Fighting the War on Terror: Strategies to Prevent Another 9/11

Introduction

With the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALs, the world achieved its biggest victory in the War on Terror since the campaign's inception. With the kingpin of al-Qaeda and the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the United States officially out of the picture, the world is a better place. Yet a "better" place does not necessarily mean a "safer" place. There are still radicals and Islamic fundamentalists — Jihadists and Ba'athists — and other enemies of the United States who would like to see this country suffer and who will stop at nothing to see their terrorist plans realized. In short, the world is still a dangerous place.

With that in mind, we must continue to safeguard this country from terrorist attacks. This essay investigates the ways in which we can effectively fight the War on Terror and ultimately prevent another 9/11.

Know Thine Enemy

The War on Terror is a complex and difficult war — unprecedented, really. We are fighting an enemy that is relatively inconspicuous yet ubiquitous, present even on our own soil. As a result, to effectively fight terrorism and prevent another 9/11, we must first identify the enemy.

Like Vietnam, where soldiers had difficulty differentiating the Viet Cong from local villagers, in the War on Terror our enemies are just as adept at blending into their surroundings and assimilating into a foreign culture. This is why it is paramount that we pinpoint exactly who they are, using as much detail as we can possibly gather.

President Bush did a good job of identifying enemies at the governmental level. He drew on his staff and used available resources and intelligence to demarcate precisely who the enemy was. After conferring with former CIA director R. James Woolsey, President Bush arrived at a definitive understanding of the threat. The Bush Doctrine identified Jihadists, Syrian and Iraqi Ba'athists, and Iranian clerics as primary adversaries.

By removing as much ambiguity from the situation as possible, the Bush Administration could then set clear directives on how to target and eliminate those terrorist organizations. Of course, before direct action can be taken, the use of force must be set against the framework of international law — acknowledging the complexity of the War on Terror and the simple fact that the United States does not operate in a vacuum.

The first step in preventing another terrorist attack is to continually ensure that the enemy is clearly identified. This, despite seeming obvious, is not as easy as one might think. Covert military operations in Pakistan, for example, carry uncertain diplomatic consequences, and the United States may find it has made new enemies in the process. It is therefore critical that the U.S. continue to identify who is, and who is not, an enemy, while remaining mindful that its judgments, determinations, and actions against those enemies carry repercussions throughout the international system.

A Friend of an Enemy Is an Enemy

Once an enemy has been clearly identified, and once there has been deliberation over how pursuing that enemy will impact the international community, the next step to preventing another 9/11 is to go after states that sponsor terrorist activity — whether overtly or covertly. As President Bush stated on September 20, 2001, "Those who harbor terrorists are terrorists."

There are really two different ways to go after states that sponsor terrorists: carrots or sticks. Carrots are incentives — aid, resources, and other inducements — to encourage compliance and cooperation with the United States, whereas sticks are punitive measures — sanctions, military force — to enforce that cooperation.

One of the most successful approaches to thwarting terrorism is a stick-based approach, highlighted in the Bush Doctrine, known as anticipatory self-defense. This is essentially a proactive rather than reactive posture, one that puts the United States on offense against terrorism. Part of this approach hinges on turning adversarial environments into cooperative ones through nation-building and the democratization of failed states.

Two prominent examples of anticipatory self-defense are the War in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan. With Saddam Hussein removed from power, terrorist organizations lost an eager financier. While Hussein was not directly connected to the 9/11 attacks, he exhibited all the hallmarks of a dangerous tyrant — perpetrating genocide against the Kurds, invading a sovereign nation, and actively seeking weapons of mass destruction. Additionally, by occupying both Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States kept the war on enemy soil rather than its own.

For some, the notion of anticipatory self-defense is difficult to accept. The use of occupational forces in Iraq was debated vigorously, in part because of the tenuous WMD argument used to justify the invasion. This is a legitimate point of contention. However, the United States, as the leader of the free world, bears both great power and great responsibility. Tough choices — invading Iraq, invading Afghanistan, assassinating Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan — are sometimes necessary. Rather than reacting to terrorism after the fact, the United States must fight it where it is conceived and where it grows: on enemy soil. If the goal is to continue preventing terrorism and avoiding another 9/11, the embrace of anticipatory self-defense as a cornerstone of foreign policy remains essential.

Conclusion

To fight terrorism effectively, the U.S. government must identify the enemy clearly, aggressively and proactively pursue states that fund and shelter terrorist organizations, and work in concert with citizens who understand the breadth and scope of what it means to wage a War on Terror. If these efforts are pursued in conjunction with one another, the United States stands a genuine chance at winning the War on Terror and preventing another 9/11.