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The War on Terror, Essay Example

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The War on Terror: Enriching the Military-Industrial Complex since 2001!

There are many Americans – usually after a long session of watching Fox News with a glazed look in their eyes and a slipstream of drool coming out the side of their mouths — who probably lay awake at night, worrying about whether the largest standing army in the world is quite big enough??  After all, the Cold War has been over for decades and the fight against the creeping tentacles of Communism and the specter of the Red Menace has long since subsided, and in that lull, there was every danger that the American military, voracious eater of more than half of our national budget, might have to tighten its belt and go on the economic equivalent of the Atkins diet.

But never fear, stalwart Americans!  The Bush administration, taking political advantage of the ghastly tragedies of September 11 th (‘cause when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade!), has found a new way to keep the coffers of our Department of the Defense nice and fat! Enter: the War on Terror, or the Next Best Thing since the Bay of Pigs!  The War on Terror has kept Americans nice and scared, just as its big brother, the Cold War, did before it, and the great thing about scared people is that they will pay up the nose in order to feel safe again!  As an advertising campaign, the War on Terror has been eminently successful: its customers (the American public), are flocking in to pay for (through their taxes) the product that the government is now offering us (the perception of security).

The best part about this is that, unlike the Cold War, the War on Terror never has to end! The problem with the Cold War is that once the USSR had fallen, there was no need to fight anymore.  But with the War on Terror, when we are done with one country –Iraq, for instance — we can simply go on to the next!  Iran! Syria! The Ukraine!  The possibilities are virtually mind-boggled, and limited only by the scope of our paranoid imagination!

So do not worry about having to cut the military budget any time soon, or fret that we will have to waste money that could otherwise be spent on war on piddling things like education, infrastructure or healthcare.  With the War on Terror, there is no end in sight and absolutely no chance of military budget cuts! Hurray for safety, apple pie, and the American way!

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the war on terror essay

Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11

Table of contents.

Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 20 years later, they watched in sorrow as the nation’s military mission in Afghanistan – which began less than a month after 9/11 – came to a bloody and chaotic conclusion.

Chart shows 9/11 a powerful memory for Americans – but only for adults old enough to remember

The enduring power of the Sept. 11 attacks is clear: An overwhelming share of Americans who are old enough to recall the day remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Yet an ever-growing number of Americans have no personal memory of that day, either because they were too young or not yet born.

A review of U.S. public opinion in the two decades since 9/11 reveals how a badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism; how the public initially rallied behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, though support waned over time; and how Americans viewed the threat of terrorism at home and the steps the government took to combat it.

As the country comes to grips with the tumultuous exit of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, the departure has raised long-term questions about U.S. foreign policy and America’s place in the world. Yet the public’s initial judgments on that mission are clear: A majority endorses the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, even as it criticizes the Biden administration’s handling of the situation. And after a war that cost thousands of lives – including more than 2,000 American service members – and trillions of dollars in military spending, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that 69% of U.S. adults say the United States has mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.

This examination of how the United States changed in the two decades following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is based on an analysis of past public opinion survey data from Pew Research Center, news reports and other sources.

Current data is from a Pew Research Center survey of 10,348 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 23-29, 2021. Most of the interviewing was conducted before the Aug. 26 suicide bombing at Kabul airport, and all of it was conducted before the completion of the evacuation. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used  for the report, along with responses, and  its methodology .

A devastating emotional toll, a lasting historical legacy

Shock, sadness, fear, anger: The 9/11 attacks inflicted a devastating emotional toll on Americans. But as horrible as the events of that day were, a 63% majority of Americans said they couldn’t stop watching news coverage of the attacks.

Chart shows days after 9/11, nearly all Americans said they felt sad; most felt depressed

Our first survey following the attacks went into the field just days after 9/11, from Sept. 13-17, 2001. A sizable majority of adults (71%) said they felt depressed, nearly half (49%) had difficulty concentrating and a third said they had trouble sleeping.

It was an era in which television was still the public’s dominant news source – 90% said they got most of their news about the attacks from television, compared with just 5% who got news online – and the televised images of death and destruction had a powerful impact. Around nine-in-ten Americans (92%) agreed with the statement, “I feel sad when watching TV coverage of the terrorist attacks.” A sizable majority (77%) also found it frightening to watch – but most did so anyway.

Americans were enraged by the attacks, too. Three weeks after 9/11 , even as the psychological stress began to ease somewhat, 87% said they felt angry about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Fear was widespread, not just in the days immediately after the attacks, but throughout the fall of 2001. Most Americans said they were very (28%) or somewhat (45%) worried about another attack . When asked a year later to describe how their lives changed in a major way, about half of adults said they felt more afraid, more careful, more distrustful or more vulnerable as a result of the attacks.

the war on terror essay

Even after the immediate shock of 9/11 had subsided, concerns over terrorism remained at higher levels in major cities – especially New York and Washington – than in small towns and rural areas. The personal impact of the attacks also was felt more keenly in the cities directly targeted: Nearly a year after 9/11, about six-in-ten adults in the New York (61%) and Washington (63%) areas said the attacks had changed their lives at least a little, compared with 49% nationwide. This sentiment was shared by residents of other large cities. A quarter of people who lived in large cities nationwide said their lives had changed in a major way – twice the rate found in small towns and rural areas.

The impacts of the Sept. 11 attacks were deeply felt and slow to dissipate. By the following August, half of U.S. adults said the country “had changed in a major way” – a number that actually increased , to 61%, 10 years after the event .

A year after the attacks, in an open-ended question, most Americans – 80% – cited 9/11 as the most important event that had occurred in the country during the previous year. Strikingly, a larger share also volunteered it as the most important thing that happened to them personally in the prior year (38%) than mentioned other typical life events, such as births or deaths. Again, the personal impact was much greater in New York and Washington, where 51% and 44%, respectively, pointed to the attacks as the most significant personal event over the prior year.

Chart shows in 2016 – 15 years after 9/11 – the attacks continued to be seen as one of the public’s top historical events

Just as memories of 9/11 are firmly embedded in the minds of most Americans old enough to recall the attacks, their historical importance far surpasses other events in people’s lifetimes. In a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in association with A+E Networks’ HISTORY in 2016 – 15 years after 9/11 – 76% of adults named the Sept. 11 attacks as one of the 10 historical events of their lifetime that had the greatest impact on the country. The election of Barack Obama as the first Black president was a distant second, at 40%.

The importance of 9/11 transcended age, gender, geographic and even political differences. The 2016 study noted that while partisans agreed on little else that election cycle, more than seven-in-ten Republicans and Democrats named the attacks as one of their top 10 historic events.

the war on terror essay

9/11 transformed U.S. public opinion, but many of its impacts were short-lived

It is difficult to think of an event that so profoundly transformed U.S. public opinion across so many dimensions as the 9/11 attacks. While Americans had a shared sense of anguish after Sept. 11, the months that followed also were marked by rare spirit of public unity.

Chart shows trust in government spiked following Sept. 11 terror attack

Patriotic sentiment surged in the aftermath of 9/11. After the U.S. and its allies launched airstrikes against Taliban and al-Qaida forces in early October 2001, 79% of adults said they had displayed an American flag. A year later, a 62% majority said they had often felt patriotic as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

Moreover, the public largely set aside political differences and rallied in support of the nation’s major institutions, as well as its political leadership. In October 2001, 60% of adults expressed trust in the federal government – a level not reached in the previous three decades, nor approached in the two decades since then.

George W. Bush, who had become president nine months earlier after a fiercely contested election, saw his job approval rise 35 percentage points in the space of three weeks. In late September 2001, 86% of adults – including nearly all Republicans (96%) and a sizable majority of Democrats (78%) – approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president.

Americans also turned to religion and faith in large numbers. In the days and weeks after 9/11, most Americans said they were praying more often. In November 2001, 78% said religion’s influence in American life was increasing, more than double the share who said that eight months earlier and – like public trust in the federal government – the highest level in four decades .

Public esteem rose even for some institutions that usually are not that popular with Americans. For example, in November 2001, news organizations received record-high ratings for professionalism. Around seven-in-ten adults (69%) said they “stand up for America,” while 60% said they protected democracy.

Yet in many ways, the “9/11 effect” on public opinion was short-lived. Public trust in government, as well as confidence in other institutions, declined throughout the 2000s. By 2005, following another major national tragedy – the government’s mishandling of the relief effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina – just 31% said they trusted the federal government, half the share who said so in the months after 9/11. Trust has remained relatively low for the past two decades: In April of this year, only 24% said they trusted the government just about always or most of the time.

Bush’s approval ratings, meanwhile, never again reached the lofty heights they did shortly after 9/11. By the end of his presidency, in December 2008, just 24% approved of his job performance.

the war on terror essay

U.S. military response: Afghanistan and Iraq

With the U.S. now formally out of Afghanistan – and with the Taliban firmly in control of the country – most Americans (69%) say the U.S. failed in achieving its goals in Afghanistan.

Chart shows broad initial support for U.S. military action against 9/11 terrorists, even if it entailed thousands of U.S. casualties

But 20 years ago, in the days and weeks following 9/11, Americans overwhelmingly supported military action against those responsible for the attacks. In mid-September 2001, 77% favored U.S. military action, including the deployment of ground forces, “to retaliate against whoever is responsible for the terrorist attacks, even if that means U.S. armed forces might suffer thousands of casualties.”

Many Americans were impatient for the Bush administration to give the go-ahead for military action. In a late September 2001 survey, nearly half the public (49%) said their larger concern was that the Bush administration would not strike quickly enough against the terrorists; just 34% said they worried the administration would move too quickly.

Even in the early stages of the U.S. military response, few adults expected a military operation to produce quick results: 69% said it would take months or years to dismantle terrorist networks, including 38% who said it would take years and 31% who said it would take several months. Just 18% said it would take days or weeks.

The public’s support for military intervention was evident in other ways as well. Throughout the fall of 2001, more Americans said the best way to prevent future terrorism was to take military action abroad rather than build up defenses at home. In early October 2001, 45% prioritized military action to destroy terrorist networks around the world, while 36% said the priority should be to build terrorism defenses at home.

the war on terror essay

Initially, the public was confident that the U.S. military effort to destroy terrorist networks would succeed. A sizable majority (76%) was confident in the success of this mission, with 39% saying they were very confident.

Support for the war in Afghanistan continued at a high level for several years to come. In a survey conducted in early 2002, a few months after the start of the war, 83% of Americans said they approved of the U.S.-led military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. In 2006, several years after the United States began combat operations in Afghanistan, 69% of adults said the U.S. made the right decision in using military force in Afghanistan. Only two-in-ten said it was the wrong decision.

Chart shows public support for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan increased after Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011

But as the conflict dragged on, first through Bush’s presidency and then through Obama’s administration, support wavered and a growing share of Americans favored the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. In June 2009, during Obama’s first year in office, 38% of Americans said U.S. troops should be removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible. The share favoring a speedy troop withdrawal increased over the next few years. A turning point came in May 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs launched a risky operation against Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and killed the al-Qaida leader.

The public reacted to bin Laden’s death with more of a sense of relief than jubilation . A month later, for the first time , a majority of Americans (56%) said that U.S. forces should be brought home as soon as possible, while 39% favored U.S. forces in the country until the situation had stabilized.

Over the next decade, U.S. forces in Afghanistan were gradually drawn down, in fits and starts, over the administrations of three presidents – Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Meanwhile, public support for the decision to use force in Afghanistan, which had been widespread at the start of the conflict, declined . Today, after the tumultuous exit of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a slim majority of adults (54%) say the decision to withdraw troops from the country was the right decision; 42% say it was the wrong decision. 

There was a similar trajectory in public attitudes toward a much more expansive conflict that was part of what Bush termed the “war on terror”: the U.S. war in Iraq. Throughout the contentious, yearlong debate before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Americans widely supported the use of military force to end Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq.

Importantly, most Americans thought – erroneously, as it turned out – there was a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. In October 2002, 66% said that Saddam helped the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In April 2003, during the first month of the Iraq War, 71% said the U.S. made the right decision to go to war in Iraq. On the 15th anniversary of the war in 2018, just 43% said it was the right decision. As with the case with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, more Americans said that the U.S. had failed (53%) than succeeded (39%) in achieving its goals in Iraq.

the war on terror essay

The ‘new normal’: The threat of terrorism after 9/11

There have been no terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 in two decades, but from the public’s perspective, the threat has never fully gone away. Defending the country from future terrorist attacks has been at or near the top of Pew Research Center’s annual survey on policy priorities since 2002.

Chart shows terrorism has consistently ranked high on Americans’ list of policy priorities

In January 2002, just months after the 2001 attacks, 83% of Americans said “defending the country from future terrorist attacks” was a top priority for the president and Congress, the highest for any issue. Since then, sizable majorities have continued to cite that as a top policy priority.

Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats have consistently ranked terrorism as a top priority over the past two decades, with some exceptions. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have remained more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say defending the country from future attacks should be a top priority. In recent years, the partisan gap has grown larger as Democrats began to rank the issue lower relative to other domestic concerns. The public’s concerns about another attack also remained fairly steady in the years after 9/11, through near-misses and the federal government’s numerous “Orange Alerts” – the second-most serious threat level on its color-coded terrorism warning system.

A 2010 analysis of the public’s terrorism concerns found that the share of Americans who said they were very concerned about another attack had ranged from about 15% to roughly 25% since 2002. The only time when concerns were elevated was in February 2003, shortly before the start of the U.S. war in Iraq.

In recent years, the share of Americans who point to terrorism as a major national problem has declined sharply as issues such as the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic and racism have emerged as more pressing problems in the public’s eyes.

Chart shows in recent years, terrorism declined as a ‘very big’ national problem

In 2016, about half of the public (53%) said terrorism was a very big national problem in the country. This declined to about four-in-ten from 2017 to 2019. Last year, only a quarter of Americans said that terrorism was a very big problem.

This year, prior to the U.S. withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover of the country, a somewhat larger share of adults said domestic terrorism was a very big national problem (35%) than said the same about international terrorism . But much larger shares cited concerns such as the affordability of health care (56%) and the federal budget deficit (49%) as major problems than said that about either domestic or international terrorism.

Still, recent events in Afghanistan raise the possibility that opinion could be changing, at least in the short term. In a late August survey, 89% of Americans said the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was a threat to the security of the U.S., including 46% who said it was a major threat.

the war on terror essay

Addressing the threat of terrorism at home and abroad

Just as Americans largely endorsed the use of U.S. military force as a response to the 9/11 attacks, they were initially open to a variety of other far-reaching measures to combat terrorism at home and abroad. In the days following the attack, for example, majorities favored a requirement that all citizens carry national ID cards, allowing the CIA to contract with criminals in pursuing suspected terrorists and permitting the CIA to conduct assassinations overseas when pursuing suspected terrorists.

Chart shows following 9/11, more Americans saw the necessity to sacrifice civil liberties in order to curb terrorism

However, most people drew the line against allowing the government to monitor their own emails and phone calls (77% opposed this). And while 29% supported the establishment of internment camps for legal immigrants from unfriendly countries during times of tension or crisis – along the lines of those in which thousands of Japanese American citizens were confined during World War II – 57% opposed such a measure.

It was clear that from the public’s perspective, the balance between protecting civil liberties and protecting the country from terrorism had shifted. In September 2001 and January 2002, 55% majorities said that, in order to curb terrorism in the U.S., it was necessary for the average citizen to give up some civil liberties. In 1997, just 29% said this would be necessary while 62% said it would not.

For most of the next two decades, more Americans said their bigger concern was that the government had not gone far enough in protecting the country from terrorism than said it went too far in restricting civil liberties.

The public also did not rule out the use of torture to extract information from terrorist suspects. In a 2015 survey of 40 nations, the U.S. was one of only 12 where a majority of the public said the use of torture against terrorists could be justified to gain information about a possible attack.

the war on terror essay

Views of Muslims, Islam grew more partisan in years after 9/11

Concerned about a possible backlash against Muslims in the U.S. in the days after 9/11, then-President George W. Bush gave a speech to the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., in which he declared: “Islam is peace.” For a brief period, a large segment of Americans agreed. In November 2001, 59% of U.S. adults had a favorable view of Muslim Americans, up from 45% in March 2001, with comparable majorities of Democrats and Republicans expressing a favorable opinion.

Chart shows Republicans increasingly say Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence

This spirit of unity and comity was not to last. In a September 2001 survey, 28% of adults said they had grown more suspicious of people of Middle Eastern descent; that grew to 36% less than a year later.

Republicans, in particular, increasingly came to associate Muslims and Islam with violence. In 2002, just a quarter of Americans – including 32% of Republicans and 23% of Democrats – said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers. About twice as many (51%) said it was not.

But within the next few years, most Republicans and GOP leaners said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence. Today, 72% of Republicans express this view, according to an August 2021 survey.

Democrats consistently have been far less likely than Republicans to associate Islam with violence. In the Center’s latest survey, 32% of Democrats say this. Still, Democrats are somewhat more likely to say this today than they have been in recent years: In 2019, 28% of Democrats said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers than other religions.

The partisan gap in views of Muslims and Islam in the U.S. is evident in other meaningful ways. For example, a 2017 survey found that half of U.S. adults said that “Islam is not part of mainstream American society” – a view held by nearly seven-in-ten Republicans (68%) but only 37% of Democrats. In a separate survey conducted in 2017, 56% of Republicans said there was a great deal or fair amount of extremism among U.S. Muslims, with fewer than half as many Democrats (22%) saying the same.

The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of 9/11 has had a profound effect on the growing number of Muslims living in the United States. Surveys of U.S. Muslims from 2007-2017 found increasing shares saying they have personally experienced discrimination and received public expression of support.

the war on terror essay

It has now been two decades since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 – where only the courage of passengers and crew possibly prevented an even deadlier terror attack.

For most who are old enough to remember, it is a day that is impossible to forget. In many ways, 9/11 reshaped how Americans think of war and peace, their own personal safety and their fellow citizens. And today, the violence and chaos in a country half a world away brings with it the opening of an uncertain new chapter in the post-9/11 era.

Facts are more important than ever

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Securitising the War On Terror

Foundry / Pixabay

When it comes to discussing the events of September 2001 between the members of my family, my mother always recalls how when she first saw coverage of the attacks in the television. For a longer while she thought she was watching just another action movie. It was only as she received a call from my father when she realised that the footage of planes crushing into a skyscraper or people jumping out of the windows desperately trying to save their lives, was in fact live footage from New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington, D. C. The series of events which certainly resembled a film more than the reality set in motion a process of deep changes in the consciousness of the mainstream public, introducing multiple sets of institutional practices (including military and intelligence operations, special government bodies or legislation) as well as an accompanying discursive project (Jackson, 2005). Although the atrocity of terrorism is undeniable and utterly horrendous, the method of dealing with it is an issue of contestation for many. According to Bonafede (2002, p. 162) state practice post-9/11 shifted towards a loosening of the proportionality regulation on the right to self-defence in terms of responding to international terrorism. Some important questions to consider here, include for instance whether the events of September 11 justify the extent of US military interventions around the globe? Was the American government still acting within the bounds of self-defence? Certainly those and many other questions are terribly difficult to give a simple answer to, as the concept of proportionality in international relations is deeply complex. This essay shall argue that the ‘war on terror’ was not a proportionate way to combat terrorism. It served as a mean of securitising global terrorism as a threat significant and dangerous enough to legitimise the extraordinary use of force undertaken by the American government. The formalisation of terrorism as a war can thus be considered as a crucial mode of naturalising a new social reality which allows for the use of extraordinary measures, effectively suspending the normal political functions of a state. This essay will make use of the securitisation theory developed by the Copenhagen School, which I shall elucidate in line with an analysis of the discourse of Bush’s administration, making use of the Foulcauldian concept of discourse, understood as a powerful set of assumptions, expectations or explanations, which define mainstream social or cultural reality through language and practices (Hodges, 2011).

The events of September 2001 can certainly be considered as one of the most ground-breaking in the 21st century history of the world, triggering profound military, political and diplomatic changes. In the morning of 11 September hijacked commercial planes destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York and parts of Pentagon, attacking the key economic and military symbols of American power, killing about 3000 people and injuring over 25 000 (Suganami, 2003 p.3, Morgan 2009, p.222). As Gokay and Walker (2003, p.1) explain “No one predicted the tragic events of 11 September. They were not inevitable but neither did they come out of blue. They were the product of long-term structural developments and conjectural individual actions that might have turned out differently.” In 2002, Osama bin Laden – the founder of al-Qaeda, wrote the “Letter to America” (2002) where he stated the motives for declaring the holy war against the US, which included American support of Israel or the sanctions and operations in Iraq, Somalia or India. Bin Laden’s messages point to his hope for ‘destroying and bankrupting’ the United States (bin Laden, 2004). According to a Watson Institute report, since 2001 it has cost the taxpayers over $6.4 trillion (Watson Institute, 2020).  The ‘war on terror’ certainly did not ‘bankrupt’ the American government, although statistics may prove that bin Laden did in fact achieve a great success.

The US struggle against terrorism exceeded American territory, resulting in increasing involvement in countries such as Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom), Yemen (multiple military strikes) or Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom). According to a report released by Neta C. Crawford of the Watson Institute (2018) an estimated of between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and over 500,000 people died in the Syrian War. Those numbers are however most likely a significant undercount, as it is difficult to track death toll considering for instance bodies that have not been recovered or ‘indirect deaths’ (such as those due to long term lack of water, food etc) (Crawford, 2018).  On top of that, the US-led wars have caused millions to flee the war zones their homes have become, seeking refuge in other countries.

Research shows, that the overwhelming majority of deaths from terrorism around the world is centred in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia – in 2017 95 per cent of terrorism-caused deaths occurred there, whereas deaths in Europe, the Americas and Oceania were less than 2 per cent (Ritchie et al., 2019) Most terrorism occurs in countries with high levels of internal conflicts, for instance Iraq and Syria combined accounted for almost 80 per cent of terrorism-caused deaths in the region and one-in-three globally (Ritchie et al., 2019). One might relatively easy draw a line, connecting this issue with US involvement in internal conflicts, or even directly causing them – this is however an issue for a separate analysis. Although the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks occurs in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, and the average  deaths in  for instance America, over the period 1996 to 2017 ranges around 0.006 per cent (with the exception of 2001 when less than 0.01 per cent of the deaths resulted from terrorism) half of the US population is worried about them or a family member becoming a victim of terrorism (Ritchie et al, 2019). Understandably, the concerns were spiking after major attacks in Western industrialised countries which got an extensive media coverage.  However, even in 2001, the number of deaths due to terrorism was significantly lower than for instance car-related accidents, gun crimes or suicides (Jackson, 2005, p. 157).  In the aftermath of the attacks, the Department of Homeland Security has been created in order to coordinate anti-terrorism efforts. Three days after the attack, the American Congress passed the Authorisation for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which granted the President the authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” to anybody who could be suspected of having any connections to terrorist operations (AUMF, 2001). A little while after, the USA Patriot Act has been signed, further strengthening the powers of the federal government.

According to Runciman (2006, p.11) the events of September 11 provided the Bush administration with a “convenient prop on which to hang a set of military and ideological objectives that had been identified well in advance”.  The ‘window of opportunity’ appeared, and the US government did not hesitate to use terrorism as an exemplary existential threat which oughts to be combated by any means. The national crisis provided citizens with an emotional and physical distraction, making them more likely to turn a blind eye (or often go through the nearest future with their eyes completely closed) to actions of the government which they normally would not accept.  The issue which might be quite important to look into here, is whether throughout the years terrorism really was a threat as serious as it has been portrayed. It can be argued that although it certainly has created a great amount of suffering and has caused unbelievable anguish to those directly affected by it, ‘war on terror’ was not an appropriate was to address terrorism.

Creating Discourses

According to Adam Hodges (2011, Introduction) the truth is “not simply an object external to social interaction; but rather, a form of knowledge emergent from that interaction”. Any event, although it actually does happen, does not however intrinsically contain its own interpretation.  The interpretation, conducted by the means of language provides the public with protagonists, motivations and explanations, thus creating a certain narrative which contains very powerful set of assumptions. For the purpose of this essay, the argument shall be largely based on Foucault’s understanding of the term discourse, referring not only to the sociolinguistic analysis of situated use of language, but also to discourse as  a “way of representing the knowledge about […] a particular topic at a particular historical moment” (Hall 1997, p. 44; Brown and Yule, 1983). James Paul Gee (1996, 2005) differentiates two notions of discourse, labelling them as ‘little d’ discourse and ‘big D’ discourse. The ‘little d’ discourse relates to the linguistic understanding of discourse , whereas the ‘big D’ discourse to the forms of cultural knowledge bound in specific language use (Gee, 1996, 2005; Hodges, 2011). The latter constitutes what is the Faulcauldian understanding of discourse, which moreover not only refers to objects of knowledge, but goes as far as constituting them (Hodges, 2011, Introduction).

According to Jackson (2005), through analysing public political discourse one might expose   certain power relations, a hierarchy of different forms of knowledge and ways through which power practices are legitimised and normalised. The use of language always represents some ideological perspective, it is never neutral. In Jackson’s (2005, p.148) words, “Political discourses […] have a reality-making effect” acting as “constructions of meaning that contribute to the production, reproduction, and transformation of relations of domination in society”. It can be argued thus that only with the help of this deliberately and carefully planned discourse was ‘war on terror’ possible as it normalised  counter-terrorism practices and legitimised extraordinary use of force.

The Copenhagen School and Security

The theory of securitisation on which the argument of this essay shall be largely based, has been developed by a group of scholars such as Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and other collaborators, whose collective work is referred to as the ‘Copenhagen School’. The theory arose as a product of a compromise between the orthodox realist understanding of the concept of security, which pays the utmost focus to the phenomenon of war, and the postmodernist widening conceptions of security as a historical and social construct (Romaniuk and Webb, 2015; Vultee, 2010; Williams, 2003).  The debate over the nature of security shifts towards the constructivist theories of International Relations, treating ‘security’ as the outcome of a specific process, rather than an objective condition (Williams, 2003, p 513). This process of securitisation of an issue can thus be defined as successfully casting an issue as an extraordinary existential threat, which calls for the suspension of normal political functions (Vultee, 2010; Wæver, 1995, p.55).  The construction of a security issue as an ‘existential threat’ is then analysed by looking into ‘securitising speech-acts’ which according to the Copenhagen School define and create threats (Williams, 2003, p 513). Those speech-acts are  then a fundamental part of creating a broader discourse which defines a certain social reality.

Securitising Global Terrorism

After the events of 9/11 the United States’ Homeland Security expenditures have increased significantly. As John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart (2011, Table I.1) explain, by 2011 the expenditures on domestic Homeland Security have increased by almost $360 billion since 2001. Additionally, the expenditures of federal national intelligence with a main goal of defeating global terrorism both within the territory of the United States and abroad increased by $110 billion, while state, local, and private-sector expenditures have gone up around $220 billion more (Mueller and Stewart, 2011, Introduction). The emergence of, what John Mueller (2006) calls, an entire ‘terrorism industry’: consultants, counter-terrorism experts and pundits, can be associated with sustaining the permanent war economy. According to Thomas K. Duncan and Christopher J. Coyne (2011; 2013) starting with World War II the United States’ government retains the character of a war economy even in times of peace.  The second half of the 20th century, largely marked by the bipolar world order and constant competition between two superpowers, provided the United States with a long-standing enemy – USSR – politically, economically and above all existentially threatening the country. According to Buzan (2006, p1101) the fall of the Soviet Union created a threat deficit on the part of the United States, to which “[t]he terrorist attacks of 9/11 offered a solution” providing a “long-term cure for Washington’s threat deficit”.

The events of 9/11 were quickly labelled as ‘acts of war’ to which the common sense way to respond was with a ‘war on terror’. It was not however a war on a specific organisation, and although al-Qaeda was the organisation most commonly associated with it, it was a war on virtually anybody that could be related to using terror tactics, what according to Romaniuk and Webb (2015, p 222) gave the American government “a carte blanche to involve American security forces around the globe in counterterrorism (CT) and counterinsurgency (COIN) operations”.  On 20 September 2001, just a few days after the attacks, George Bush (2001) said “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated”.  Given the construction of terrorism as an existential threat to the security, the   functioning and the very existence of Western democracies, the ‘war on terror’ became represented as the only possibility to effectively respond it. It emerged as the only way to properly deal with global terrorism, creating a ‘micro-framework’ within which a different scenario did not exist and even the criticism of the war has been conducted within the war framework (Vultee, 2010, p36). Identifying the opponent as terrorist, delegitimises their political goals, leaving no room for contestations over whether the state’s reaction is in fact legitimate   (Vultee, 2010, p 36). Having securitised the threat of global terrorism, the use of overwhelming force in the name of freedom, democracy and liberal values has been legitimised, and the American interests have been framed as universal principles (Buzan 2006; Romaniuk and Webb, 2015).  Romaniuk and Webb (2015, p. 223) identified the extraordinary measures as for instance: the military campaign and long-term presence in Iraq and Afghanistan; human rights violations, including torture and extreme forms of interrogation; reduction of civil liberties (phone-tapping, excessive surveillance, acceptance of excessive collateral damage in order to meet the objectives of the ‘war on terror’); targeted killing operations. The logics of exceptionality have convinced a significant part of the public to formally accept such actions as the only effective way to deal with transnational terrorism, leaving very little room for objections as to whether it was in fact a proportionate way to deal with it. It is however only once the mainstream public accepts it when a threat is successfully securitised. The following chapter will intend to demonstrate that in order to do so, the US administration has conducted a careful strategy of creating a broader cultural narrative to what has been happening.

The ‘War on Terror’ Narrative

An aspect very important to the process of securitisation, is that for an issue to be successfully securitised, the securitising actor must hold a great deal of power and therewith the capability to socially and politically construct a threat (Vultee, 2010, p34).  In order to get a good grasp of this process, it may be quite useful to come back to the Faucauldian concept of interdependence between power and knowledge, and his understanding of ‘big D’ Discourse . According to Richard Jackson (2005) the language of the ‘war on terror’ has been deliberately constructed to present it as the only reasonable, responsible and inherently ‘good’ response to terrorism. It provided the ‘official story’, accumulating into a broad cultural narrative.  Thus, for instance the events of 9/11 become ‘acts of war’ that launched a ‘war on terror’ (Hodges, 2011). The Narrative, situated within the genre or war, by establishing shared meanings constructs the social reality of a ‘nation at war’ which naturalises certain cultural understanding of terrorism, and what ought to be done with it (Hodges, 2011, Chapter 2).

Richard Jackson (2005, p.149) distinguished four elements of the process of creating the narrative of the ‘war on terrorism’: 1. Discursive construction of the events of 9/11,  2. Re-affirmation of new identities, 3. Construction of the threat of terrorism as an existential threat to Western Democracies, 4. Legitimisation of the concept of ‘good war’. Firstly, in order to create a general social discourse of terrorism a sense of communal victimhood has been awoken. The attacks of 9/11 became represented within a war narrative, rather than criminal justice-based narrative giving it a sensation of a supreme emergency justifying the extraordinary solutions to it. It has been put into the context of ‘clash of civilisations’ giving it a symbolic meaning of the eternal struggle of the ‘barbarians’ with the ‘civilised’. The West thus only exists in contract with the ‘Oriental’ Other what in Said’s terms creates an ever-lasting division between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Said, 1978). The perception of a political identity is thus based on the identification of an enemy, relating to the second element of Jackson’s analysis. The ‘us’ and ‘them’ are given certain inherent characteristics which make them do what they do. Clear divisions between ‘good’,’civilised’ ‘us’ and ‘evil’,‘barbaric’ ‘them’ serve as a powerful demagogic act of decontextualisation and dehistoricisation of terrorists’ actions, presented as lacking any political context and dehumanised. American people however are contrasted with ‘them’ as kind, loving, brave and heroic. The myth of ‘heroic Americans’ versus ‘cowardly terrorists’, is moreover strongly enforced in the popular culture. Thirdly, the events of 9/11 mark a beginning of a whole new ‘age of terrorism’. The ‘war on terror’ becomes a public display of military power, a struggle against the ‘threat to civilisation’, to ‘the very essence of what you do’ or ‘to our way of life’, providing the US government with a discourse of threat and danger. Finally, it is commonly represented within a meta-narrative of a ‘good war’ along with WWII or the Cold War. Counter-terrorism operations turn into a divinely sanctioned war. By bringing justice to the perpetrators, America by definition has God on its side what legitimises its actions.

This deliberately constructed Narrative leaves no questions for the mainstream public regarding the justness and validity of this ‘inherently Just War’. The specific language use creates and establishes cultural knowledge, providing the public with a notion of exceptionality and supremacy of the American culture which circumstantiated occasional use of force due to its supposedly inherently good intentions.

The ‘War on terror’ certainly is between the most broadly contested and discussed issues in the 21st century. It has had a deep influence on politics, society, international relations, popular culture and many more.  Although the atrocity of terrorism is undeniable, this essay argued, that the way it has been dealt with was not proportionate. ‘War on terror’ provided means of securitising global terrorism as an existential threat which had to be combated by any means necessary.  Bush’s administration discourse, representing the events of 9/11 within the genre of war, rather than of crime, allowed the securitisation of terrorism as a ‘threat to civilisation’, giving the American government almost total freedom in dealing with it, as it became a ‘supreme emergency’. Throughout the essay, the arguments have been elucidated in line with the theory of securitisation developed by scholars of the Copenhagen School, as well as an analysis of the common discourse regarding the narrative of the ‘war on terror’. It came to the conclusion, that the threat of global terrorism has been securitised through microlevel discursive actions creating an official, dominant frame of the state of affairs, which legitimised extraordinary use of force during the ‘war on terror’. The ideological hegemony, aided by its often almost frivolous, propaganda-like reproduction in popular culture and mainstream media, places the discussion about its proportionateness within the war framework. In Jackson’s words (2005, pp. 164-165) “The language powerfully combines World War II, Civilization Versus Barbarism, Good Versus Evil, and Just War narratives into a new super-narrative—a textual symphony—that legitimizes and normalizes the practice of American domestic and foreign policy.” One might draw a line between such super-narrative and the logics of exceptionality marking American policy, which as this essay intended to demonstrate, should be treated with a certain dose of wariness. Failing to acknowledge the context of terrorism and the reasons behind it, the search for more effective solutions   becomes practically impossible. By attributing it to pure ‘evilness’ one negates the real motivations and aims of the terrorists. One must not forget about the right to question the world and challenge what seems to be ‘natural’ in order to always reach towards possibly best solutions.

Bibliography

AUMF (2001) S.J.Res. 23 (107 th): Authorization for Use of Military Force. Available from: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/sjres23/text [Accessed 16/06/2020]

bin Laden, O. (2002) Full text: bin Laden’s ‘letter to America’ [Online] The Guardian Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver [Accessed 16/06/2020]

bin Laden, O. (2004) Full transcript of bin Ladin’s speech [Online] Al Jazeera Available from: https://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/200849163336457223.html?xif=%20online%20here [Accessed 16/06/2020]

Bonafede, M.,C. (2002) Here, There, and Everywhere: Assessing the Proportionality Doctrine and U.S. Uses of Force in Response to Terrorism after the September 11 Attacks , 88 Cornell L. Rev. 155

Brown, G., Yule, G. (1983) Discourse Analysis . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Bush, G. (2001) Transcript of President Bush’s address . 20 September 2001 Available here: http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/ [Accessed 15/06/2020] 

Buzan, B (2006) Will the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ be the New Cold War? International Affairs, 82(6) pp 1101-18

Crawford, N., C. (2018) Human Cost of the Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for Transparency. Costs of War. Watson Institute. Brown University

Duncan, T., K., Coyne, Ch., J. (2011) The Overlooked Costs of the Permanent War Economy: A Market Process Approach. George Mason University. Department of Economics

Duncan, T., K., Coyne, Ch., J. (2013) The Origins of the Permanent War Economy. The Independent Review 18(2) pp. 219-240

Gee, J. P.  (1996) Social Linguistics and Literacies.: Ideology in Discourse (2nd ed.). London: Taylor and Francis.

Gee, J., P.  (2005) An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. New York: Routledge.

Gokay, B., Walker, R., B., J (2003) 11 September 2001: War, Terror and Judgement. Taylor & Francis Group, London.

Jackson, R. (2005) Security, Democracy, and the Rhetoric of Counter-Terrorism. Democracy and Security. 1(2) pp.147-171

Hall, S. (1997) The Work of Representation. In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, Stuart Hall (ed.), 13–74. London, Sage.

Hodges, A. (2011) The “War on Terror” Narrative: Discourse and Intertextuality in the Construction and Contestation of Sociopolitical Reality. Oxford University Press, New York;Oxford

Klein, N. (2007) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism . Toronto, Alfred A. Knopf Canada.

Morgan, M., J. (2009) The Impact of 9/11 on Politics and War: The Day that Changed Everything? Palgrave Macmillan

Mueller, J. (2006) Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them . New York, Free Press

Mueller, J., Stewart, M. G. (2011) Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security. Oxford University Press, New York.

Ritchie, H., Hasell, J., Appel, C., Roser, M. (2019) Terrorism . [Online] Our World in Data. Available from: https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#which-regions-experience-the-most-terrorism [Accessed 17/06/2020]

Romaniuk, S. N., Webb, S. T. (2015) Extraordinary Measures: Drone Warfare, Securitization, and the “War on Terror”. Slovak Journal of Political Science, 15 (3) pp 221- 245

Runciman, D. (2006) The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the New World Order. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Said, E. (1978) Orientalism . New York: Pantheon Books

Suganami, H. (2003) Reflections on 11 September. In 11 September 2001: War, Terror and Judgement. Edited by Gokay, B., Walker, R., B., J (2003) pp. 3-12 Taylor & Francis Group, London.

Vultee, F. (2010) Securitisation. A New Approach to the Framing of the War on Terror” Journalism Practice, 4(1) pp 33-47

Watson Institute (2020) Summary of War Spending, in Billions of Current Dollars . Costs of War. Watson Institute [Online] Available from: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2019/budgetary-costs-post-911-wars-through-fy2020-64-trillion [Accessed 18/06/2020]

Wæver, O. (1995) Securitization and Desecuritization. In On Security , edited by R. Lipschutz, pp. 46–86. New York: Columbia University Press

Williams, M. C. (2003) Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics. International Studies Quarterly, 47, pp 511-531

Written at: Technische Universität Dresden Written for: Stefan Schmitt Date written: June 2020

Further Reading on E-International Relations

  • The Meaning of US Drone Warfare in the War on Terror
  • ‘Illegal Criminals Invading’: Securitising Asylum-Seekers in Australia and the US
  • The Spread of Islamic Terror in the Contemporary World
  • Incubators of Terror: Anatomising the Determinants of Domestic Terrorism
  • Fighting over War: Change and Continuity in the Nature and Character of War
  • Are We at War? The Politics of Securitizing the Coronavirus

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the war on terror essay

the war on terror essay

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A Timeline of the U.S.-Led War on Terror

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 5, 2020 | Original: February 1, 2019

the war on terror essay

As much of the nation was just starting the day on the morning of September 11, 2001 , 19 terrorists hijacked four East Coast flights, crashing three of the airplanes into targets in New York and Washington, D.C., with the fourth plane slamming into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back. 

In the end, 2,977 people died, making it the deadliest attack on U.S. soil in history.

The al Qaeda -led attacks prompted President George W. Bush to announce a global “War on Terror” military campaign, in which he called on world leaders to join the U.S. in its response.

“Every nation in every region now has a decision to make,” he said in a national address. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

Below is a timeline of notable events.

America Responds to 9/11

•  Sept. 11, 2001 : Terrorists hijack four U.S. planes, crashing two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, while a third hits the U.S. Pentagon minutes later. The fourth plane, targeted to hit the White House, crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers attacked the terrorists. The death toll, not including the `9 hijackers, was 2,977.

•  Sept. 12, 2001 : Bush addresses the nation, announcing war and stating : “The United States of America will use all our resources to conquer this enemy. We will rally the world. We will be patient. We’ll be focused, and we will be steadfast in our determination. This battle will take time and resolve, but make no mistake about it, we will win.”

•  Sept. 20, 2001 : In a speech addressing Congress and the nation, Bush announces the War on Terror , saying, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

•  Sept. 25, 2001 : Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces the anti-terror campaign as “Operation Enduring Freedom,” which he says will take years to fight. The following day, Saudi Arabia ends diplomatic ties with Afghanistan’s Taliban government.

War in Afghanistan Begins

•  Oct. 7, 2001 : Airstrikes by the United States and Great Britain are launched in Afghanistan at Taliban and al Qaeda training camps and targets. “What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted,” al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden says in a video statement released the same day. “Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed, and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.”

•  Oct. 19-20, 2001 : The ground war begins, with special forces striking in Kandahar. In the coming weeks, Britain, Turkey, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, France and Poland all announce they will deploy troops to Afghanistan.

•  Nov. 9, 2001 : The Afghan Northern Alliance captures Mazar-e-Sharif, a Taliban stronghold. 

• Nov. 13, 2001 : Kabul falls following airstrikes and ground attacks by the United States and Afghan Northern Alliance.

• Dec. 6-17, 2001: The Battle of Tora Bora rages in a cave complex in Eastern Afghanistan’s White Mountains. U.S.-led coalition forces attempt to capture al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but he escapes.

• Dec. 7, 2001: Kandahar, the last major stronghold of the Taliban, falls.

•  Feb. 21, 2002 : A video confirms the execution -style death of Wall Street Journal reporter  Daniel Pearl  by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

•  June 13, 2002 : Hamid Karzai, a favored candidate of the U.S., is elected by a traditional Afghan Loya Jirga council to a two-year term as Afghanistan’s transitional head of state. In 2004, he becomes Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president.

Iraq War Begins

•  March 19, 2003 : U.S. and coalition forces invade Iraq following intelligence that the country and its dictator, Saddam Hussein, possessed or were developing weapons of mass destruction.

• May 1, 2003 : Bush delivers a speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln proclaiming, “ Mission Accomplished ,” saying that major combat efforts for the war in Iraq will end. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on,” he says.

•  Aug. 19, 2003 : Twenty-three people, including a top United Nations official, are killed and 100 wounded after a suicide bomber drives a truck into UN headquarters in Baghdad.

• Dec 13, 2003: Saddam Hussein is captured by U.S. soldiers in ad-Dawr, Iraq.

•  March 11, 2004 : A coordinated bombing of four commuter trains in Madrid kills 191 people and injures more than 2000. Islamic militants, based in Spain but inspired by al Qaeda, are later considered the prime suspects.

•  July 7, 2005 : Terrorist bombings on the London Underground and atop a double-decker bus kill 52 people and injure more than 700. Documents recovered in 2012 will reveal the attacks were planned by a British citizen working for al Qaeda.

Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden Killed

•  Dec. 30, 2006 : After being sentenced to death by hanging for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Saddam Hussein is executed in Baghdad.

•  June 30, 2009 : Sgt. Bowe R. Bergdahl walks away from his post in Afghanistan and is kidnapped by the Taliban. Released in 2014, he is later dishonorably discharged.

•  Aug. 30, 2010 : In an Oval Office address, President Barack Obama declares an end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq.

•  May 2, 2011 : Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. special operations forces during a raid at an Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.

•  June 22, 2011 : In a televised address, Obama announces a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and a hand-over of power to Afghani security by 2014.

•  August 2011 : Thirty-eight service members are killed when the helicopter they are aboard comes under fire. This month becomes the deadliest ever for U.S. forces in Afghanistan with 66 fatalities.

•  Dec. 28, 2014 : The War in Afghanistan officially ends , though Obama states 10,800 U.S. troops will remain.

•  Jan. 28, 2019 : The U.S. and Taliban leaders work toward an agreement for the withdrawal of the 14,000 U.S. troops who remain in Afghanistan. 

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14.5 War and Terrorism

Learning objectives.

  • Distinguish international war and civil war.
  • List the major types of terrorism.
  • Evaluate the law enforcement and structural-reform approaches for dealing with terrorism.

War and terrorism are both forms of armed conflict that aim to defeat an opponent. Although war and terrorism have been part of the human experience for thousands of years, their manifestation in the contemporary era is particularly frightening, thanks to evermore powerful weapons, including nuclear arms, that threaten human existence. Because governments play a fundamental role in both war and terrorism, a full understanding of politics and government requires examination of key aspects of these two forms of armed conflict. We start with war and then turn to terrorism.

Wars occur both between nations and within nations, when two or more factions engage in armed conflict. War between nations is called international war , while war within nations is called civil war . The most famous civil war to Americans, of course, is the American Civil War, also called the War Between the States, that pitted the North against the South from 1861 through 1865. More than 600,000 soldiers on both sides died on the battlefield or from disease, a number that exceeds American deaths in all the other wars the United States has fought. More than 100 million soldiers and civilians are estimated to have died during the international and civil wars of the 20th century (Leitenberg, 2006). Many novels and films depict the heroism with which soldiers fight, while other novels and films show the horror that war entails. As Sydney H. Schanberg (2005), a former New York Times reporter who covered the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, has bluntly observed, “‘History,’ Hegel said, ‘is a slaughterhouse.’ And war is how the slaughter is carried out.”

Explaining War

Men in the army working on target practice

Scholars have attempted to explain why human beings wage war. A popular explanation comes from the field of evolutionary biology and claims that a tendency toward warfare is hardwired into our genetic heritage because it conferred certain evolutionary advantages.

Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

The enormity of war has stimulated scholarly interest in why humans wage war. A popular explanation for war derives from evolutionary biology. According to this argument, war is part of our genetic heritage because the humans who survived tens of thousands of years ago were those who were most able, by virtue of their temperament and physicality, to take needed resources from other humans they attacked and to defend themselves from attackers. In this manner, a genetic tendency for physical aggression and warfare developed and thus still exists today. In support of this evolutionary argument, some scientists note that chimpanzees and other primates also engage in group aggression against others of their species (Wrangham, 2004).

However, other scientists dispute the evolutionary explanation for several reasons (Begley, 2009; Roscoe, 2007). First, the human brain is far more advanced than the brains of other primates, and genetic instincts that might drive their behavior do not necessarily drive human behavior. Second, many societies studied by anthropologists have been very peaceful, suggesting that a tendency to warfare is more cultural than biological. Third, most people are not violent, and most soldiers have to be resocialized (in boot camp or its equivalent) to overcome their deep moral convictions against killing; if warlike tendencies were part of human genetic heritage, these convictions would not exist.

If warfare is not biological in origin, then it is best understood as a social phenomenon, one that has its roots in the decisions of political and military officials. Sometimes, as with the U.S. entrance into World War II after Pearl Harbor, these decisions are sincere and based on a perceived necessity to defend a nation’s people and resources, and sometimes these decisions are based on cynicism and deceit. A prime example of the latter dynamic is the Vietnam War. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, in which Congress authorized President Lyndon Johnson to wage an undeclared war in Vietnam, was passed after North Vietnamese torpedo boats allegedly attacked U.S. ships. However, later investigation revealed that the attack never occurred and that the White House lied to Congress and the American people (Wells, 1994). Four decades later, questions of possible deceit were raised after the United States began the war against Iraq because of its alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. These weapons were never found, and critics charged that the White House had fabricated and exaggerated evidence of the weapons in order to win public and congressional support for the war (Danner, 2006).

The Cost of War

Beyond its human cost, war also has a heavy financial cost. From 2003 through 2010, the war in Iraq cost the United States some $750 billion (O’Hanlon & Livingston, 2010); from 2001 through 2010, the war in Afghanistan cost the United States more than $300 billion (Mulrine, 2010). These two wars thus cost almost $1.1 trillion combined, for an average of $100 billion per year during this period. This same yearly amount could have paid for one year’s worth (California figures) of all the following (National Priorities Project, 2010):

  • 231,000 police officers,
  • 11.4 million children receiving low-income health care (Medicaid),
  • 2.6 million students receiving full tuition scholarships at state universities,
  • 2.5 million Head Start slots for children, and
  • 280,000 elementary school teachers.

These trade-offs bring to mind President Eisenhower’s famous observation, quoted in Chapter 13 “Work and the Economy” , that “every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” War indeed has a heavy human cost, not only in the numbers of dead and wounded, but also in the diversion of funds from important social functions.

Terrorism is hardly a new phenomenon, but Americans became horrifyingly familiar with it on September 11, 2001, when about 3,000 people died after planes hijacked by Middle Eastern terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. The attacks on 9/11 remain in the nation’s consciousness, and many readers may know someone who died on that terrible day. The attacks also spawned a vast national security network that now reaches into almost every aspect of American life. This network is so secretive, so huge, and so expensive that no one really knows precisely how large it is and how much it costs (Priest & Arkin, 2010). Questions of how best to deal with terrorism continue to be debated, and there are few, if any, easy answers to these questions.

Not surprisingly, sociologists and other scholars have written many articles and books about terrorism. This section draws on their work to discuss the definition of terrorism, the major types of terrorism, explanations for terrorism, and strategies for dealing with terrorism. An understanding of all these issues is essential to make sense of the concern and controversy about terrorism that exists throughout the world today.

Defining Terrorism

A firefighter standing in the remnants of the twin towers

As the attacks on 9/11 remind us, terrorism involves the use of indiscriminate violence to instill fear in a population and thereby win certain political, economic, or social objectives.

Cliff – September 11th, 2001 – CC BY 2.0.

There is an old saying that “one person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist.” This saying indicates one of the defining features of terrorism but also some of the problems in coming up with a precise definition of it. Some years ago, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) waged a campaign of terrorism against the British government and its people as part of its effort to drive the British out of Northern Ireland. Many people in Northern Ireland and elsewhere hailed IRA members as freedom fighters, while many other people condemned them as cowardly terrorists. Although most of the world labeled the 9/11 attacks as terrorism, some individuals applauded them as acts of heroism. These examples indicate that there is only a thin line, if any, between terrorism on the one hand and freedom fighting and heroism on the other hand. Just as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so is terrorism. The same type of action is either terrorism or freedom fighting, depending on who is characterizing the action.

Although dozens of definitions of terrorism exist, most take into account what are widely regarded as the three defining features of terrorism: (a) the use of violence; (b) the goal of making people afraid; and (c) the desire for political, social, economic, and/or cultural change. A popular definition by political scientist Ted Robert Gurr (1989, p. 201) captures these features: “the use of unexpected violence to intimidate or coerce people in the pursuit of political or social objectives.”

Types of Terrorism

When we think about this definition, 9/11 certainly comes to mind, but there are, in fact, several kinds of terrorism—based on the identity of the actors and targets of terrorism—to which this definition applies. A typology of terrorism again by Gurr (1989) is popular: (a) vigilante terrorism, (b) insurgent terrorism, (c) transnational (or international) terrorism, and (d) state terrorism.

Vigilante terrorism is committed by private citizens against other private citizens. Sometimes the motivation is racial, ethnic, religious, or other hatred, and sometimes the motivation is to resist social change. The violence of racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan was vigilante terrorism, as was the violence used for more than two centuries by white Europeans against Native Americans. What we now call “hate crime” is a contemporary example of vigilante terrorism.

Insurgent terrorism is committed by private citizens against their own government or against businesses and institutions seen as representing the “establishment.” Insurgent terrorism is committed by both left-wing groups and right-wing groups and thus has no political connotation. U.S. history is filled with insurgent terrorism, starting with some of the actions the colonists waged against British forces before and during the American Revolution, when “the meanest and most squalid sort of violence was put to the service of revolutionary ideals and objectives” (Brown, 1989, p. 25). An example here is tarring and feathering: hot tar and then feathers were smeared over the unclothed bodies of Tories. Some of the labor violence committed after the Civil War also falls under the category of insurgent terrorism, as does some of the violence committed by left-wing groups during the 1960s and 1970s. A relatively recent example of right-wing insurgent terrorism is the infamous 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols that killed 168 people.

Transnational terrorism is committed by the citizens of one nation against targets in another nation. This is the type that has most concerned Americans at least since 9/11, yet 9/11 was not the first time Americans had been killed by international terrorism. A decade earlier, a truck bombing at the World Trade Center killed six people and injured more than 1,000 others. In 1988, 189 Americans were among the 259 passengers and crew who died when a plane bound for New York exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland; agents from Libya were widely thought to have planted the bomb. Despite all these American deaths, transnational terrorism has actually been much more common in several other nations: London, Madrid, and various cities in the Middle East have frequently been the targets of international terrorists.

State terrorism involves violence by a government that is meant to frighten its own citizens and thereby stifle their dissent. State terrorism may involve mass murder, assassinations, and torture. Whatever its form, state terrorism has killed and injured more people than all the other kinds of terrorism combined (Wright, 2007). Genocide, of course is the most deadly type of state terrorism, but state terrorism also occurs on a smaller scale. As just one example, the violent response of Southern white law enforcement officers to the civil rights protests of the 1960s amounted to state terrorism, as officers murdered or beat hundreds of activists during this period. Although state terrorism is usually linked to authoritarian regimes, many observers say that the U.S. government also engaged in state terror during the 19th century, when U.S. troops killed thousands of Native Americans (Brown, 1971).

Many jewish men being held in a concentration camp. They are so skinny that their rib cages and face bones are very evident

Genocide is the most deadly type of state terrorism. The Nazi holocaust killed some 6 million Jews and 6 million other people.

Explaining Terrorism

Why does terrorism occur? It is easy to assume that terrorists must have psychological problems that lead them to have sadistic personalities, and that they are simply acting irrationally and impulsively. However, most scholars agree that terrorists are psychologically normal despite their murderous violence and, in fact, are little different from other types of individuals who use violence for political ends. As one scholar observed,

Most terrorists are no more or less fanatical than the young men who charged into Union cannonfire at Gettysburg or those who parachuted behind German lines into France. They are no more or less cruel and coldblooded than the Resistance fighters who executed Nazi officials and collaborators in Europe, or the American GI’s ordered to “pacify” Vietnamese villages. (Rubenstein, 1987, p. 5)

Contemporary terrorists tend to come from well-to-do families and to be well-educated themselves; ironically, their social backgrounds are much more advantaged in these respects than are those of common street criminals, despite the violence they commit.

If terrorism cannot be said to stem from individuals’ psychological problems, then what are its roots? In answering this question, many scholars say that terrorism has structural roots. In this view, terrorism is a rational response, no matter horrible it may be, to perceived grievances regarding economic, social, and/or political conditions (LaFree & Dugan, 2009). The heads of the U.S. 9/11 Commission, which examined the terrorist attacks of that day, reflected this view in the following assessment:

We face a rising tide of radicalization and rage in the Muslim world—a trend to which our own actions have contributed. The enduring threat is not Osama bin Laden but young Muslims with no jobs and no hope, who are angry with their own governments and increasingly see the United States as an enemy of Islam. (Kean & Hamilton, 2007, p. B1)

As this assessment indicates, structural conditions do not justify terrorism, of course, but they do help explain why some individuals decide to commit it.

Stopping Terrorism

Efforts to stop terrorism take two forms (White, 2012). The first form involves attempts to capture known terrorists and to destroy their camps and facilities and is commonly called a law enforcement or military approach. The second form stems from the recognition of the structural roots of terrorism just described and is often called a structural-reform approach. Each approach has many advocates among terrorism experts, and each approach has many critics.

Law enforcement and military efforts have been known to weaken terrorist forces, but terrorist groups have persisted despite these measures. Worse yet, these measures may ironically inspire terrorists to commit further terrorism and increase public support for their cause. Critics also worry that the military approach endangers civil liberties, as the debate over the U.S. response to terrorism since 9/11 so vividly illustrates (Cole & Lobel, 2007). This debate took an interesting turn in late 2010 amid the increasing use of airport scanners that generate body images. Many people criticized the scanning as an invasion of privacy, and they also criticized the invasiveness of the “pat-down” searches that were used for people who chose not to be scanned (Reinberg, 2010).

In view of all these problems, many terrorism experts instead favor the structural-reform approach, which they say can reduce terrorism by improving or eliminating the conditions that give rise to the discontent that leads individuals to commit terrorism. Here again the assessment of the heads of the 9/11 Commission illustrates this view:

We must use all the tools of U.S. power—including foreign aid, educational assistance and vigorous public diplomacy that emphasizes scholarship, libraries and exchange programs—to shape a Middle East and a Muslim world that are less hostile to our interests and values. America’s long-term security relies on being viewed not as a threat but as a source of opportunity and hope. (Kean & Hamilton, 2007, p. B1)

Key Takeaways

  • War takes an enormous human and financial toll. Many critics dispute the evolutionary argument that a tendency toward warfare is hardwired into human genetics.
  • Terrorism involves the use of intimidating violence to achieve political ends. Whether a given act of violence is perceived as terrorism or as freedom fighting often depends on whether someone approves of the goal of the violence.
  • The law enforcement/military approach to countering terrorism may weaken terrorist groups, but it also may increase their will to fight and popular support for their cause and endanger civil liberties.

For Your Review

  • Do you think the evolutionary explanation of warfare makes sense? Why or why not?
  • Which means of countering terrorism do you prefer more, the law enforcement/military approach or the structural-reform approach? Explain your answer.

Toward a More Perfect Union: What Sociology Suggests

Sociological theory and research are once again relevant for addressing certain issues raised by studies of politics and government. Several issues especially come to mind.

The first is the possible monopolization and misuse of power by a relatively small elite composed of the powerful or the “haves,” as they are often called. If elite theories are correct, this small elite takes advantage of its place at the top of American society and its concomitant wealth, power, and influence to benefit its own interests. Sociological work that supports the assumptions of elite theories does not necessarily imply any specific measures to reduce the elite’s influence, but it does suggest the need for consumer groups and other public-interest organizations to remain vigilant about elite misuse of power and to undertake efforts to minimize this misuse.

The second issue is the lack of political participation from the segments of American society that traditionally have very little power: the poor, the uneducated, and people of color. Because voting and other forms of political participation are much more common among the more educated and wealthy segments of society, the relative lack of participation by those without power helps ensure that they remain without power. Sociological research on political participation thus underscores the need to promote voting and other political participation by the poor and uneducated if American democratic and egalitarian ideals are to be achieved. This need also applies to reversing the disenfranchisement of felons, as discussed in the “Sociology Making a Difference” box that appeared earlier in this chapter.

A third issue is how best to counter terrorism. Sociology’s emphasis on the need to address the structural roots of social issues has been a theme of this book and was first highlighted in the discussion of the sociological imagination in Chapter 1 “Sociology and the Sociological Perspective” . This emphasis is reflected in the structural-reform strategy for countering terrorism discussed in Chapter 14 “Politics and Government” , Section 14.5 “War and Terrorism” . Efforts to counter terrorism that do not address the structural conditions underlying many acts of terrorism ultimately help ensure that new acts of terrorism will arise. To say this is not meant to excuse or justify any terrorism, but it is meant to recognize an important reality that must be kept in mind as the world continues to deal with the threat of terrorism.

Begley, S. (2009, June 29). Don’t blame the caveman. Newsweek 52–62.

Brown, D. A. (1971). Bury my heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian history of the American West . New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Brown, R. M. (1989). Historical patterns of violence. In T. R. Gurr (Ed.), Violence in America: Protest, rebellion, reform (Vol. 2, pp. 23–61). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Cole, D., & Lobel, J. (2007). Less safe, less free: Why America is losing the war on terror . New York, NY: New Press.

Danner, M. (2006). The secret way to war: The Downing Street memo and the Iraq War’s buried history . New York, NY: New York Review of Books.

Gurr, T. R. (1989). Political terrorism: Historical antecedents and contemporary trends. In T. R. Gurr (Ed.), Violence in America: Protest, rebellion, reform (Vol. 2, pp. 201–230). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Kean, T. H., & Hamilton, L. H. (2007, September 9). Are we safer today? The Washington Post , p. B1.

LaFree, G., & Dugan, L. (2009). Research on terrorism and countering terrorism. Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, 39 , 413–477.

Leitenberg, M. (2006). Deaths in wars and conflicts in the 20th century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Peace Studies Program.

Mulrine, A. (2010, June 11). Will cost of Afghanistan War become a 2010 campaign issue? U.S.News & World Report . Retrieved from http://politics.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/2006/2011/will-cost-of-afghanistan-war-become-a-2010-campaign-issue.html .

National Priorities Project. (2010). Federal budget trade-offs. Retrieved from http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs?location_type=1&state=6&program=707&tradeoff_ item_item=999&submit_tradeoffs=Get+Trade+Off .

O’Hanlon, M. E., & Livingston, I. (2010). Iraq index: Tracking variables of reconstruction & security in post-Saddam Iraq . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Priest, D., & Arkin, W. M. (2010, July 20). A hidden world, growing beyond control. The Washington Post , p. A1.

Reinberg, S. (2010, November 23). Airport body scanners safe, experts say. BusinessWeek . Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/646395.html .

Roscoe, P. (2007). Intelligence, coalitional killing, and the antecedents of war. American Anthropologist, 109 (3), 487–495.

Rubenstein, R. E. (1987). Alchemists of revolution: Terrorism in the modern world . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Schanberg, S. H. (2005, May 10). Not a pretty picture. The Village Voice , p. 1.

Wells, T. (1994). The war within: America’s battle over Vietnam . Berkeley: University of California Press.

White, J. R. (2012). Terrorism and homeland security: An introduction (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Wrangham, R. W. (2004). Killer species. Daedalus, 133 (4), 25–35.

Wright, T. C. (2007). State terrorism in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and international human rights . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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War on terror.

War and Peace: The War on Terror The first time "war on terror" was used was in the aftermath of the infamous 9/11 al Qaeda attack. Even though this phrase has been used severally in passing to describe a wide variety of aims, policy guidelines and actions, the major moves made specifically under the direct explanation of the phrase is much more complex than just words. There are two major goals of the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which was established in 2006. The short-term aim of this strategy is to bring about a quick end to the al Qaeda group while its long-term aim is to create a worldwide intolerance for any form of terrorist groups and their affiliates. The objective of this study is to determine if the aims of this strategy and other programs on the front line on the war on terror has been achieved. To do….

Belasco, Amy. Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11. Diane Publishing, 2009.

Crawford, Neta. "US Costs of Wars Through 2014: $4.4 Trillion and Counting." Boston University (2014).

Dobrot, Laurence A. The Global War on Terrorism: A Religious War? ARMY WAR COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA, 2007.

Goepner, Erik W. "Measuring the effectiveness of America's war on terror." Parameters 46, no. 1 (2016): 107.

War on Terror -- Noam

In my opinion, the 'war on terror' like all other wars is irrational and the mainstream media is not playing an objective role in getting the average American involved in the matter. If terrorism as defined in some strict sense does not exist, on what exactly is the war all about? The needs to answer this question and to have faith and belief in the government are confusing and require correct information and deliberation by the people. In the Town Hall.com's article, Chavez clearly disagrees with the very action of raising a question when she said nothing about the justifications done by the Federal Government in engaging the nation to a protracted war, where this war clearly is not and will never benefit the people. In addition, how will questioning the validity of invading two sovereign nations, be a threat to one's own government? The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives….

Chomsky, Noam. "There Is No War on Terror." December 23, 2005. Interview by Geov Parrish.

Chomsky, Noam. "On 9-11, Noam Chomsky debates with Bill Bennett." 30 May 2002.

CNN. 9 November 2008.

Zbigniew, Brzezinski. "Terrorized by 'War on Terror', How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America." 25 March 2007. The Washington Post. 9 November 2008.

War on Terror the Conflict

(enner, 2002, p. 26) The Taliban committed millions of acts of fundamentalist-based violence. They isolated women, forced them to wear the Burka, the most conservative of Islamic veils, closed girls schools, forced women to stop working and beat people on the street for even the most minor infractions. Additionally they devastated the cultural history of the nation and added to the general destruction of the nation. The Overthrow of the Taliban by U.S. Invasion The Taliban was not overthrown until around 2001, when the U.S. invaded the nation, with UN forces, post the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The Taliban, who had never been recognized by most foreign nations as the legitimate government of Afghanistan refused to turn over the leader of Al Qaeda who was reported to be hiding there and being sheltered and aided by the Taliban. Though the regime toppled under U.S. force, the devastation of their wake was felt in….

Assifi, a.T. (1982). The Russian Rope: Soviet Economic Motives and the Subversion of Afghanistan. World Affairs, 145(3), 253-266.

Carpenter, T.G. (1994). The Unintended Consequences of Afghanistan. World Policy Journal, 11(1), 76-87.

Afghanistan. (2007). In the Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.

Donini, a., Niland, N., & Wermester, K. (Eds.). (2004). Nation-Building Unraveled? Aid, Peace and Justice in Afghanistan. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

War on Terror in Afghanistan

Others say Omar "was chosen by God," Rashid writes. hen interviewed by a journalist from Pakistan (Rahimullah Yousufzai) after taking control of Kabul, according to Rashid's book, Omar stated, "e had complete faith in God Almighty. e never forgot that. He can bless us with victory or plunge us into defeat." Omar was born around 1959 (albeit much of his life is carefully guarded in secrecy), he has only one eye, and he never meets with or speaks with anyone who is not Muslim. He was born into a "family of poor, landless peasants who were members of the Hotak tribe" (Rashid, 25). The Rashid book (24-25) describes him as a "tall, well-built man with a long, black beard and a black turban." He has a "dry sense of humor and a sarcastic wit," albeit he is "extremely shy of outsiders" and is a "poor public speaker," according to Rashid on….

Works Cited

Afghanistans. (2008). Afghanistan History. Retrieved March 22, 2009, at  http://www.afghanistans.com/information/history/default.htm .

Bhatia, Michael. (2007). The Future of the Mujahideen: Legitimacy, Legacy and Demobilization in Post-Bonn Afghanistan. International Peacekeeping, 14(1), 90-107.

Cogan, Charles G. (2008). Afghanistan: Partners in Time. World Policy Journal, 3(25), 153-156.

Gibbs, David N. (2006). Reassessing Soviet Motives for Invading Afghanistan: A Declassified

War on Terror and Racial Profiling Ten

War on Terror and Racial Profiling Ten years removed from the horrific and fatal attacks launched by Al-Qaeda on 9-11, U.S. leadership continues to grapple with the challenges and complexities of protecting our nation from terrorist threats. Domestic security agencies such as the FBI utilize a myriad of information sources, channels, and platforms to collect intelligence which may prove useful in unlocking potential clues to homeland security threats. One of these essential tools is the gathering of data based on certain demographic characteristics: "certain terrorist and criminal groups target particular ethnic and geographic communities for victimization and/or recruitment purposes, this reality must be taken into account when determining if there are threats to the United States" (Knickerbocker, B. October 21, 2011. P.2). While the FBI views this activity as essential in the prevention of domestic terrorist attacks, civil liberties groups denounce the practice as "industrial scale racial profiling" (Knickerbocker, B. October….

War on Terror the Transcript

Democracy can be imposed only if the right example is given in this sense. Torture is always completely arbitrary in the sense that you never know whether the person you are working it on is actually a terrorist or, perhaps, an innocent victim. The testimonies given by some of the prisoners are clear to show this. The testimonies given in the transcription are those of different prisoners that have experienced the conditions in these secret CIA centres of detention. It is difficult not to be impressed by everything the victims have told the radio. The structure of their presentations follows the general forms of violent interrogations. For example, Binyam Mohamed tells us about his interrogation and describes it as almost the interrogators wanted to hear specific denunciations on his behalf and almost as if the torture was senseless after a point where the victim was already unable to provide any more….

War on Terror Intro Given Recent Events

War on Terror INTRO: Given recent events, it would be impossible to write this essay without first acknowledging the biggest victory in the War on Terror since its inception, the targeted assassination of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALS. With the kingpin of al-Qaeda, and mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the United States, officially out of the picture, the world is a better place. Yet, a "better" place does not necessarily mean a "safer" place. There are still radicals and Islamic fundamentalists (Jihadists and Ba'athists) and enemies of the United States who would like to see this country suffer and who will stop at nothing to see their terrorist plans actualized. In short, the world is still a dangerous place. With that in mind we must continue to safeguard this country from terrorist attacks and it is the thesis of this essay to investigate ways in which….

War on Terror We Need

" (Meyer, 2009, p. 10) He argues that the Bush Administration forcefully framed the terms of the debate about the response to the terrorist threat and critics of his policy "missed an opportunity to advance broader political agendas." (Meyer, 2009, p. 10) The idea of fighting back with soft power and a law enforcement approach was ridiculed by those in power and made to seem as illegitimate way of attacking the terrorists. The concept of a "war on terror" is difficult to explain because terrorism is a tactic, not a definable group of people. Airplanes, missiles, tanks, and infantry cannot defeat terror, and the ability to use terrorism is in the hands of small groups or even individuals, which again makes it hard to fight war against it. Also, unlike past American wars against distinct groups or nations, the war on terror relies on people agreeing on what defines terror itself.….

Due to the negative aspects of the war on terror -- the pre-mature declaration of "mission accomplished," the abuses at Abu Gharib, the questionable legality of Guantanamo Bay, the warrantless wiretaps at home, and the difficulty in beating down the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan -- by Bush's second term, the idea of the war on terror was losing some of its luster in the United States. In the presidential election year of 2008, the Democratic candidate Barack Obama refused to refer to the campaign against terrorists as the "war on terror" because the term had become so weighted down with negative connotations, and by not using it, he was signaling a change in approach. Once elected, Obama referred to the ongoing struggle as the "Overseas Contingency Operation."

In a very interesting article in the journal American Behavioral Scientist, David S. Meyer (2009) argues that the idea of a war on terror was not inevitable, and an alternative response could have been fashioned around so-called "soft power" measures. These could have included "expanded funding for language instruction and comparative religion in American schools, improved training for first responders in medical emergencies, and an overhaul of the health care system to provide rapid responses to crises." (Meyer, 2009, p. 10) He argues that the Bush Administration forcefully framed the terms of the debate about the response to the terrorist threat and critics of his policy "missed an opportunity to advance broader political agendas." (Meyer, 2009, p. 10) The idea of fighting back with soft power and a law enforcement approach was ridiculed by those in power and made to seem as illegitimate way of attacking the terrorists.

The concept of a "war on terror" is difficult to explain because terrorism is a tactic, not a definable group of people. Airplanes, missiles, tanks, and infantry cannot defeat terror, and the ability to use terrorism is in the hands of small groups or even individuals, which again makes it hard to fight war against it. Also, unlike past American wars against distinct groups or nations, the war on terror relies on people agreeing on what defines terror itself. As the old saying goes, one man's terrorist in another man's freedom fighter, and this gray area can make building domestic and international support somewhat challenging. Under the current administration, the rhetoric of the war on terror has been shelved in favor of a more multi-lateral approach abroad and a focus on civil liberties at home. However, many of the military tactics, such as the surge in Afghanistan, remain the same. Still, it seems helpful to have moved past the excesses of the early stages of the war on terror.

War on Terror Terror Financing Perpetrators and the 9 11 Attacks

doubt whatsoever that September 11, 2001 will forever remain one of our country's darkest days. On this day, terrorists successfully launched one of the worst terror attacks the world has witnessed in modern times. In an attempt to come up with a reliable account of the background of the terror attacks, a commission was set up. This came to be referred to as the 9/11 commission. The Major Interest Groups Surrounding the 9/11 Commission From the onset, it is important to note that "family members of 9/11 victims were instrumental in the creation of the 9/11 commission" (Bolton, 2008, p. 240). They, therefore, constitute a key interest group in this case. These were people who lost and had their loved ones injured. In addition to ensuring that they got closure, they also needed safeguards and assurances that what had befallen their loved ones would not happen again -- one of the….

Bolton, M.K. (2008). U.S. National Security and Foreign Policymaking after 9/11: Present and the Re-Creation. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield.

Badino, D. (2010). Democratic Oversight of Intelligence Services. Sydney: Federation Press.

From the Book Understanding the War on Terror 2nd Edition

Prevent Another 911 hat to Do to Prevent Another 9/11 and How to Fight the ar on Terror On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda caught many Americans off guard. ith the exception of a few intelligence officers and politicians who had access to classified information, no one imagined that a foreign terrorist organization could attack the United States with such a precise and deadly strike. The attack left around 3,000 Americans dead, many others crippled and scarred (both physically and psychologically) caused billions of dollars worth damage to American people and the state, and fundamentally affected the American society. In response to 9/11, the U.S. government unleashed a war on terror to prevent another attack and defeat terrorism once and forever. The effort turned out to be partly successful -- no attack has been carried out against America on its soil since then -- and partly a failure since al-Qaeda still exists….

Work Cited:

Coaty, Patrick C. Understanding the War on Terror. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Pub. Co, 2009. Print

How the War on Terror Resembles the Vietnam War

Cold ar and the ar on Terror The Cold ar (C) and the ar against Terror (AT) were similar in several ways and different in other important aspects. Each is situated in its own particular political and social era. The C emerged in the post-2 years and was inextricably linked with a number of dynamic variables then shaping the global geopolitical spectrum: these variables included the rise of the Military-Industrial Complex, identified by Eisenhower as a threat to global peace and American security/prosperity in his outgoing speech on the eve of his departure from the hite House (Stone, Kuznick); also included was the propaganda campaign regarding the containment of Communism (even though this was not an issue in 2, as the U.S. was allied with the leader of the largest Communist nation in the world, Stalin of the Soviet Union -- and together they fought one of the only countries in….

Butler, Smedley. War is a Racket. IN: Feral Press, 2008. Print.

Davis, John. Presidential Policies and the Road to the Second Iraq War. VT: Ashgate,

2006. Print.

Ferguson, Niall. Colossus. NY: Penguin, 2004. Print.

Philosophy War on Terror Our

he war on terror does not have boundaries, because terrorists can be anywhere, and can target many different types of locations and people. Expanding the war on terror is justified, because there are many Americans overseas, and many foreign countries support America, and they become targets, too. his means we have to support our allies as well as our own internal war on terrorism, and supporting our allies helps keep us safer, as well. Finally, the war on terrorism is justified because it has made people more aware of the threat of terrorism, and it has made them more aware of their surroundings and the people around them. errorists can be anywhere, and people understand that now. People are more diligent about their safety, and the safety of others. he war on terrorism does not promote hysteria or paranoia, it attacks terror in a logical way, and makes the people….

The war on terrorism is not just taking place in America, it is happening around the world. A good example is the terror ring in Germany that was broken up and uncovered enough materials to bomb and kill thousands of people. The war on terror does not have boundaries, because terrorists can be anywhere, and can target many different types of locations and people. Expanding the war on terror is justified, because there are many Americans overseas, and many foreign countries support America, and they become targets, too. This means we have to support our allies as well as our own internal war on terrorism, and supporting our allies helps keep us safer, as well.

Finally, the war on terrorism is justified because it has made people more aware of the threat of terrorism, and it has made them more aware of their surroundings and the people around them. Terrorists can be anywhere, and people understand that now. People are more diligent about their safety, and the safety of others. The war on terrorism does not promote hysteria or paranoia, it attacks terror in a logical way, and makes the people feel safer as a result. I think it is vital that we remain vigilant about the threat of terrorism, and do not become complacent or distanced from it. We have to remain on guard at all times, and the war on terror helps people remember that we still have enemies, and we have to be vigilant about protecting ourselves from them. The war on terror is conducted so that we do not become complacent, but we also do not become paranoid about every person or activity. People need to remain calm and yet concerned, and I think the war on terror has helped promote those feelings, and that is another reason it is totally justified.

In conclusion, the war on terrorism has made things very different in this country, and we may never feel as safe as we did on September 10, 2001. However, the war on terror is justified because it has prevented more attacks, it saves lives, and it ensures our safety and well-being as much as it possibly can. The war on terrorism is justified, and it should, and will, continue in this country and around the world.

Arab League and the War on Terror

Arab League and the War on Terror CONCRETE REFORMS OR LIP SERVICE? The Arab League's Contributions to the War on Terror The League of Arab States, also called Arab League, is a voluntary group of Arab-speaking countries, aiming at strengthening shared ties, coordinate common policies and direct these countries towards a common good (C NEWS 2007). It has 22 members, including Palestine, regarded by the League as an independent state. These 22 member-states have a combined population of 300 million, occupying 5.25 million square miles.. The concept of the League was originated by the ritish in 1942 when they intended to use Arab countries against the Axis powers during World War II. ut the intent did not materialize until March 1945 after the War. The preoccupation of the League at the time was to liberate colonized Arab countries and to prevent the Jewish minority in Palestine from turning it into a Jewish….

Bibliography

Associated Press Staff (2002). Why War? Arab League Chief Warns U.S. Against Wider War. 3 web pages. Associated Press. Retrieved September 1, 2007 at  http://www.why-war.com/news/read.php?id=1816&printme 

BBC News (2007). Profile: Arab League. 3 pages. BBC co.uk. Retrieved September 1, 2007 at  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/1550797.stm 

Bhadui, A. (2004). Arab League Turns on Itself. 9 web pages. Asia Times: Asia Times Online Ltd. Retrieved September 1, 2007 at http://atimes.com/atimes/Middl_East/FE26Ak04.html

Bush, G.W. (2002). Remarks on the Situation in the Middle East. 4 pages. Compilation of Presidential Documents. U.S. Government Printing Office: Gale Group

Winning the War on Terror

Defeating Islamic Terrorism According to Chan (2007), in his article "Defeating Islamic terrorism," to win the war against terror, the U.S. must wage a battle for the hearts and minds of people living in the Muslim world, not simply fight the battle on the level of a military conflict. A largely negative perception of the U.S. In the Middle East has stoked the fires of radicalism and without counterbalancing that mindset the U.S. will always be fighting radical fundamentalist groups, even if it successfully defeats every last member of Al Qaeda. However, the U.S. must also be aware of the fact that to build trust it must reach out to Muslim moderates. Physically, the effort to defeat terrorist groups in the short-term has been more successful than long-term efforts (Chan 2007:2). The Islamic world has been difficult for the U.S. To understand because it is not monolithic although it is sometimes portrayed….

Chan, W. (2007). Defeating Islamic terrorism. USAWC Strategy Research Project.

The True Stories on the War on Terror Are Eye Opening

Rights of Enemy Combatants hat rights to enemy combatants have when in United States custody? hat are the rules of war in that regard according to the Geneva Accords? This paper uses scholarly publications to examine the aforementioned important issues. Clearly the U.S. attempt at the administration of justice with regard to enemy combatants -- an invented term that had no legal standing until the High Court accepted it -- has failed miserably. The image of the United States, the world's most visible democracy, has been sullied by the continuing saga of the way enemy combatants have been treated. The rights of enemy combatant prisoners at Guantanamo President Obama vowed during his first few days in office that he would work to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within a year -- but that plan has not worked out for the president. As late as February 23, 2016, Obama has provided a blueprint….

Cutler, L. (2006). Enemy Combatants and Guantanamo: The Rule of Law and Law of War

Post-911. Peace & Change, 31(1), 35-56.

Frakt, D.J.R. (2015). Persuasion in Civil Rights Advocacy: Lessons Learned in Representing

Guantanamo Detainees. Michigan State Law Review, 2015 (4), 1599-1615.

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Research Paper

War and Peace: The War on Terror The first time "war on terror" was used was in the aftermath of the infamous 9/11 al Qaeda attack. Even though this phrase…

In my opinion, the 'war on terror' like all other wars is irrational and the mainstream media is not playing an objective role in getting the average American involved…

(enner, 2002, p. 26) The Taliban committed millions of acts of fundamentalist-based violence. They isolated women, forced them to wear the Burka, the most conservative of Islamic veils, closed…

Others say Omar "was chosen by God," Rashid writes. hen interviewed by a journalist from Pakistan (Rahimullah Yousufzai) after taking control of Kabul, according to Rashid's book, Omar stated,…

War on Terror and Racial Profiling Ten years removed from the horrific and fatal attacks launched by Al-Qaeda on 9-11, U.S. leadership continues to grapple with the challenges and complexities…

Democracy can be imposed only if the right example is given in this sense. Torture is always completely arbitrary in the sense that you never know whether the person…

War on Terror INTRO: Given recent events, it would be impossible to write this essay without first acknowledging the biggest victory in the War on Terror since its inception,…

" (Meyer, 2009, p. 10) He argues that the Bush Administration forcefully framed the terms of the debate about the response to the terrorist threat and critics of his…

doubt whatsoever that September 11, 2001 will forever remain one of our country's darkest days. On this day, terrorists successfully launched one of the worst terror attacks the…

Prevent Another 911 hat to Do to Prevent Another 9/11 and How to Fight the ar on Terror On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda caught many Americans off guard. ith the…

Cold ar and the ar on Terror The Cold ar (C) and the ar against Terror (AT) were similar in several ways and different in other important aspects. Each is…

he war on terror does not have boundaries, because terrorists can be anywhere, and can target many different types of locations and people. Expanding the war on terror…

History - Israel

Arab League and the War on Terror CONCRETE REFORMS OR LIP SERVICE? The Arab League's Contributions to the War on Terror The League of Arab States, also called Arab League, is…

Defeating Islamic Terrorism According to Chan (2007), in his article "Defeating Islamic terrorism," to win the war against terror, the U.S. must wage a battle for the hearts and minds…

Human Rights

Rights of Enemy Combatants hat rights to enemy combatants have when in United States custody? hat are the rules of war in that regard according to the Geneva Accords? This…

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War On Terror Essay

The goal of the War on Terror defined by President Bush is “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated”. The problem with this goal is that it is unrealistic and that the definition of a terrorist varies with in countries. For example those who are labeled freedom fighters in one nation can be considered terrorists in another. People argue that there is no real enemy and that those who do a terrorist act should be handled through the Judicial System and not by the military. An example of this is the Boston bombings. Another problem with the War on Terror is that it has added about $1.7 trillion to $18 trillion onto the United States debt. It has also taken jobs away from the American people due to the fact that for every $1 billion given as a tax cut supplies a demand to create 10,779 jobs when $1 billion spent on defense creates 8,555 jobs. Meaning that for every billion we spend of defense takes away 2,224 jobs. Another thing is that due to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan people argue that President’s Bush’s true goal was to “strengthen the U.S. grip on the Middle East, turn Iraq into a military and political platform for further aggression, gain tighter control of international energy supplies, control and reshape the entire arc from North Africa to Central Asia, and strengthen the U.S. hand against rivals—current and …show more content…

It protects the United States citizens because after 9/11 the United States has gotten more serious with defense. For example restrictions on what you can bring on a plane and then going through a metal detector before entering boarding area. Another pro is that by interfering in Afghanistan and Iraq on can argue that the United States did bring some balance into the lives of the people living

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The War on Terror vs. Wwi Essay

Beneath its cloak, the infamous War on Terror garners striking similarities to WWI.  The terror attack on Austria-Hungary ignited the War on Terror…nearly a century later.  It was not until 1914 that a terrorist attack was utilized to provoke military response.  The attack of September 11 is a modern replay of this attack.  George W. Bush leapt into the war against Baghdad in 2003 with the same attitude of Woodrow Wilson in the Great War.  One of Wilson’s reasons for going to war against Germany was based on his belief that his

The Terrorist Attacks On 9 / 11 Essay

Since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, America has been on edge about the topic of terrorism. Groups like Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Taliban, and now more recently, ISIS, has kept the world cautious of their every next move. Looking more closely into how these groups are formed and operate could help us better understand how they can be stopped. Studying the history of terrorist organizations can help us better predict the future of terrorist organizations.

War On Terror Essay example

On September 11th, 2001, 2,977 Americans lost their lives on what they thought was just another workday. These actions against the United States catapulted our Armed Forces into a full on War on Terror spread out over different countries. Since that fateful morning in September, over 6,000 Americans have lost their lives fighting in multiple theaters in support of the War on Terror. Many people have been personally hit by tragedy resulting from the War on Terror. People have lost their sons, their daughters, friends, and parents as the war creeps on. The United States needs to rescind its involvement in the War on Terror, which has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans, all while draining the American economy.

Essay On 9/11 Terrorism

Background/Cause: The September 11 attacks were largely caused by Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. He held beliefs about the United States leading up to the attacks saying that America was weak. According to his comrade, Abu Walid al-Masri, bin Laden believed that the United States was much weaker than some of the people he was associated with. Bin Laden believed that the United States was a “paper tiger,” a belief not only held because of America’s departure from Lebanon, but also by the withdrawal of American forces from Somalia in 1993 and from Vietnam in the 1970s (Bergen).

Exploratory Essay: The War On Terrorism

To begin my research, I decided to first learn who were the real victims of the War on Terror, and what the U.S. could do to help them. I started by reading an online news article, “We Are Losing the War on Terror,” written by CEO and editor of Foreign Policy, David Rothkopf. He argues that, while fewer Americans are being killed by terrorists, this war is only creating incentives for, and fueling the spread of terrorism in the Middle East. I learned that in 2007 there were 28 al-Qaeda-like, jihadist groups; as of 2013 that number has increased to 49, and the

America's War on Terror Essay

With the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City, the United States adopted radical changes to its foreign policy and its response to terrorist threat. With the swift implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act shortly after the attacks (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act), and intervention in Afghanistan, the United States had begun its War on Terror. This war was shepherded by then President George W. Bush. These actions marked the beginning of the War on Terror, and laid the groundwork for the problems experienced by the Obama administration almost ten years later.

The American War On Terror Essay

“Terror and civilization are inseparable… Culture has evolved under the shadow of the executioner… One cannot abolish terror and retain civilization. Even to relax the former means the beginning of disintegration.”

Essay on The War on Terror

War on terror refers to the ongoing military campaign led by U.S and U.K against organizations identified as terrorists. Terrorism can be defined as an unlawful violence or war deliberately targeted to civilians. It can also be defined as a systematic use of terror to coerce or violent acts intended to create fear. This threat is normally perpetrated for religious, political or ideological goals. The conflict as also called by other names. They include World War III, The Long War, War on Terrorism, Bush’s War on Terror, The Global War of Terror and War on Al-Qaeda, (Coaty, 2010).

Updating Military Strategy

Since 9/11/01 the United States has been under attack by terrorism and George W. Bush started the war against terrorism but his presidency has ended. Since then Barack Obama has taken over as president and he has a new strategy, which consists of, protecting our homeland by constantly reducing our vulnerabilities, adapting, and updating our defenses, killing Osama bin Laden and many of his top Lieutenants, and giving law enforcement new ways to counter-terrorism. President Obama believes in order to hinder terrorism the US must increase the efficacy of our law enforcement, actively seek out to take out al’ Qaeda’s leaders, and constantly decrease our vulnerabilities.

Habeas Corpus Essay

What comes to mind when you hear “The War on Terror”? For someone like myself I immediately go back to my tenth grade English class the morning of September 11, 2001 and the devastating effects of terrorism and what we as a country need to/ should do to keep ourselves safe. Sometimes you need to detain a large quantity of suspects to find the few terrors amongst the many innocent, Habeas Corpus is made to help protect and weed out the innocent and when that right is violated in hopes of find the bad within the good it is no longer an acceptable way to fight terrorism. Several case have come to the Supreme courts and no one can clearly answer to what extent the war on terror justifies the President's unspecified time limit on enemy combatants

Terrorism and the United States Essay

Terrorism and the United States A cloud of anthrax spores looming in the sky of San Diego California

Essay on America’s War on Terrorism

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The world has been changed forever since the tragic attack on September 11, 2001. An observer described the atrocity by saying, "It just went 'bam,' like a bomb went off. It was like holy hell (CNN 1). " The new world will be different from what any American has known before. A new war has arisen, not against a foreign country or a major region of the world, but rather against a select group of people who have the capabilities to destroy the lives of so many. The war against terrorism which the United States is now forced to wage will not be an easily won battle. This war will not be fought solely on scattered battlefields in certain countries. It will instead permeate through every aspect of life as we

War Against Terror and Human Rights Essay

War Against Terror and Human Rights The Human Rights Act 1998 took full legal effect across the English and Welsh legal systems on October 2nd 1998. The Act, allows people to claim a number of the rights and freedoms that are set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Government had high hopes that when the act was passed it would create a 'Culture of Human Rights within the United Kingdom.'

Terrorism and International Relations Essay

The immediacy and the primacy of any truly potent force is the ability to perpetuate itself. Sharp and energetic outbursts have their place, and can be known to have great effect-cataclysmic forces, despite their maximum destructive potential, are temporary in their total effects in relation to some absolute goal. In other words, they are generally limited in scope, and well defined in purpose; there is a tactical objective, which is usually consummated quickly. The more dreaded force creeps along, escalating incrementally, and while it may abide a strategic goal, or even a policy, it is generally open-ended. This sort of ambiguity I am referring to differs from the flexible tactical necessity in that strategic outcomes are very much

Stopping Terrorism Worldwide Essay

Terrorism, which has been around for as long as people can remember, has been on the rise for the past ten years. Terrorists usually use murdering, kidnapping, hi-jacking and bombings to achieve their political purpose. For instance, according to Wikipedia.com (2006), in 1985 816 deaths, then in 2003, more than 1,000 people died by terorist acts around the world. In recent years, terrorism seems to be at a new height and attacks are much more violent than in the past. Unfortunately, in spite of many anti-terror campaigns, projects and organizations are being created for prevention (to prevent) terrorism, the number of terrorists only is increasing. These days terrorism is all over the world.

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Sri Lanka: Activity of The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (ltte)

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The Concept and History of Islamist Terrorism

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The Evolution of ISIS to Become One of The World’s Most Feared Terrorist Groups

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the war on terror essay

America’s War on Terrorism Essay

Terrorism, propagated by Islamic Extremists, has cost the lives of countless innocent inhabitants, for a long time. These terrorists majorly attack the United States citizens. The newsagents have aired various cases of terrorism from time to time over an incredibly longer period. One of the worst incidents or terror attacks was experienced in 11 th September 2001, with the bombing of the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

As a result, the United States retaliated by ambushing many of these terrorists from their hideouts and thus significantly reducing cases of terror attacks (Gale, Radu & Sicherman, 2009). One of the major breakthroughs in this fight was the recent execution of the leader of Al Qaeda Network, Osama bin Laden. However, the US government should not celebrate yet for this milestone, but it should be more vigilant to curb any retaliatory attacks (Ross, 2011).

Moreover, with the advancement of technology, the United States military is to fight this menace and significantly impede terrorists’ operations. On the other hand, terrorists have taken advantage of technology to perpetrate terror to innocent victims. Terrorists now use sophisticated weaponry to carry out their ill-fated missions, in the name of fighting for their religion. Terror groups have now gone global, with followers being almost in every nation (Noritz, 2009).

Over the past years, many critics have raised the issue as to whether this war is worth its taking. The war against terrorism has cost the United States large sums of taxpayers’ money that could have been used elsewhere to uplift the economy. However, in my opinion, it is worthwhile. Among the benefits of this undertaking are improved security to the citizens of the United States.

The resilient and unending war against the terrorists has made the US citizens to have free movement without fear of recurrent attacks. This has resulted in saving innocent lives and helped safeguarding the welfare of citizens, thus promoting economic growth. Besides, the war has aided significantly in reducing threats from the terror perpetrators (Noritz, 2009).

In addition, the battle on terrorism has significantly reduced recurrent attacks. The US Army has deactivated most terrorist activities, thus diminishing their strength for further attacks. Furthermore, the US involvement in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan has led to the elimination of autocratic rule based on corruption and nepotism and brought democracy to those involved nations. As a result, these countries will experience economic development and thus improve people’s living standards.

Through this war, the US military forces have gained vast knowledge about how best to fight enemies, not only the terrorist attackers. As a result, the US government has reinforced its military prowess in terms of efficiency, better organization structure and weaponry sophistication through technology incorporation. This makes the US military the best in the world.

The involvement of US in War against terrorism has made US earn recognition from other countries. Nations such as India, Britain and the East African states face the challenge of terrorism and with total cooperation, they will gradually put terrorism at bay. This way, they will create strong international relations and thus, promote peace among world nations. Moreover, through the war on terrorism, the US government has sensitized other nations towards the fight for democracy and proper governance.

Conversely, the war against terrorism costs the US government loads of money. Critics argue against the fight, claiming that terrorism is currently not a serious threat to the residents. Moreover, they argue that the money used for terrorism war could be utilized better in other economy stimulating activities such as trade, or it could be channeled to the healthcare system. Others argue that the US army is using too much force while fighting against terrorism, thus compromising human rights.

Gale, S., Radu, M. & Sicherman, H. (2009). The war on terrorism: 21st-century perspectives . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Ross, D. (2011). Why al Qaeda is winning the war we’re fighting, and the war we think we’re fighting . Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Noritz, J. (2009). Pirates, terrorists, and warlords: the history, influence, and future of armed groups around the world . New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishers.

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ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Voice for the army - support for the soldier, what israel can learn from the u.s. global war on terrorism.

Two IDF Air Force members and two U.S. Army Soldiers standing in front of equipment

by LTC Jay Figurski, USA Landpower Essay 24-2, February 2024  

In Brief There are notable similarities between Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 and the U.S. response to 9/11. In both scenarios, leadership immediately came under intense public pressure to respond with overwhelming military force to exact retribution—which led to combat power being deployed before clear military objectives had been articulated. Consequently, objectives have been required to change to fit the situation on the ground. Israel, a small country with limited resources, does not have the manpower or the financial capacity to occupy and rebuild Gaza by itself. It should look to the lessons the United States learned during the Global War on Terrorism—determine the end game; consider the war for hearts and minds and the cost of “going it alone”; avoid a multi-front war; and beware unintended consequences. It is imperative to U.S. interests and regional stability that Israel sets attainable objectives and meets them as soon as possible. If it doesn’t, the progress made in normalizing Israel’s diplomatic relationships with its Arab neighbors over the last few years will be increasingly difficult to restore.

Introduction

As the initial fog of war began to clear in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, and the scope of Hamas’ attack became clear, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went live on national TV around 11:00 a.m. In front of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Headquarters in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu proclaimed, “Citizens of Israel, we are at war. . . . I am initiating an extensive mobilization of the reserves to fight back on a scale and intensity that the enemy has so far not experienced. The enemy will pay an unprecedented price. . . . We are at war and will win.” 1 As head of state, Netanyahu’s desire to convey the gravity of the moment and to show the world that his government was prepared to use the overwhelming force of the IDF is certainly understandable. That day—7 October—has become Israel’s 9/11, and Netanyahu’s speech harkened back to President George W. Bush’s address to the nation on that fateful day. The president captured the mood of the country by declaring, “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. . . . Our military is powerful, and it’s prepared.” 2

Both Israel and the United States had been attacked in a way nobody had imagined up to that point. Both countries, especially Israel, had been victimized by terrorism in the past, but felt confident that their enemies were deterred adequately enough to prevent the spectacular attacks of 10/7 and 9/11. Both peoples and governments wanted retribution as soon as possible and set out to achieve it using their well-trained and well-equipped militaries. The United States embarked on its Global War on Terrorism in the 20 years following 9/11, but would find itself stuck in quagmires that had little to do with the threats that had first been responsible for the terrorist attack. The United States was able to sustain the fight over such a protracted period due to its vast financial resources, and, more important, its all-volunteer professional military, in which the direct impacts of war are borne by the less than one percent of Americans serving on active duty at any given time. Israel, however, does not have these luxuries. It is a small country with a GDP of $539 billion 3 (versus the U.S. GDP of $28 trillion in 2023 4 ) and a population of just under 10 million 5 (compared to the U.S. population of 337 million). Israel also has a policy of national conscription, with 40 percent of men and 33 percent of women serving on active duty. 6 With that amount of skin in the game, the way Israel conducts its military operations is subject to public opinion to an extent rarely seen in the United States. With these constraints in mind, Israel would do well to pay heed to the lessons that the United States learned in the Global War on Terrorism: determine the end game; consider the war for hearts and minds and the cost of “going it alone”; avoid a multi-front war; and beware unintended consequences.  

First and Foremost: Determine the End Game

There was enormous public pressure on the leadership of both the United States after 9/11 and Israel after 10/7 to do something , but exactly what was not immediately clear. For the United States, killing or capturing the perpetrators of 9/11 was obvious, but ensuring that Afghanistan would not harbor future terrorists capable of another 9/11 necessitated expanding that initial limited mission. The Bush administration made a decision early on not just to destroy al Qaeda, but also to replace the Taliban regime with a democratic one. Twenty years and hundreds of billions of dollars later, 7 it is clear that the decision to nation-build in Afghanistan was a faulty one. The United States had assumed that it could destroy the Taliban regime, and that, in the vacuum of power, new leaders and parties would be able to take over without a great deal of U.S. intervention.

Immediately after 10/7, Israel initiated a massive call up of reserves and concentrated tremendous combat power on the Gaza border, where it remained for 20 days. During this time, it was clear that Netanyahu’s political-security cabinet was agonizing over just what their mission should be. When the ground offensive into northern Gaza finally commenced, Israel’s goals were to destroy Hamas, capture or kill all of its leaders, shatter its military capacity, and end its power in Gaza.

However, the past three months have shown that accomplishing the total destruction of Hamas necessitates the total destruction of most of the Gaza strip. Hamas is prepared for a long war in Gaza, having stockpiled weapons, missiles, food and medical supplies in its labyrinth of underground tunnels. 8 The world has watched as Israel subjects Gaza to massive artillery bombardments and air strikes, unable to spare civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals due to the presence or proximity of Hamas fighters and Gaza’s dense urban topography. As of 9 February 2024, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported over 27,000 Palestinians killed, over 67,000 injured, and over 65,000 housing units destroyed in Gaza. 9  

With all this death and destruction playing out for the world to see, the question remains as to how close Israel is to accomplishing its initial objective of destroying Hamas—and whether that is even possible. As the United States discovered in Afghanistan and Iraq, military campaigns to eradicate deeply-rooted, political-military movements usually fail. And that is exactly what Hamas is, as it has roots that extend far beyond Gaza.

There are already signs that Israel’s military leadership may be trying to refine its objectives in Gaza. Although Netanyahu reiterated his objective of “eliminating” Hamas in a recent speech, IDF intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva left out the destruction of Hamas in his list of objectives laid out in a recent speech. 10 If Israel modified its objectives to degrading Hamas’ military power and preventing it from effectively governing Gaza, it could already point to much success, based on the number of high-profile Hamas leaders killed since the start of the war, as well as the IDF’s destruction of key command and control infrastructure.  

A War for Hearts and Minds

Just as the United States discovered the hard way in Afghanistan and Iraq, initial military success often gives way to a long and frustrating counter-insurgency campaign. It marked time for the first three years of Operation Iraqi Freedom , conducting operations to destroy various insurgent groups. In 2006, General David Petraeus began implementing a “Clear, Hold, Build” policy for operations in Iraq that recognized the need to provide infrastructure and services to the population once insurgents had been cleared out of an area.

After the dust settles from Israel’s military campaign, Gazans will be faced with unprecedented destruction and bleak prospects for the future. If Israel wants to ensure that Gaza never threatens Israel’s security in the future, it needs to clear, hold and build in Gaza. This means setting conditions to alleviate suffering, to create housing and to restore livelihoods. Financed by the Gulf states with support from the United States and the European Union (EU), a massive postwar reconstruction plan is taking shape for Gaza that would provide $3 billion annually for 10 years. 11 The plan would rebuild Gaza’s infrastructure, unite Gaza and the West Bank under Palestinian Authority (PA) governance and reform Palestinian security forces.

Under normal circumstances, a country engaged in a counterinsurgency would be overjoyed by the prospect of the international community coming together to finance postwar reconstruction. However, Israel is opposed to the Gulf states’ current offer because Netanyahu’s far-right government is diametrically opposed to allowing the PA to have any role in postwar Gaza. The Gulf states are pushing back, saying their funding is contingent on PA governance. 

Should the two sides fail to reach an agreement, the burden will fall on Israel to make postwar Gaza livable. Israeli resistance to that idea is understandable on an emotional level, but practically, it will be a necessity. If Israel doesn’t step in, Gazans will be forced to live in hopeless poverty that will surely resurrect Hamas or something similar. Even if the reconstruction plan were to be funded by the international community, Israel would most likely still have to deploy a peacekeeping force to provide security, as well as do much of the reconstruction work itself. Furthermore, in order to regenerate Gaza’s economy, Israel would have to provide jobs to much of the population, as Gaza would be unable to provide enough itself.

In the end, however Gaza gets rebuilt and whoever pays for it is less important than the recognition that long-term peace between Israel and Gaza depends on providing a future for the people who live there. This is not a military problem, but a socio-economic one.  

The Cost of Going It Alone

While the United States had the support of NATO and the wider international community to go to war in Afghanistan, Iraq was mostly a unilateral effort from the start. The Bush administration felt that the danger Iraq posed was too great for the United States not to act, even if that meant doing so without UN or NATO support. Top Bush administration officials believed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that once the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled, a Western-friendly democratic government would naturally take its place. It also mistakenly believed that once that happened, the international community would come around and help contribute to Iraq’s reconstruction. Of course, none of this came to pass, and the United States suffered a great blow to its international credibility and image.

Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the Jewish state has always been in a precarious position, geographically and militarily. Although it has received support from the United States since the six-day 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel has always had to fight for its survival by itself, often against overwhelming odds. Prior to 10/7, that was slowly changing through the “normalization” of Israel’s relations with many of its Arab neighbors. Normalization has been driven by Iranian malign influence in the greater Middle East that has enabled Israel and Arab states to find common cause for the first time in history. For decades, Iran has been developing a “Shia Crescent” consisting of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, through which it could directly threaten Israel. Simultaneously, the Sunni Gulf states and Shia Iran have been competing for dominance in the region. The Abraham Accords turned that newfound Israeli-Arab solidarity into tangible results. Mediated by the United States, the accords established diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel and Bahrain in 2020. Israel went on to sign separate normalization agreements with Sudan and Morocco. Additionally, the United States had been brokering negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia prior to 10/7.

It is imperative for Israel to continue on the path to full normalization with the Arab states after the war with Hamas, so that, among other reasons, Israel never has to “go it alone” again. But the longer and bloodier Israel’s occupation of Gaza is, the greater the price Israel will have to pay to get normalization back on track. Indeed, derailing the process was likely a primary driver for the timing of Hamas’ attack, as they feared that Israeli-Arab normalization meant that the window was closing on Arab support for the Palestinian cause. But again, Israel will have to make some difficult concessions. Even before the war, the Saudis were asking Israel to make a very limited commitment to the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state. Now, Israel will have to demonstrate a much greater commitment to the two-state solution. Additionally, as previously touched on, the Saudis are also stipulating that the PA be allowed to assume governance of the Gaza Strip, something that Israel’s far-right government has said it would not accept. 12

Normalization is not the only partnership issue Israel needs to tend to. Its longstanding friendship with the United States, while still steadfast on the governmental level, has been showing signs of fraying in American public opinion for some time. While baby boomers and Generation X poll as more sympathetic to Israelis, millennials have been shifting toward Palestinians. Gallup polling finds that “millennials are now evenly divided,” with 42 percent sympathizing more with the Palestinians and 40 percent with the Israelis. 13 Even among evangelical Christians, support for Israel is plummeting. Over the span of just three years, from 2018–2021, support for Israel among younger evangelicals dropped from 69 percent to 33 percent. 14 Clearly, Israel ignores these trends at its own peril. For now, U.S. support for the Jewish state remains ironclad, but as time passes and millennials take over the reins of power, Israel may not be able to count on U.S. political-military support to the same degree it always has.  

Avoid a Multi-Front War

In planning the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden hoped that the United States, looking for retribution, would invade Afghanistan and end up getting bogged down in an occupation similar to what happened after the Soviet invasion. 15 The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up a communist regime, but exited 10 years and over 50,000 casualties later with that objective unfulfilled. The defeat shattered the image of an invincible Red Army, which many scholars attribute to the emboldened independence movements that ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But after the U.S. invasion, the Bush administration was surprised at how quickly the Taliban was defeated. It happened so fast that bin Laden was reduced to apologizing to his followers for getting them into that situation.

Israel should note that, despite America’s initial success, the Afghanistan war was relegated to a secondary concern when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Even with its great financial and military resources, it had to divert its focus and attention to Iraq—and that was the critical mistake. The task of nation building in Afghanistan would have been a monumental challenge for America even without having to worry about a second war. But with focus and expertise being devoted to Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan became even more difficult.

Israel is now confronted with a similarly daunting challenge in Gaza. Opening a simultaneous campaign against Hezbollah (discussed in more detail below) on the Israel-Lebanon border would suck up the finite resources that Israel can currently allocate to Hamas. As already discussed, Israel can call on fewer financial and military resources—especially manpower—than the United States could. Their massive reserve mobilization in October took a large swath of Israel’s population away from civilian jobs and family obligations, and Israel has already begun demobilizing certain units as a result of this pressure.

The U.S. military found out the hard way that allocating combat power to multiple theaters simultaneously resulted in an unbearable deployment rotation for its troops. Combat tour durations were lengthened from 12 to 15 months during the 2006–2008 “surge,” and the associated stress on military families, mental health and equipment maintenance increased commensurately. Those stressors were felt to an even greater degree by specific high-demand, low-density specialists, such as Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians, combat engineers, air defense troops and special forces operators.

In addition to manpower concerns, worldwide ammunition stockages have been critically low for the past year. The United States has been resupplying Ukraine with large donations (over two million) of 155mm artillery shells and certain air defense munitions. The United States has more than doubled production of these shells, going from 12,000 a month before Russia’s invasion to the current 28,000 a month. 16 EU members likewise emptied their stocks, and the EU as a whole launched a plan to supply one million 155mm rounds between March 2023 and March 2024. 17 Although the United States has begun diverting ammunition resupplies from Ukraine to Israel, opening a second front against Hezbollah would put an even greater demand on U.S. supplies. The United States has been sourcing a large proportion of these donations from its own war stocks, and any new production would likely be used to backfill U.S. stockages. And with Congress now calling into question the unconditional continued military support to Ukraine, there is no guarantee that supplying Israel would not also become the target of greater scrutiny.

These issues would be of concern if Israel expanded the war against Hamas to a war against Hezbollah as well. Of course, Hamas and Hezbollah have different roots. Hezbollah is an Iranian export that draws its power from the Shia population, whereas Hamas is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood and draws its support from the Palestinians, who are mostly Sunni. However, the two groups have found common cause against Israel and the United States; they consider themselves as partners under the “Axis of Resistance” moniker. 18 Hezbollah is better equipped than Hamas, but its estimated 15,000 rockets are meant to deter Israel from an attack on Iran itself. 19 Hezbollah and Iran may not want to utilize that stockpile on behalf of the Palestinians. In addition, Hezbollah and Iran benefit from continued international pressure against Israel’s actions in Gaza, and they are likely content with Israel being labeled as the aggressor. 

However, Hezbollah would probably respond robustly if Israel attempts to push it back farther from the Israel-Lebanon border. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah by, among other things, requiring Hezbollah to withdraw to positions 10 miles away from the border, north of the Litani river. Hezbollah’s positions on the border were to be taken over by the Lebanese army, which is not as well trained or equipped as Hezbollah. The resolution was never fully implemented; Israel states that Hezbollah has positioned its forces south of the Litani river. Consequently, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told mayors of northern Israeli towns in early December that if the UN fails to enforce the resolution, Israel might do so itself. 20

An open war against Hezbollah has the potential to draw Iran in more directly, which could quickly escalate the war from a regional conflict to a global one. While nobody wants this, the network of alliances that binds Israel to the West and Hamas and Hezbollah to Iran (and from Iran to Russia) could quickly escalate into a scenario much akin to the European alliances that ignited World War I.  

Beware Unintended Consequences

The United States went to war in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, but ended up triggering a sectarian civil war. By the time Operation Iraqi Freedom ended in 2011, Iraq was left with a weak central government, a shattered economy and a military that melted away when the Islamic State forces invaded a large swath of the country only a few years later. With Saddam gone, the minority Sunni population that had controlled Iraq since its independence in 1932 was disempowered. The Shia took over the reins of government, and Iran seized the opportunity to capitalize on Shia dominance over its longtime adversary. Since then, an emboldened Iran has played significant roles in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, the Syrian Civil War, and in the arming, funding and training of Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthis are a Shia rebel group that has held the Yemeni capital of Sanaa since 2014 despite a Saudi-UAE campaign to defeat it. The group has been destabilizing the region with missile and drone attacks for years, targeting Saudi oilfields and Israeli, U.S. and European shipping. They have been the target of recent U.S. airstrikes to neutralize the threat they pose to international trade as well as U.S. and Israeli interests in the region. The Houthis serve as a prime example of how an empowered and resurgent Iran has increased its reach through proxies. 

On top of that, Iran has begun cooperating with Russia in its war in Ukraine, providing drones in exchange for billions of dollars’ worth of Russian military equipment. 21 The United States has unwittingly opened the door to Iranian malign influence and expansionism throughout the region. 

The potential for similar unintended consequences is high in Gaza. Although Hamas and Hezbollah remain threats to Israeli security, they are not existential threats. Iran, however, is. The Islamic Republic has long pledged to wipe Israel off the map. Those threats have been reiterated since 10/7, with the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Peyman Jebelli, stating, “Israel is digging its own grave and won’t last beyond 2040.” 22 Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in 2015 that “Israel must be destroyed within 25 years,” and even set up countdown clocks in Iranian cities to hammer the point home. 23 Every day that media attention criticizes the Israeli occupation in Gaza, public opinion sways toward seeing Israel as an aggressor who is overreacting. Iran helped set the conditions for the current situation, and it only stands to gain as Israel is sucked into an occupation that is too costly to continue, but even costlier to exit. 

Furthermore, the prospects of a two-state solution now seem more likely than ever before. The current Israeli government has always emphasized that it sees a Palestinian state as unacceptable. Israel’s Communications Minister, Shlomo Karhi, tweeted in December: “There will be no Palestinian State here. We will never allow another State to be established between the Jordan [River] and the sea.” 24 But again, the longer and bloodier the war in Gaza, the more difficult it becomes for Israel to keep rejecting the idea of a Palestinian state. As already discussed, the Gulf states have already tied a PA-controlled state to its offer to fund reconstruction in Gaza. If Israel refuses this offer, it will have to rebuild a viable Gaza itself, or force the Palestinians to live in a wasteland. Neither scenario would be tenable for Israel in the long run.  

Conclusion: Focus on Hamas

One of the lessons that the United States learned in Afghanistan is to identify the enemy, and then stay laser-focused on that enemy alone. Early on in the war, the United States conducted operations targeted at the perpetrators of 9/11, mostly at al Qaeda and a limited number of Taliban senior leaders, such as Mullah Omar. Even though Osama bin Laden would not be killed until 10 years later, he had been effectively neutralized as the day-to-day head of al Qaeda. Had the United States adopted a more limited scope in Afghanistan, it might have been able to sell those early successes as a “mission accomplished” to the American public, and in doing so, avoid spending 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars in a failed nation-building campaign. While al Qaeda was an international terrorist group that sought safe haven in Afghanistan, the Taliban was a home-grown group with deep roots in the country. But, instead of separating the two different groups, America went to war with both.

Israel also must make a distinction between Hamas and the PA. The PA is easy to criticize due to its corruption and ineffective governance in the West Bank. On the other hand, it has recognized Israel and supports a two-state solution. The PA did not attack Israel on 10/7—Hamas did. Yet, before the war, the Netanyahu government did little to rein in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. In fact, one of the reasons for the delayed IDF response on 10/7 was that forces previously assigned to the southern command near the border with Gaza had been reassigned to protect settlers in the West Bank. Going forward, Israel should make amends with the PA and use it as a negotiating partner to siphon off support away from Hamas. 

The desires for retribution and responding with overwhelming force are human. But in times of crisis, leaders must have the patience and courage to think several steps ahead and to consider the ramifications of the actions they take. For a state like Israel, born of the tragedy of the Holocaust and committed to “never again” allowing the Jewish people to be victimized and defenseless, tempering its response to 10/7 and avoiding the pitfalls that the U.S. experienced during its long war on terrorism is especially difficult. But until Israel can stomach compromise solutions vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the international community, it will forever live in the shadow of a dispossessed and hopeless people plotting their next move.

Lieutenant Colonel Jay Figurski is a transitioning Middle East Foreign Area Officer who most recently served as the Israel Desk Officer for the Joint Staff J5. His prior positions include North Africa Branch Chief for USAFRICOM J5 and Assistant Army Attaché in Iraq during the counter-ISIS campaign in 2016–2017. He holds an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan.

  • Staff, “‘We Are at War,’ Netanyahu says, After Hamas Launches Devastating Surprise Attack,” Times of Israel , 7 October 2023.
  • George W. Bush, “Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation,” 11 September 2001.
  • “Israel Data Sets,” International Monetary Fund, 2021.
  • “USA Data Sets,” International Monetary Fund, 2021.
  • “Israel Data Sets,” International Monetary Fund.
  • Meirav Arlosoroff, “Analysis: Most Israelis Don’t Serve in the Army, but It’s Still the Right Solution, for Now,” Haaretz , 6 September 2019.
  • Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction , August 2021.
  • “How Hamas Aims to Trap Israel in Gaza Quagmire,” Reuters , 4 November 2023.
  • “Reported Impact Since 7 October 2023,” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2024.
  • “Three Months On, Israel is Entering a New Phase of War. Is It Still Trying to Destroy Hamas?,” CNN , 8 January 2024.
  • Taylor Luck and Fatima AbdulKarim, “A Plan for Gaza’s Future is Taking Shape. Obstacles Loom,” Christian Science Monitor , 22 December 2023.
  • Jacob Magid, “Saudi Normalization Still Possible Post-War, But Price for Israel Higher – Officials,” Times of Israel , 11 January 2024.
  • “Democrats’ Sympathies in Middle East Shift to Palestinians,” Gallup , 16 March 2023.
  • Jacob Magid, “Support for Israel Among US Evangelical Christians Drops Sharply – Survey,” Times of Israel , 25 May 2021.
  • Michael A. Cohen, Christopher Preble and Monica Duffy Toft, “The Lessons for Israel of America’s War in Afghanistan,” Foreign Affairs , 1 November 2023.
  • Sam Skove, “Ukraine’s Artillery Supply Declines as Shells Go to Israel,” Defense One , 17 November 2023.
  • Skove, “Ukraine’s Artillery Supply Declines as Shells Go to Israel.”
  • Jeffrey Feltman and Kevin Huggard, “On Hezbollah, Lebanon, and The Risk of Escalation,” Brookings , 17 November 2023.
  • Feltman and Huggard, “On Hezbollah, Lebanon, and The Risk of Escalation.”
  • “Why Hezbollah and Israel Haven’t Plunged into All-Out War,” NPR , 19 December 2023.
  • “Iran & Russia: Burgeoning Military Ties,” United States Institute of Peace, 5 September 2023.
  • “Iranian Officials Reiterate Threats Against Israel Amid Regional Tensions,” Iran International , 19 October 2023.
  • “Iranian Officials Reiterate Threats Against Israel Amid Regional Tensions.”
  • “There is ‘Absolutely No’ Chance of A Two-State Solution Because Israel Killed It,” Middle East Monitor , 14 December 2023.
The views and opinions of our authors do not necessarily reflect those of the Association of the United States Army. An article selected for publication represents research by the author(s) which, in the opinion of the Association, will contribute to the discussion of a particular defense or national security issue. These articles should not be taken to represent the views of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, the United States government, the Association of the United States Army or its members.
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Senior US official warns of security threat amid reports of Russian nuclear capability in space

Republican House intelligence chair, Mike Turner, says Biden officials should declassify information about threat, while House speaker Mike Johnson says there was no need for panic

The head of the House intelligence committee, Mike Turner, has called for the Biden administration to declassify information on what he called a “serious national security threat”, which was later reported to involve Russian plans to deploy nuclear weapons in space.

In his statement, Turner, an Ohio Republican, gave no details about the supposed security threat.

Talking to reporters at the White House later on Wednesday, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, expressed surprise at Turner’s statement saying he was due to meet the “gang of eight” (congressional leaders with special security clearance for classified briefings) on Thursday. But Sullivan did not give any details of the planned meeting.

ABC News and the New York Times cited unnamed sources as saying that the security threat Turner was referring to involved Russia’s potential deployment of a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in space. The New York Times said US allies had also been briefed on the intelligence, which was not deemed to represent an urgent threat, as the alleged Russian capability was still in development.

It is not clear whether the new intelligence alert is connected to a Russian launch on 9 February of a Soyuz rocket carrying a classified defence ministry payload.

“Russia has been conducting several experiments with manoeuvring satellites that might be designed to sabotage other satellites,” Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, said. He pointed out that any such deployment of nuclear weapons in space would violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which Moscow is a signatory.

“The issue is not so much about an increased nuclear weapons threat per se but that it would increase the threat against other countries’ space-based nuclear command and control assets. It would be highly destabilising.”

Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russian nuclear forces , said: “I am very skeptical (to put it mildly). Unfortunately, it’s impossible to categorically rule out anything these days. But still, I don’t think it’s plausible.”

Kristensen suggested that a Russian threat to put nuclear weapons in space, thus destroying yet another non-proliferation treaty, could be the latest in a long line of Vladimir Putin’s moves designed to add to pressure on the US and its allies to end their military support for Ukraine.

Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, said a nuclear anti-satellite weapon made little practical sense.

“You don’t need a nuclear weapon to blow up a satellite in orbit. All objects in space are so delicate, that you can do something with much less than a nuclear detonation,” Kimball said. “Plus, it’s completely illegal.”

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, said there was no need for panic over the alleged, unnamed threat. He said he was not allowed to discuss classified information but told reporters: “We just want to assure everyone steady hands are at the wheel. We’re working on it and there’s no need for alarm.”

  • US national security
  • Republicans
  • Biden administration
  • US politics
  • Nuclear weapons

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