In this essay for The Wall Street Journal, Elliot Ackerman examines the disillusionment that partly motivated the New Orleans and Las Vegas attacks on New Year's Day 2025, and argues that the same disillusionment is now a force within Donald Trump's inner circle, threatening to reshape America's role in the world.

The Angry Veteran in American Life

Ackerman traces the familiar arc of the disillusioned veteran, a figure who enlists as a believer and returns from war stripped of belief. He notes that while most veterans channel that experience constructively, as leaders like John McCain and John Kerry did, a small number turn toward cynicism and, rarely, toward violence.

Vance, Hegseth, and the Politics of Disillusionment

Ackerman argues that Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth represent a newly ascendant strain of disillusioned veteran in American politics, one that rejects America's founding ideals in favor of narrowly defined national interests and loyalty to Trump himself.

What America's Wars Have Taught

Drawing on the nation's history, Ackerman contends that America's greatest military victories came when it fought for its values, not despite them, and that abandoning those ideals in favor of transactional loyalty leaves the country more vulnerable, not less.

Read the Original Article

This essay originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

Read “The Danger Posed by Today’s Angry Vets” at The Wall Street Journal →