killing.

Specifically, the latest national poll for my advocacy group, the League of American Workers, finds that a 62% supermajority want America to disengage if peace talks stall between the countries. Those very discussions between Russia and Ukraine resulted only from the leadership of President Trump. Until he took office, there were no serious efforts at peace, and certainly not any kind of U.S. leadership via diplomacy under the war-loving, profligate Biden White House.

But talks represent only the first step toward peace, of course. Since those U.S.-brokered negotiations began, both the Russian invaders and the Ukrainians have massively ratcheted up the lethality and scope of military strikes, including Ukraine’s highly effective drone attacks deep into Russia. To be clear, the U.S. still affirms Ukraine’s full rights of self-defense. Simultaneously, the U.S. does not presently exert material leverage upon Russia to cease fighting, since current direct U.S.-Russia sanctions have already nearly totally separated the economies of the two great nuclear powers.

So, if Putin and Zelensky choose on their own to keep fighting, then it will be no fault of President Trump. But even more significantly, the American people, who were formerly staunchly pro-intervention to assist Ukraine, now move markedly the other direction.

Why?

Three reasons seem most pertinent. First, war fatigue is real as the battle becomes mostly a stalemate. Second, Zelensky loses popularity rapidly in the United States, and is increasingly legitimately suspected of systemic corruption, even as U.S. taxpayers have lavished his government with hundreds of billions of dollars in aid. Third, Americans realize that our deficit spending crisis simply cannot bear endless foreign burdens, fiscally.

So, this 62% and growing consensus of citizens reports they are ready to move along from this struggle, if necessary. Among Republicans, the numbers are far more remarkable, with a massive 81% of GOP voters favoring disengagement if peace talks stall. Among independents that number is 59%, and a sizeable 45% minority of Democrats now agree as well.

Clearly, a new consensus emerges, and the patience of generous Americans wears thin. In addition, with other pressing national security matters, Americans clearly clamor to move on to an America First vision of foreign policy that rejects the bygone days of simultaneous interventions all over the globe.

That consensus finds particular resonance among younger Americans, and especially for parents with children living at home. For 25–44-year-old Americans, the “disengage” from Ukraine tally is 69-19% in favor, if the two countries do not get real about pursuing peace. Parents, many of whom rationally fear that their teens and young adult children could someday fight in an overseas war, report an astounding 72-17% spread in favor of possible disengagement.

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Americans endured decades of constant wars, mounting debt, and far too many young American lives lost to the grandiose and arrogant interventions of the Bush-Cheney-Obama-Biden crowd of so-called foreign policy “experts.” Voters opted instead for a patriotic populist national approach of realism and restraint.

Given dangers that now arise in the world, plus a general lack of interest for the public in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, both Putin and Zelensky need to wake up and realize that Americans have limits on their patience. Once it is time to turn away, this Black Sea war becomes the responsibility of the combatant countries and Europe, and not America.

Steve Cortes is president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group, and senior political advisor to Catholic Vote. He is a former senior advisor to President Trump and JD Vance, and a former commentator for Fox News and CNN.

This article was posted by RealClear Politics:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/06/24/as_dangers_rise_elsewhere_americans_tire_russia-ukraine_quagmire_152946.html