Recruiting Ads Don't Win Wars

Remember when Republicans used Russian propaganda to mock our “woke” military? Let’s revisit how that worked out.

Ted Cruz has never served in our military, but he sure has a lot to say about what he perceives to be its faults…all without the evidence to back it up.

Do you remember when Ted Cruz and the conservative outrage machine were passing around a Russian military recruiting ad to supposedly show us what a “real” military looked like? I do, and I think it’s worth spending a little time revisiting it.

In May 2021, Cruz shared a clip that set a Russian ad, full of soldiers doing pushups, jumping out of aircraft, and handling weapons, against an animated U.S. Army spot about a young woman raised by two mothers. “Holy crap,” Cruz wrote. “Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea….”

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Sit with that for a second. A sitting United States senator used an adversary’s recruiting propaganda to tell Americans something was wrong with their own military. Cruz and his fellow peddlers of the video insinuated that while the Russians looked tough, the American soldier looked weak by talking about her family.

For a lot of people on the right, that settled the question of military readiness. Well, Ted, we’ve had a few years to test that theory.

Last month, Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, said Russia has now suffered an estimated 1.5 million casualties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Roughly half a million of them are dead and the rest are wounded. About 1.4 million of those casualties came after January 2023, and what Russia bought with them was around two percent more of Ukraine’s territory. These are estimates and should be treated that way, but the scale of the catastrophe isn’t in doubt.

And Ukraine is still standing. It turns out recruiting ads don’t win wars.

The soldier they laughed at

The American in that ad had a name: Corporal Emma Malonelord. She was one of five soldiers featured in an Army campaign called “The Calling,” which was built to help young Americans see something of themselves in the people who serve. Her story was about leaving college life behind to join something bigger than herself.

You can dislike the ad. You can think the Army needs a different marketing strategy, and that’s a perfectly legitimate conversation. But how did a young American volunteering for her country become evidence of national weakness? She raised her hand and put on the uniform. Her parents’ marriage tells you absolutely nothing about whether she can do her job, and the people turning her family into a punchline should have understood that.

Back then, Cruz wasn’t the only one crying foul over perceived “manliness” in our military. Earlier that year, Tucker Carlson complained on air that China’s military was getting “more masculine” while ours was getting “more feminine.” This argument came from the right’s belief that inclusion meant weakness, and that in turn military strength could be measured by how closely it matched a cable host’s idea of manhood. By September 2022, with Russia’s invasion already exposing the limits of that thinking, Ben Shapiro was still lecturing about traditional masculinity and military strength. I replied to him at the time: “Good point Ben. What branch were you?”

You don’t have to serve to have an opinion about the military. Civilian oversight is essential to how this country works. But if you’re going to confidently explain why the people who serve have gone soft, you should expect some questions from those of us who wore the uniform.

What actually wins

I flew combat missions. I care deeply about standards, discipline, preparation, and physical fitness because people’s lives depend on getting them right. But lives also depend on intelligence, maintenance, logistics, planning, communication, and leaders who make sound decisions under pressure. An aircraft doesn’t become mission-capable because somebody gave an angry speech about “wokeness.” Somebody has to maintain it. Somebody has to understand the threat. Somebody has to do the work.

A recruiting video can show you a soldier firing a rifle, but it can’t tell you whether his unit will have ammunition next week. That’s why the comparison was shallow from the start, and Russia has since given the world a brutal demonstration of the gap between an intimidating image and actual military performance. Its forces failed to take Kyiv. Ukraine then drove them out of large areas they had occupied, including much of the Kharkiv region and the city of Kherson. Putin’s admirers would prefer to forget those defeats, but they’re part of the record.

None of this means Russia is harmless or that Ukraine’s victory is assured. Russia still occupies roughly a fifth of Ukraine, and Ukrainian families keep paying an enormous price.

Any honest case for supporting Ukraine has to start there.

Ukraine has pushed back on Russia’s invasion valiantly. It’s further proof that recruiting ads, like the one Cruz popularized, don’t win wars.

But the military marketed as the antidote to Western weakness has spent years trying to subdue a smaller neighbor, and it has paid a staggering price without achieving its objective.

I made a related argument in March 2025 in “Trump’s Lifeline to Putin”: Ukraine’s success has to be measured against Russia’s goals. A country defending itself doesn’t have to capture the aggressor’s capital to defeat a war of conquest. It has to survive and keep the aggressor from getting what he came for. The Ukrainians are fighting for their homes, and they deserve the weapons and support to keep doing it.

The debate we deserve

Americans deserve a more serious national security conversation than the one Cruz and the right have given us over the last few years. If you believe a policy damages readiness, explain how. Name the standard being compromised, show the evidence, and propose a fix. But simply pointing at an American soldier’s two mothers and then at a Russian doing pushups to draw your main distinction is an embarrassing substitute for real policy work.

The casualty figures aren’t a punchline, either. They’re human beings killed or maimed in a war Putin chose, which is exactly why treating war as a backdrop for culture-war entertainment is so irresponsible. Cruz and the others who pushed this line should have to answer for their judgment. They saw a slick Russian video and used it against Americans serving their own country, and I’d like to hear what they learned.

Because the woman in that ad volunteered to defend the United States, while the Russian video was built to sell an image. A United States senator should have known which one deserved his respect.

—Adam