How We Lost the War on Terror

How We Lost the War on Terror:

Part I: Not Winning is Losing

Therefore a victorious army first wins and then seeks battle; a defeated army first battles and then seeks victory. -Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu may have written long before "terrorism" was a word, but his words live on today because of their enduring applicability to even the most modern of conflicts. Despite changes in technology and politics, human nature remains the same.

Sun Tzu believed that a talented general did not go to battle without first understanding the strategic balance between himself and his enemy and ensuring that it was in his favor. "Therefore," said Sun Tzu, "the victories of good warriors are not noted for cleverness or bravery. Therefore their victories in battle are not flukes. Their victories are not flukes because they position themselves where they will surely win, prevailing over those who have already lost."

Today, I would like to examine Sun Tzu's contentions in the context of the War on Terror. It is my contention that the United States of America lost the battle before the first shots were fired in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Before we begin, however, we must first define our terms. Because I dislike the rather oxymoronic idea of a "War on Terror," let's specifically outline what kicked off this worldwide party.

Most (if not all) of the United State's military actions against terrorists stem from the Authorization for Use of Military Force, a Congressional Resolution (and not a declaration of war.) The AUMF gives the president the authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." For the purposes of defining the War on Terror, then, let us treat the AUMF and the Patriot Act, as well as subsequent actions taken by the United States government to stamp out terrorism, as the parameters of the "War." Thus the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the current drone wars in Yemen and Pakistan would presumably fall under this category, but efforts to eradicate poachers in Africa would not.

There is one more thing we must understand: genuine war is fundamentally an extension of politics. Carl Von Clausewitz, who laid the foundations for much of Western strategic thought with his hefty On War, dealt with this truth well when he said "war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means...war itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different." Fundamentally, then, war is the effort to compel one's opponent make political decisions. Now that that's out of the way, let's dive in.

The War on Terror renders true victory impossible simply because it is too broad. With the AUMF, Congress essentially surrendered decision making authority to the president to determine against whom and where the war will be conducted. Without any real predetermined goals that can be achieved, the war becomes an ongoing operation carried out at the whim of the president. Although one could hold to the view that an elimination of the primary sponsors of the 9/11 attacks would be considered "winning," this path has not been taken by the government. Instead, under the auspices of "prevent(ing) any future acts of international terrorism against the United States," the war has been expanded and shows every sign of carrying on. Our efforts to fight pretty much any terrorist who dislikes us, anywhere, guarantee that the end of the War on Terror will be a political decision, not a military reality.

We said before, of course, that war is an extension of politics, so it does seem appropriate for a war to end with a political decision. But war also has goals that should be fulfilled to win. Clausewitz defines war as "an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will," and although he acknowledged the theory of war often differed from the practice, it is hard to imagine a war that does not abide by this definition. According to Clausewitz, in theory a pure war is over when one side has an "inability to carry on the struggle," but says that in practice, this can "be replaced by two other grounds for making peace: the first is the improbability of victory; the second is its unacceptable cost." The important point to note here is not any of these alternatives: after all, we will never force the enemy to "do our will," he is often firmly and religiously convinced of ultimate victory, and an enemy that will sacrifice himself is unlikely to find any cost unacceptable. The important point is the Clausewitz concludes that a war ends with peace.

Terrorism, like piracy, never "ends," it merely drifts from public consciousness. True peace is impossible. It seems, then, that the United States has declared war on an enemy that cannot be defeated, merely combated. In my mind, this is a poor approach. While it is stirring to declare that a "country is at war!" a war is meant to be won or lost–and to fight a war with no intention of winning is to fight a losing fight. The War on Terror, then, was lost before it began because it initiated a conflict that can never end with an enemy that cannot be defeated. The subsequent US expansion of the war to encompass terrorists who were not directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks made this inevitable.

I realize that at this point, however, I've merely hammered in why calling the War on Terror a "war" was a terrible idea. It is easy to agree with the actions taken and merely suggest that the operation be given a different name, like "Overseas Contingency Operations" or "Efforts to Counter Violent Extremism." So in Part II of this post, I'm going to assess the actions of the War on Terror and whether it was really worthwhile.