These are the worst military decisions of each US President in one sentence

Blake Stilwell
Apr 28, 2021 9:41 PM PDT
1 minute read
These are the worst military decisions of each US President in one sentence

SUMMARY

No President is 100 percent flawless in any aspect of their presidency. Even former generals can make bad calls when it comes to being the Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces. And even though their military decisions may look good at the time, hi…

No President is 100 percent flawless in any aspect of their presidency. Even former generals can make bad calls when it comes to being the Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces. And even though their military decisions may look good at the time, history could judge the president for not having the vision to nip potential trouble spots in the bud.


1 – George Washington

His attack on the British at Long Island came while they were at their strongest and most well-armed.

2 – John Adams

With the Alien and Sedition Acts, Adams infringed on the very rights he and the other founding fathers just finished fighting for.

3 – Thomas Jefferson

His appointment of Commodore William Bainbridge to command the Philadelphia led to the capture and enslavement of the ship's crew.

4 – James Madison

He vastly overestimated the United States' ability to wage war, and when U.S. troops burned York (present day Toronto), he opened the door to the burning of Washington.

5 – James Monroe

Monroe sent Andrew Jackson to invade Spanish Florida and attack the hostile natives there, despite not being at war with Spain.

6 – John Quincy Adams

Rather than build up the Navy to project U.S. power and protect American interests, he just did nothing.

7 – Andrew Jackson

Jackson began the systematic removal of natives from American territory, while neglecting the Navy.

8 – Martin Van Buren

Van Buren continued Jackson's anti-Native policy while continuing to neglect the U.S. Navy

9 – William Henry Harrison

Harrison died thirty days into his presidency — before he could even make a military decision.

10 – John Tyler

Built the world's largest naval cannon, which exploded during a demonstration.

It's not polite to stare!

11 – James K. Polk

Micromanaging the war with Mexico took its toll on his health and eventually killed him.

12 – Zachary Taylor

He ate cholera-ridden ice milk and cherries.

13 – Milliard Fillmore

Fillmore's worst call was not invading Cuba, despite the constant headaches it posed then and in the future.

14 – Franklin Pierce

Pierce let Kansas decide if it would be a free or slave state, which led to Kansas being flooded with zealots from both sides, who promptly killed each other.

15 – James Buchanan

He left the secession crisis for Lincoln.

James Buchanan: No f*cks given.

16 – Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln kept McClellan in command of the Union Army for way too long.

17 – Andrew Johnson

Instead of fulfilling the vision of Abraham Lincoln's Reconstruction, Johnson used federal forces to punish the South.

18 – Ulysses S. Grant

The former Union general worried about being perceived as a dictator, but he still used the military to enforce laws in the South.

19 – Rutherford B. Hayes

Hayes used the Army to break up workers strikes in nonessential industries, which was especially violent in Pittsburgh.

20 – James. A. Garfield

James Garfield's biggest mistake was foregoing a security detail (he was assassinated).

21 – Chester A. Arthur

Arthur hired political cronies to overhaul the Navy, which angered Congress, who withheld much of the funds.

22 – Grover Cleveland

Cleveland vetoed pensions for Civil War veterans.

23 – Benjamin Harrison

Harrison ordered the Massacre at Wounded Knee.

24 – Grover Cleveland

Cleveland broke up a rail workers strike with the Army because he wanted them to deliver the mail.

25 – William McKinley

Instead of giving the Philippines its independence, he subjugated the population.

They'll love being American!

26 – Theodore Roosevelt

The man's been dead for almost a hundred years and I'm still afraid to criticize him (no comment).

27 – William Howard Taft

Taft kept U.S. troops as occupiers of Latin American countries, sowing mistrust and discord in the Western Hemisphere that continues to this day.

28 – Woodrow Wilson

Wilson was more concerned with his Fourteen Point peace plan than noticing Germany was being beaten up in the WWI armistice, one of the major causes of World War II.

29 – Warren G. Harding

Harding removed U.S. troops from Cuba instead of annexing it, which would give the U.S. a lot of trouble in the coming decades.

30 – Calvin Coolidge

Silent Cal neglected to maintain the Navy because World War I was over.

31 – Herbert Hoover

Hoover ordered a young General MacArthur to disperse the Bonus Army by force.

32 – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Roosevelt put a lot of misplaced trust in Stalin, who promptly used that trust against the U.S.

33 – Harry S. Truman

Truman thought the Chinese wouldn't intervene in the Korean War even if MacArthur conquered the entire peninsula.

34 – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ordered the CIA to overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and put the Shah back in power.

35 – John F. Kennedy

Kennedy greenlit the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and then neglected to give them air support.

Well, we were done with it, no matter what happened.

36 – Lyndon B. Johnson

LBJ escalated what was a civil war into a grand international conflict because he could only see Communists and didn't understand Vietnam was fighting more for its independence from outside domination.

37 – Richard Nixon

Nixon's scheme to get the country out of the Vietnam War started with bombing and then invading Cambodia.

38 – Gerald Ford

Ford ordered Marines back to Indochina to rescue hostages on a mission that ended with a 41 percent casualty rate, adding to the Vietnam War dead even though the war had been over for 2 years.

39 – Jimmy Carter

Carter ordered the all-too-complex Operation Eagle Claw to get hostages out of Iran, which ended disasterously.

40 – Ronald Reagan

Sent Marines to Beirut as peacekeepers, even though half the Lebanese factions fighting there were allied with Iran and lost 241 troops in a barracks bombing in 1983.

41 – George H.W. Bush

Bush's invasion of Panama, while one of the most successful military operations in U.S. history, took a large toll on the civilian population and infrastructure.

 

Related: 21 Facts about the First Gulf War

42 – Bill Clinton

Instead of bombing Osama bin Laden, he bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.

43 – George W. Bush

"Mission Accomplished."

44 – Barack Obama

Obama drew a "red line" for Bashar al-Asad of Syria to keep him from using chemical weapons, then didn't do anything when Asad used the weapons.

45 – Donald Trump

We'll let you decide this one...

46 – Joe Biden

And this one's mistakes remain to be seen. 

 

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