Every year, around the start of the federal budget season, U.S. military combatant commanders ride to Capitol Hill and argue as to why their commands require more resources, platforms, and a larger slice of the Pentagon pie.
This week, it was the turn of Gens. Stephen Townsend and Kenneth McKenzie, the top commanders in Africa and the Middle East, respectively, to testify. Topics included everything from Russia’s defense relationship with Algeria, Islamic State detainees in Syria, and how the military intends to protect troop members who will soon be withdrawing from Afghanistan. Still, what stood out was McKenzie’s observation that Washington’s fight against terrorism will sustain like the Energizer Bunny.
“The long-term view for the war on terror is this: It’s not going to be bloodless,” McKenzie said. “The war on terror is probably not going to end.”
Think about the significance of that declaration for a moment. Here is the most senior U.S. commander in the Middle East, a man whose military advice is automatically given consideration at the highest levels of government, admitting openly that the United States is in a war with no expiration date. It’s war with no clear metrics of success, no limits, and apparently, no hesitation on the part of those leading the effort. Foreign policy commentators like to make light of the forever war concept as a flashy, politically popular, unintelligible slogan. But if what McKenzie is saying is true, U.S. foreign policymakers have in effect committed U.S. troops and taxpayers to a series of unending conflicts across the world.
The war on terrorism paradigm has always been a troubling concept from the moment former President George W. Bush first invoked the phrase in the hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It’s troubling not because terrorists who target Americans shouldn’t get what they deserve, but rather because terrorism itself has been with us in various forms and iterations for centuries. When policymakers in Washington decided to frame terrorism as an enemy that can be defeated through overwhelming military force, they practically set themselves up for failure. You can’t “win” against terrorism any more than you can “win” against drug lords, criminals, poverty, or Mother Nature.
Want proof?
Just look at the gargantuan costs of the last 20 years. The Cost of War Project at Brown University pegs U.S. spending on the post-9/11 wars at over $6.4 trillion. That sum is expected to grow to over $8 trillion by the 2050s. The human costs have been horrendous. Societies that were never particularly unified or strong to begin with, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, are either in full-fledged civil wars or have catastrophic instability. Terrorist organizations have multiplied like rabbits.
Treating terrorism as an enemy that can be vanquished like the German Empire in 1918 or imperial Japan in 1945 is ridiculous. The war paradigm is a terribly inefficient way to combat terrorists. It has proved to accelerate the very national security threat the U.S. counterterrorism community is so dedicated to fighting. The FBI doesn’t swarm every town and city with agents, then ask social scientists to redesign the local administration, nor does it offer blank checks to retrain and reoutfit local police departments (or to bail out those officers when they hit trouble). Instead, the FBI works its sources, investigates identified suspects, cooperates with other agencies when necessary, and intercepts the criminals when appropriate. The analogy holds. Similar to crime, terrorism is never going to go away. It’s an unfortunate and serious challenge.
But it is not a challenge that perpetual war can correct.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
