US military being held back by lack of "political will"

This came up in one of the Ukraine threads and I'm interested in delving in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 13742610) Counterpoint: The US lacked the political will to decisively occupy and secure Fallujah. The US did not lack the equipment, morale, and logistics to decisively occupy and secure Fallujah. I don't know much about the details of the Tet Offensive and the retaking of Hue, but my understanding is that Tet was an all-out shock offensive with no reserves held back for follow-through, and it completely back-footed the US and Vietnamese forces. And the biggest casualty on the US side was still the political will to keep fighting.

I've heard this claim before when the US is having a hard time with an operation, that they could totally win if they weren't hamstrung politically from back home.

No doubt it CAN have some truth to it--I think Vietnam was an example of the US's military ambitions frustrated by losing the will to fight back home. I'm not 100% sure that greater resolve would have led to a better outcome then, but that's not what I'm going on about here.

So now there's a specific example to consider, Fallujah. Were there any political concerns in the way of taking whatever steps were necessary? Seems to me the war was unpopular, but individual victories were not.

I guess the question is twofold:

1. What political risks caused concern in pressing Fallujah?

2. Did those apparent risks affect our operational decisions at that time in a way that reduced our effectiveness? Looking for specifics on what we didn't do that generals wanted to.

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