Historically, the United States has only achieved national unity in response to direct external threats like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. The nation's enemies have learned that avoiding direct provocation allows America's internal divisions to fester, preventing it from coalescing. This pattern suggests internal calls for unity are unlikely to succeed without a significant external crisis.

To anticipate and prevent attacks, it is crucial to listen to adversaries' specific grievances, even if they are abhorrent. The post-9/11 "they hate us because we're free" trope was a strategic oversimplification that ignored years of specific complaints from Al-Qaeda, preventing a more nuanced and effective response.

U.S. foreign policy failures don't just miss objectives; they actively validate anti-American narratives for entire generations in regions like the Middle East. This approach essentially 'gift wraps' future conflicts for America's children by creating deeply entrenched, ideologically motivated adversaries.

The political precedent set by the Bush administration—convincing Americans they can have both major wars and tax cuts—has disconnected the public from the true costs of conflict. This mindset makes it easier for governments to enter into tremendously expensive, multi-trillion-dollar quagmires without clear objectives or public accountability for the fiscal trade-offs.

Internally divided societies rarely come together on their own. Unity is almost exclusively forged when a common external, existential threat emerges. This was seen after 9/11 and during the Cold War, where the fear of an outside enemy overshadowed internal political disagreements, forcing cooperation.

Initial military actions, like successful bombings, can feel like victories. However, they often fail to solve the core political issue, trapping leaders into escalating the conflict further to achieve the original strategic goal, as they don't want to accept failure.

A country cannot effectively wage war without a unified belief in its own cause and a leader capable of galvanizing that belief. Without a compelling, unifying national narrative, even a superpower will struggle to maintain public support for a prolonged conflict, as internal division becomes a greater threat than the external enemy.

While the War on Terror had immense foreign policy costs, its domestic counter-terrorism efforts were highly effective, preventing hundreds of attacks. This success paradoxically allowed society to move on and forget the nature of the ideological threat, leaving it vulnerable.

The death of Dick Cheney revives discussion on the Iraq War's true legacy: persistent voter disenchantment. Polling shows a majority of Americans have believed the country is on the "wrong track" every single year since 2004, the year the war began to sour, directly linking that military failure to today's political cynicism.