Vadlamani

To what extent can a 'war on terror' eliminate the threat of terrorism?

Less than 12 hours after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush proclaimed the start of

a global war on terror. At the joint session of Congress following the attacks, President

Bush said, “every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are

with us, or you are with the terrorists” (“Transcript Of President Bush's Address -

September 21, 2001") The attack on September 11 did not change everything, the

unipolar structure of the international system still remained intact, making the defeat of

terrorism the global objective and aim. Hence, for the past 15 years, the United States

government has been prosecuting a ‘war on terror’ – seeking the defeat of al-Qaeda or,

more recently, that of the Islamic State. After the declaration of the global ‘war on

terror’, there has been a vigorous debate on whether it’s the right policy. With an

overwhelming amount of $4.8 trillion dollars spent, it is important to assess what has

been achieved so far (Soergel). Has this policy helped the US? Have the US efforts been

effective? Has the threat of terrorism reduced?

Determining answers to such questions is complicated since the terror attacks

9/11 and US responses to the same took place in an inherently political environment.

Hence, in this paper I would like to arrive at answers to such questions by analyzing

mainly the US perspective on the ‘war on terror’ policy and it’s objectives and terrorism

as a tactic. I will also discuss the relationship between ‘war on terror’ and terrorism, and

thus arrive at a conclusion.

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The war on terror, or also known as the global war on terrorism was a response to

the deadly attack on September 11th in the United States. Since then, the Bush

administration and the Western media have largely used this term to argue for global

military, political, legal and conceptual struggle against the terrorist organizations.

Historian Michael Howard1 called the declaration of a war on terror a ‘terrible and

irrevocable error’2. He believes that the term ‘war against terrorism’ would have made

sense if the war were against crime or against drug trafficking (Howard 8). By declaring

war on terror, or rather terrorism is in a way giving the terrorists a status and dignity that

they seek but do not deserve (Howard 8). The use of the word ‘war’ is not a simple

matter of legality or definition but has a larger and more dangerous meaning attached to

it. It can be said that the term ‘war’ is not being used here in a purely rhetorical sense, as

in the ‘war on drugs’ or ‘war on poverty’. It creates an immediate perception that

intensive military action against the enemy. It could be argued that this may be totally

counter-productive for the objective being sought. In 2013, the term ‘war on terror’ took

a turn. Former President Barack Obama announced that the war on terror was over; in the

sense military should focus on specific enemies rather a generalized term. America’s

stated objectives for War on Terror have remained consistent over time. They include

protecting Americans, preventing terror attacks, defeating specific terror groups, and

diminishing the conditions that fuel terrorism by promotion democracy (NATIONAL

STRATEGY FOR COMBATING TERRORISM 15-20).

1
Howard has been a professor of the History of War at Oxford and Robert A. Lovett Professor of
Military and Naval History at Yale.
2
He called it a ‘irrevocable error’ because it conferred the legitimacy of enemy status on terrorist
and committed the United States to a long, perhaps endless, march against rogue states.
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Fifteen years on, however, the war on terror is adrift. Critics on both sides of the

Atlantic now doubt that such a war is intellectually or politically sustainable. At the root

of these doubts lie questions about whether it is possible to wage war against a tactic,

rather than a discrete and identifiable enemy. Definitions of terrorism are usually

complex and controversial. The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as

‘the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat to inculcate fears intended to coerce or

to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political,

religious, or ideological.’ (“What is Terrorism”). As terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman

explains, terrorism is “inherently political and power focused” (Hoffman). Terrorism has

been described both as a tactic and a strategy; a crime and a duty – depending on whose

point of view it is being represented. Terrorism has been an effective tactic for the weaker

side in a conflict. The direct victims or objects of terrorist attack have little intrinsic value

to the terrorist group but represent a larger human audience whose reaction the terrorist

seek (Crenshaw 379). Numerous authors are trying to uncover causes, reasons and the

essence of terrorism. Due to the secretive nature and small size of terrorist organizations,

they often offer opponents no clear organization to defend against or to deter.

This points to a social vision in which one of the main problems of terrorism and

its relation to war on terror is the question of identity. Waging war against terror, or

rather terrorism is clearly not the same as going to war against another country or nation.

With respect to countries going to war against each other, there is a fixed opponent, a

specific target, and a clear-cut opposition. However, in the case of a terrorist group, or
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terror in general, it’s very ambiguous. Since terrorist groups do not have a specific

‘place’, unlike a state, it becomes hard to navigate, or rather ‘find’ terrorist groups and

their locations. The question of identity becomes even harder to answer. Terrorist groups

usually have a certain religious, ethnic or a social identity, which they are predominantly

referred to with. When waging war against a state - military capacities, nuclear weapons

held, and the political power are known. With such information, the nation knows exactly

whom they are up against; however, this is not the case with terrorist groups, or terror.

For instance, less than two weeks after the attack of 9/11, President Bush

articulated the defeat of al-Qaeda and all terrorist groups with global reach as a US goal.

After a long war with al-Qaeda and it’s believed leader Bin Laden, the United States

captured Bin Laden in 2011. One can argue that al-Qaeda succeeded. Prior to 2001, the

US stood alone as the unchallengeable superpower. Al-Qaeda managed to shake the

perception of American invulnerability in the minds of the US’ foes. However, since the

United States did not know the precise geographic area where al-Qaeda was operating

from, the war on Afghanistan and Iraq soon after the 9/11 attack, was in away attacking

the whole Islamic territory and the whole of the nation, rather than just the terrorist

organization. The fact that it’s much harder and takes longer to attack an opponent who

does not have a legit place of operations or territory, ultimately fails to reduce the threat

of terrorism amongst the eyes of American citizens, or rather the whole world.

We have all heard of the idiom ‘fighting fire with fire’, but it is time to question

the validity of that statement? Will fighting terrorism with violence, in any way stop
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terrorism? Will violence create more violence? Will counter-violence be able to pacify

the terrorists? The answer is no. LeBaron3, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic

Council said, “Declaring war on terror or war on Islamic extremism or war on violent

extremism is an ineffective tactic” (Sen). Leader and philosopher, both Gandhi and

Martin Luther King Jr. believed and attempted to maintain a similar conviction. They

believed that violence in any shape or form could never eradicate the spirit of violence.

Counter-terrorist operations, when taking the form of open war and a conventional

military response, have often led to tragedy. Israel’s disastrous intervention in Lebanon in

1982 was explicitly a response to a terrorist attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets not only

in Israel but also internationally (“Israeli Invasion of Lebanon 1982”).

Fighting terrorism with violence and military intervention is also seen at the war

with Afghanistan. The first engagement of the ‘war on terror’ took place on 7th October,

which encompassed the US-led military operations in and around Afghanistan. With the

aim to stop activities led by al-Qaeda and to capture it’s main leaders, US led it’s first

rage against ‘war on terror’. This invasion successfully forced the al-Qaeda leadership to

shift to Pakistan. It also ousted Taliban regime from power, and replaced it with the

Afghan Transitional Government. However, the battle is still not over. US trained Afghan

forces and the Taliban are still claiming and reclaiming territory. Hence, Afghanistan’s

war is still presently continued, leading to more violence, more threat from various

terrorist groups, and intensified insurgency.

3 LeBaron was deeply involved in counterterrorism matters in his career as a Foreign Service
officer while serving in senior positions in Egypt, Israel, and Britain, as well as during his service
as US Ambassador to Kuwait from 2007 to 2010.
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The Iraq war of 2003 provides a rather different context for understanding if

violent invasion of states believed to assist terrorism is an effective way to achieve aims

of a counter-terrorist policy. The invasion into Iraq was aimed to remove Saddam

Hussein and establish democracy there. On 17th March 2003, in a television address by

the then President George Bush, he said that Iraq has ‘aided, trained and harbored

terrorists, including operatives of al-Qaeda’ (“Full text: Bush’s speech”). There were

some Iraqi connections with terrorists, especially in the Arab- Israel conflict, however,

Iraq did not appear to have any significant part in the series of international terrorist

attacks for which al-Qaeda was seen responsible (Clarke). The war on Iraq, which was

part of the ‘war on terror’, ultimately, has done more harm that good to the US efforts to

combat terrorism. The United States, in a way, took it upon itself to wipe out weapons of

mass destruction that Saddam Hussein had kept in his possession. The results and the

aftermath of the war on Iraq have proved to be so feeble and violent. It has also given rise

to the perception that Western countries seek to force Muslim populations into a single

political being.

Richard Clarke4 argued that Bush ‘launched a unnecessary and costly war in Iraq

that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide’

(Clarke). Such a war against Iraq could have possibly given rise to the current threat,

ISIS. Analyzing statistics and data can also support this. In terms of recruitment, terrorist

organizations appear to have taken advantage of America’s response to 9/11. There were

4
Richard Alan Clarke is the former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection
and Counter-terrorism for the United States. He also worked for the State Department during the
presidency of Ronald Regan.
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an estimated 32,200 fighters in Islamist-inspired foreign terrorist organizations in the year

2000, according to reports by the Department of State and data from the Mapping

Militant Organization at Stanford University. However, by 2013, the number had grown

three times to more than 110,000 (Cassman). Similarly, the number of Islamist-inspired

terrorist organizations had increased dramatically according to the list published by the

Department of State. Therefore, this is a perfect example that portrays the negative

effects of using military interventions as a method to fight terrorism. By drawing the

above-explained cases, Afghanistan and Iraq, we can arrive the conclusion that violence

can lead to more violence; thus is no way aiding in eliminating the threat of terrorism.

By intervening into Afghanistan and Iraq, aiming to democratize these nations,

may have made terrorism and insurgency more feasible. Well before 2001, renowned

governance scholars had noted that key democracy enablers, such as liberal institutions

and culture, were absent in Muslim-majority countries, making it impossible for

democracy to exist. With infant democracies established in nations like Afghanistan and

Iraq, research showed that higher levels of political violence were associated with newly

managed democracies (Lutz). Hence, an ineffective and inexperienced government had

the potential to make terrorism more feasible, particularly if the state’s security force is

ineffective.

To conclude, by analyzing the data presented and by examining the various

historical examples, the US efforts in the war on terror have been largely ineffective in

achieving the stated objectives. More Americans have been killed by terrorist acts since
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9/11 than before. Additionally, al-Qaeda and terror groups of global reach have not been

completely defeated or destroyed. Rather, the number of such organizations and fighters

supporting them has risen substantially since 2001. It can be argued that there hasn’t been

a terrorist attack as huge and scarring as the 9/11, however this in no way reduces the

threat of terrorism, not only in the US but also around the world. The problem of

terrorism can diminish over time. Such diminution will require constant resolution,

including arrests and trials and military intervention only when appropriate. It will also

need a patient approach, which would take a departure of what we have seen so far in the

‘war on terror’. By examining and taking account of a long history of terror and counter-

terror, the threat of terrorism can be eliminated.

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Works Cited

Howard, Michael. "What's In A Name? How To Fight Terrorism". Foreign Affairs 81.1
(2002): 8. Web.

Soergel, Andrew. "War On Terror Could Be Costliest Yet". U.S.News. N.p., 2017. Web.
28 Apr. 2017.

"CNN.Com - Transcript Of President Bush's Address - September 21,

2001". Edition.cnn.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 28 Apr. 2017.

NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR COMBATING TERRORISM. 1st ed. CIA, 2003. Web. 28
Apr. 2017.

Crenshaw, Martha. "The Causes Of Terrorism". Comparative Politics 13.4 (1981): 379.
Web. 29 Apr. 2017.

Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. 1st ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Print.

Davis, Paul K, and Brian M Jenkins. Deterrence & Influence In Counterterrorism. A

Component In The War On Al Qaeda. 1st ed. Ft. Belvoir: Defense Technical Information
Center, 2002. Print.

SEN, ASHISH. "Declaring War On Islamic Terrorism Is Not The Answer, Says
Lebaron". Atlantic Council - working together to secure the future.. N.p., 2015. Web. 29
Apr. 2017.

"Israeli Invasion Of Lebanon 1982". Palestinefacts.org. N.p., 2017. Web. 29 Apr. 2017.

"Full Text: Bush's Speech". the Guardian. N.p., 2003. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.

Clarke, Richard A. Against All Enemies.. 1st ed. New York: Simon & Schuster
Audioworks, 2004. Print.

Lutz, James M., and Brenda J. Lutz. "Democracy And

Terrorism". Terrorismanalysts.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.

"What Is Terrorism?". Terrorism Research. N.p., 2017. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.

Cassman, Daniel. "Mapping Militant Organizations". Web.stanford.edu. N.p., 2017. Web.

1 May 2017.

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