Introduction
The United States’ longest war came to an end with the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban’s swift and hostile takeover of Afghanistan’s government following the U.S. withdrawal left the country once again in the hands of the Taliban. The Taliban takeover is a significant development in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and raises questions about the unforseen consequences of the war against terrorism.
The GWOT is an international, American-led coalition campaign launched in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland. Following the attacks, then-President George W. Bush launched a comprehensive plan to eliminate and disrupt all terrorist organizations around the globe. He stated, “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 U.S. employed every instrument of national power including diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, and financial and military tools to disrupt and defeat not just Al-Qaeda but to extend the fight to other militant groups around the world. Nations around the globe joined the U.S. in the battle against global terror. The GWOT led to the disruption of violent extremist organizations, the elimination of terrorist safe havens, the disruption of terrorist financing, the advancement and transformation of global security, and the elimination of the immediate terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland. Simultaneously, the GWOT also fueled radicalization and laid the foundation for the rise of extremist groups with similar ideological sympathies that can spread violence.
Successes of the GWOT
Military and intelligence operations including offensive strategies and covert operations proved successful in the fight against terrorism. These operations have been shown to deter transnational terrorist groups from conducting logistically complex attacks in the face of limited resources as a consequence of U.S. and international led-military forces. U.S. military action succeeded in ousting the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in December 2001. While Al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies once controlled 95% of Afghanistan, U.S. military campaigns succeeded in seizing large swaths of Al-Qaeda-held territory including its center of gravity near the Afghan-Pakistan border in Afghanistan and reduced its ability to carry out large-scale terrorist attacks. This impacted Osama Bin Laden’s immediate communications with the organization. This disconnect eventually reduced Al-Qaeda’s ability to plan until 2004 when Osama Bin Laden reconnected with Al-Qaeda after years of hiding.
Targeted killings proved effective in dismantling terrorist groups that followed a hierarchical bureaucratic structure. However, Al-Qaeda was still able to conduct attacks despite leadership decapitation. Thus, while leadership decapitation was a major blow to the terrorist organization, the bureaucratization of Al-Qaeda allowed the group to formulate contingencies for a leadership turnover. However, the GWOT succeeded in eliminating key terrorist leaders of Al-Qaeda, including Osama Bin Laden.
Additionally, the U.S. made domestic advancements by developing more efficient technology and law enforcement processes and establishing the Transportation Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security to prevent further attacks on the U.S. homeland.
Failures of the GWOT
According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, nearly 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, the financial costs of the GWOT stand at $8 trillion and the death toll stands at 900,000 people. Casualties include U.S. military members, allied fighters, opposition fighters, journalists, humanitarian aid workers, and civilians. Of the total number killed, 287,000 are categorized as civilians, 207,000 as members of the national military and police forces, and another 301,000 as opposition fighters.
In the aftermath of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Iraq was destabilized without an effective bureaucratic system to provide basic goods and services to its citizens. The absence of adequate law enforcement and military forces to secure Iraqi borders, and the absence of extensive monitoring led to the country being infiltrated by former jihadist foreign fighters.
Following the Iraqi invasion, the provisional government led a de-Baathification process to rid the government and military of Ba’ath influence. The Ba’ath political party had previously led the country and top officials perpetrated human rights violations, but many had joined the party because it was the only way to gain many roles in the government sector. The de-Baathification gave rise to grievances that extremist groups started to exploit. Former Iraqi soldiers with no jobs were susceptible to radicalization. Grievances in the Sunni regions remained strong as there was little progress made with regards to reconstruction while security forces targeted former Ba’ath party members through unjust anti-terrorism laws. The use of unjust anti-terrorism laws, lack of security and services, and the length of displacement of these communities all led to an environment that extremist groups such as the Islamic State could exploit. All these conditions fueled radicalization and laid the foundations for the rise of other extremist groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq.
GWOT moving forward
Moving forward, the U.S. will likely continue to carry out special operations in regions that witness the rise of jihadi groups, to disrupt and eliminate terrorist organizations, disrupt terrorist financing, and prevent radicalization. U.S. military doctrine retains the essential elements to plan and execute successful operations against conventional and irregular opponents. Recently, the U.S. successfully executed a covert operation that killed the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Ibrahim al–Hashimi al-Qurayshi. This operation demonstrates a high degree of sophistication in U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism efforts.
Most importantly, the U.S. is incorporating countering violent extremism into the U.S. National Security Strategy to prevent the radicalization of individuals as radicalization and recruitment remain threat multipliers. Thus, preventing radicalization remains essential to countering extremism, especially in internally displaced camps where extremist propaganda is widely being spread.
