America’s War on Terror: 9 Perspectives

What is the War on Terror?

The War on Terror is a generic name for the global military, political, legal, and conceptual struggle against both terrorist organizations and against the regimes accused of supporting them. Starting in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks inside the USA, it officially finished the day Osama Bin Laden was declared killed on 2nd May 2011. However, Barak Obama announced its official termination in 2013 and directed the American security establishment to focus on specific enemies as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.

Though it was the worst intelligence failure of any intelligence agency in history, the USA took maximum advantage of the 9/11 tragedy and embarked on the mission to accomplish the objectives outlined in the infamous neo-con paper, known as the American Century. Calling it a War on Terror, America employed all its -military, diplomatic, and financial, to wage a war of terror on several countries besides Afghanistan-its starting point.

Whether it was a stellar success as its proponents want us to believe or a dismal failure as its opponents claim, is a debatable point but it has cost the world massively in terms of loss of human lives, financial losses, refugees crises, missed opportunities, and surprisingly, increased global terrorism.

After the ignominious exit of the USA and its allies from Afghanistan, there are a plethora of research papers about the causes, course, and consequences of this human tragedy. What were the causes of the failure of the War on Terror, what costs did it impose on those on the receiving end, and what are its long-term consequences, these are some of the issues being discussed in academic and military institutions all over the world.

Perspectives on the nature of the War on Terror

One of the most contentious issues being debated is the nature of the War on Terror. Whether it was really a war to end terrorism or there were hidden agendas of those involved. To some, it was a camouflage to further the foreign policy objectives of the USA. In fact, a sizeable minority of highly educated people maintain that 9/11 was an inside job to provide cassus belli for American war plans. However, the opponents of the War on Terror believe that 9/11 was just a hoax; or it did happen, then, it was an inside job conducted by the CIA and Mossad to establish some casus belli for implementing the Neo-Con agenda explained in their American Century Project to re-assert the American hegemony, etc

On the other hand, skeptics maintain that 9/11 may or may not be an inside job but the military-industrial complex used it brilliantly to advance their agenda of self-aggrandizement outlined in the 1997 document “Project for the New American Century”. Authored by Paul Wolfowitz, it argued that the United States would remain the “unipolar global hegemon” and has been the underlying spirit of every National Defence Strategy and National Security Strategy issued since then. In 2012, General Wesley Clark revealed that the USA had already planned to invade seven countries in five years. it was a war against terrorism, turned into a nation-building exercise by default, but used successfully to advance the Neo-Con agenda of preserving the global hegemony of the West

Some of the different and diverse perspectives to analyse the War on Terror would be as follows

1. Global War on Terror: This was the officially declared version of the USA and its allies; According to the official American version, the War on Terror was launched to dismantle the terrorist network of Al Qaida after they carried out a series of terrorist acts against US interests outside the USA and finally on 9/11 inside the USA. As they had crossed the red line, so their elimination was the basic objective to obviate the possibility of such attacks in the future.
2. Jihad against Occupation Forces: This is the officially stated version of Taliban; it is jihad against the secular, un-Islamic puppet regime in Kabul on the one hand and armed resistance against illegal and immoral foreign occupation
3. Class War: Marxists would term it as a typical class war; the Taliban represents the underclass of Afghanistan-rural poor, mostly Pashtun, politically disempowered, led by the poor mullahs not rich ulema class fighting against petty bourgeoise backed by global capitalism
4. Cold War 2: War is the norm in international relations for centuries.; if it is not, then there must be a Cold War. Thus, America’s War on Terrorism was nothing but one of the battles in the Cold War the USA must fight to appease its military-industrial complex
5. Great Game-2: Why not term it as a continuation of the classical Great Game for influence in Central Asia? Yes, the names may have changed but the players are the same. Isn’t the USA an inheritor of the British Empire trying to save the “Free World” from the clutches of evil?
6. Clash of Civilisation/Crusades-2: Maybe, it was a demonstration of how a flawed theoretical model based on cherry-picked facts transforms perceptions of the ruling elite in the West. Bush used the word Crusade then he retracted but he was clearly under the spell of this infamous thesis
7. Modernisation Framework: Favourite of the sociologists, this was a typical war between conservative traditionalists and modernists which is going on since the 1920s when Aman Ullah Khan tried in vain a test tube modernization of a tribal society
8. Ethnic Warfare: Using a sociological perspective, we can term it as ethnic warfare going on for centuries in a multi-ethnic tribal society. This internecine warfare among tribes, particularly between Pashtuns and non-Pashtun tribes, was used by regional/global powers
9. White Man’s Burden-2: British colonialists justified their colonial occupation by saying that they are on a noble mission of teaching civilization to backward nations. The USA as an inheritor of British colonialism believes in this mission

War on Terror; Stellar Success or Dismal Failure?

The answer to the question of whether the global war on terror launched by the USA after 9/11 succeeded in achieving its stated objectives depends upon the perspective one has in mind. To the enthusiasts, it was a stellar success in ensuring the security of the mainland USA by not only dislodging the Taliban government which was accused of harbouring the terrorists, particularly Osama bin Laden but also dismantling Al Qaida and uprooting their safe havens. It resulted in the arrest of hundreds of terrorist suspects around the world, the prevention of further large-scale terrorist attacks on the American mainland, and increased levels of international cooperation in global counter-terrorism efforts. Its final crowning success came when the USA killed its mastermind, Osama bin Laden on 2nd May 2011 in a remotely located house in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Of course, the USA has lost around 2500 soldiers and got more than 20,000 wounded in pursuit of this objective notwithstanding the trillions of dollars spent. Yet these losses are worth the aim for which this war was launched. The USA is now safe from any 9/11-style attacks. However, what is the cost borne by the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries for keeping America safe cannot be adequately estimated. Never. Similarly, what will be the consequences, short term as well long term, of this war on terrorism will be only an educated guess.

Forget the collateral damage in the form of great human misery of non-American nations i.e., millions of people killed/wounded or made homeless, property worth trillions of dollars destroyed, and economies of several developing countries ruined. The arrival of hundreds and thousands of refugees in Europe has long-term socioeconomic implications for NATO allies. For a country that has been responsible for causing more than 20 million deaths since the second world war, it is immaterial.

However, to its opponents and critics, all the successes claimed so far in the War on Terror are tactical and not of much significance in a strategic sense. To them, there are no signs of any clear US victory in this War on Terror; rather the USA is seen to be fighting an endless war, creating more terrorists than it has killed so far. To them, the costs incurred in terms of human losses, financial burden, and infrastructural damage outweigh the gains the USA claims in its War on Terror. Similarly, they argue, that the unintended consequences of the War on Terror are far more than the goals intended and achieved.

(From my book “International Relations: Basic Concepts & Global Issues”, available at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QZSRWT1)