> Part of the problem is the narrow population from which the military recruits.
I wonder if this relates to how military service (not civilian-contractor roles) appear to have a bit of an, er, "sign your soul over and hope for the best" mechanic.
I dimly recall some event where some state was offering a "Try it for a year" promotion for their National Guard service, and the guy on it ended up being stop-lossed over to Afghanistan or Iraq.
That's not really true. Open democratic societies that still practice conscription like Israel for instance, have a much higher level of civic engagement and understanding of foreign affairs amongst the average people. The population is ultimately much less tolerant of macho strong men and war mongering when they know what it looks like in reality.
Israel uses their military heavily, so I'm not sure it will provide a great example.
Take a look at their neighbors. When you're surrounded by people who are ideologically bent on your complete destruction, paranoia is no longer an irrational response.
I think that's a serious problem. Americans have little idea how the US military works and tend to form extreme opinions, either glorifying it or villifying it - the former especially in the last 20 years or so but neither is at all healthy. When people understood the military - when we had a draft and a wide spectrum was personally familiar with it - we had popular entertainment like Gomer Pyle and MASH, and expressions like FUBAR and SNAFU. The military was seen as an enormous, absurd, powerful bureaucracy; people understood its limits and capabilities, and could make decisions about using it. Warfare was not glorified so much, but seen as the scourge it is, the last option, because many actually had experience of it. They also had skin in the game during a war, risking being drafted and knowing people who were. Now we fight the 20 year GWOT, send people on one tour after another, and many outside don't even realize there's a war on or wonder how it's going - but they do say 'thank you for your service' endlessly (a young relative in ROTC (US undergrad trainee program) was thanked several times wearing their uniform around town!).
Part of the problem is the narrow population from which the military recruits. In the US Army, 79% of recruits come from families which already have service members. [0] Consider that only a few percent of the population is in the military. Also, I read that the military does not recruit in - or puts very little effort into - major cities (though I can't find the cite now, and it was a few years ago). [EDIT: cite found: 1]
[0] https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/about-face-army-ex...
[1] From 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/army-recruiting-tech-i...