The future of US War on Terror
The eleventh hour for the US may have finally arrived in the form of the fiscal cliff. In the aftermath of the elections, the American political system is involved in the kind of introspection and deliberation that should have been initiated earlier. Raising taxes and cutting entitlement programmes was one part of the debate during the elections, the other half had to do with the defence spending. The war on terror that was launched in the aftermath of 9/11 greatly expanded the powers and spending of the defence and security establishment. Now that Osama is dead, many are questioning if these expenditures and special war authorisations should continue, especially when many believe the real challenge lies in the pacific.
The matter is unlikely to be resolved easily and mixed messages are emanating from within the Obama administration. Speaking in Britain on 1 December, Obama ally and Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson, for the first time, initiated a debate about the state that would represent the end of the war against Al-Qaeda (AQ). On the other hand, while speaking at the Center for a New American Security on 20 November, the US secretary of defence presented an argument for why the war on terror should continue.
It was the first important speech delivered by an administration official since Obama got reelected. In this address, he laid out the broad outline for the future US defence posture. Not only that, he presented a genuine assessment of the existing and emerging challenges related with the war against terror. Moreover, the speech provides a critical glimpse of how the US is evaluating its performance in disrupting, dismantling and defeating Al-Qaeda (AQ).
Leon Panetta pointed out that although US was limiting its military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan that did not mean the threat to its national security posed by AQ had vanished. He added that as compared to previous wars the US has been involved in, the present conflict was of a different nature and would require a long sustained effort. However, recognising the politically charged environment that surrounded the fiscal debate, he went on to qualify and explain how the full potential of AQ had been degraded.
Panetta especially noted that the AQ’s capability to wage large-scale attacks on the US was no longer there, and its top leadership had been decimated. Nonetheless, he surprisingly admitted that AQ virus had now spread to Somalia and North Africa and it was attempting to exploit the Arab Spring. PoliTact has particularly made this argument all along; while success may have been achieved in the AfPak region, AQ and its affiliate are now spread all over the Islamic world. Furthermore, the hardcore tactics adopted by the western powers have furthered its recruitment efforts and have dangerously shifted the public discourse in favour of Islamists. This dynamic is visibly playing out in the present Egyptian crisis.
To counter this risk, Panetta assured full American support to the governments that were emerging from the Arab revolt. He went on to add that the US Special Forces were already conducting joint operations with those countries to contain the extremists. At the same time, he emphasised that the region was going through a major transition, which needed to be influenced and managed by international actors. This was the clearest indication that US and NATO were not about to let the region run its natural evolution with Islamists potentially taking over power. In other words, we can expect more foreign military interventions, as liberal and moderate Islamists are increasingly unable to hold the ground or deliver on western interests.
Mr Panetta himself posed the intriguing question: while the enemy has been weakened, he pondered what it would take to finish AQ. The defence secretary made it known that AQ was always on the look out for new and remote safe havens. Therefore, to counteract this, US will maintain pressure on Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia to prevent it from reconstituting there. He elaborated that this would entail enhancing the capabilities of the allies. As US moves to a lighter footprint tactics, its own Special Forces are slated to grow to 72,000 strong by 2017, to be accompanied by a mushrooming in numbers of drones and reapers.
Another important step towards finishing off AQ, he added, was to prevent it from getting new recruits. And, for this purpose, the full force of American diplomacy and international development tools would be used. However, the continued heavy-handed kinetic approaches are eroding American perception as a benign force of change, to more of a bully.
No one would disagree with what Mr Panetta had to say. After all, this argument was not presented for the first time. And, this is exactly the problem he is confronted with. He explained his deepest worry was that there was no longer any constituency in Congress to continue the fight for the long haul. In other words, and as Panetta put it: faced with the economic realities, there was a shortage of a political will to do what needs to be done to protect the US interests. He emphasised what really alarmed him was if the American system and political leaders would live up to the challenges they were confronted with.
Mr Panetta’s speech presented a complex message. He seemed to be saying that the longest war US has ever been involved in was over, but then it was not. Moreover, he added, American soldiers were coming home because the goals were achieved, but the threat was not eliminated. He went to state how the present conflict was different from all the previous ones. In his opinion, the nation does not have to choose between national or fiscal security.
In essence, Leon Panetta was grappling with a challenge of formulating a defence strategy by being cognizant of not only the emerging threats, but also the economic realities and political landscape. For the first time, American public and government are beginning to feel what imperial overstretch looks like.
The writer is chief analyst at PoliTact, a Washington based futurist advisory firm (www.PoliTact.com and http:twitter.com/politact) and can be reached at [email protected]
