As far as war is concerned, the average American's brain might as well be rotting cabbage. Some things to keep in mind:
- The last time there was a war of technological parity on the American homeland with a foreign adversary was 1812.
- The last time there was a war of technological parity on the American homeland at all was 1865.
- The last time Americans faced then-modern tanks was 1945.
- The last time American troops faced serious artillery was 1953.
- The last time American troops faced meaningful threats from the air was 1975
- The USA has, to this day, never taken more deaths in a war than it did from 1861-1865.
The fact that basically every country we want to fuck with except Russia is completely unable to meaningfully strike us resulted in the dumbest military doctrine of all human history. During the 1990s, the USA adopted a philosophy that American missile strikes, special forces raids, and aircraft bombings are not, on their own, acts of war. They're "international police actions" that we can do because we're The Good Guys. This led to the US government, and Americans in general, being completely unable to see the 9/11 attacks as the latest escalation in a long war. Somewhere along the way, we also adopted the doctrine that arming, advising, and funding a revolution is also not an act of war against the country we do it to.
Americans, despite fighting endless wars, don't really know what war is, and we don't respect it. Because we don't respect it, we don't fear it.