America's war on terror has indeed knocked back jihadi terrorism targeting the West. But it is still out there. Including in Afghanistan where we abandoned our ability to suppress a terror sanctuary there. The war on terror is not over despite great power competition emphasis.
Killing the leader of al Qaeda terrorists in Kabul is a good reminder that the war on terror continues. I worried that the Afghanistan skedaddle debacle would cripple our ability to kill jihadis. We're still trying, at least.
America doesn't need the intensity of efforts that the counter-insurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq required. That represents success. But we still need to fight terrorists:
Matthew Levitt frames this overview of counterterrorism policy by observing that the current focus on Great Power and near power competition as US national security priorities reflects the success of Washington’s investment in counterterrorism and homeland security. However, the current environment of growing partisan polarization also reflects the need to rationalize US investment in counterterrorism and adopt a more sustainable posture on the counterterrorism mission.
I've pondered the same thing, calling what might be called "guard duty" the "Global Troubles":
I've long said that our war on terror is a holding action to prevent collateral damage from the Islamic Civil War from hurting Americans at home. In many ways we've done that and paid the price to achieve it.
While there are still military tasks to be done in the fight against jihadis, America and the West need different tools from those that dominated in the decade after 9/11 to finally defeat the Islamo-fascists that wish to kill and define all of Islam as an expression of that will to kill.
We are in the age of the Global Troubles now.
This is not a declaration of Mission Accomplished. Much like that 2001 sentiment actually was a declaration of one mission accomplished rather than of final victory, we accomplished our initial post-9/11 mission of breaking the back of international terrorism and the states that supported them.
If we keep working on this problem, even the Global Troubles will one day finally fade.
Levitt frames the issue this way:
Leaders in both the Democratic and Republican Parties also stress the need to end “forever wars,” focus counterterrorism resources on protecting the U.S. homeland, and rely on foreign partners to take the lead—with U.S. support—on addressing terrorism in their neighborhoods. The terrorist threats facing the United States are more dispersed today than they were on September 11, 2001, but there is now general agreement on the need to adopt a more sustainable posture on the counterterrorism mission.And yeah, great powers use terrorism. So focus on great power competition doesn't mean terrorism can be downplayed too much even if jihadi threats are eliminated.
This is reasonable. All it really needs in the area of undermining the spawning of Islamist terrorists and their ideology is the recognition that the Islamic world needs to win its civil war about who--jihadis or normals--represent Islam.
UPDATE: Case in point: "Four al-Shabab militants are presumed dead after a series of airstrikes launched by U.S. forces in Somalia, U.S. Africa Command announced Wednesday." And so four more presumed good jihadis.
NOTE: My most recent war coverage continues here.
