The Rendering №7

The article “Three Wars on Terror” was published in the National Security on September, 10. It discusses that one of Barack Obama's earliest acts as president was to discard the phrase "war on terror”, however, he has been waging just such a campaign these past four years. The author John Arquilla considers that Obama's counter-terrorism strategy took down Qadaffi and was in a far less costly manner than was undertaken in Iraq by George W. Bush. It would not be wrong to assume that the difference in the approaches taken by two most recent presidents really speaks to there being two different wars on terror.

It was revealed that the Bush's strategy proved exceptionally costly and highly problematic in Iraq, and even his initial success in "going small" in Afghanistan was all too soon overtaken by a stalemate-inducing impulse to send large numbers of troops there. It is an open secret that the Obama's concept of operations, on the other hand, has been working well, and will never break the bank or exhaust our military -- especially in the wake of his realizing, and reversing, the folly of surging more troops into Afghanistan, as senior military leaders persuaded him to do early in his presidency.

Analyzing the situation after the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 242 Americans, Reagan and his team became deeply concerned about the terrorism problem it is necessary to mention that the campaign that Obama is now pursuing strongly resembles to Reagan’s. The correspondent stresses the importance of the signal success of this first war on terror came in a campaign against the Abu Nidal Organization - the al Qaeda of the ‘80s -- which was conducting terrorist hits for hire on behalf of Iraq, Libya, and Syria. But speaking of this success it is interesting to note that despite for all of Reagan's enthusiasm and Shultz's support, little else came to pass. This was because many senior military leaders worried about the ethics of Reagan's war on terror.

There are signs that the Weinberger/Powell approach was slavishly followed -- for the most part -- in the wake of 9/11, embroiling the United States in the two costly nation-building debacles that have characterized its second war on terror. The reporter makes it clear that but, as was the case with Reagan, there is now a similar battle going on for Obama's strategic soul. For all the nimble, networked operations he has overseen, Obama did allow senior military advisers to talk him into surging large numbers of conventional forces into Afghanistan -- at great cost and, at best, with mixed results.

In conclusion the author  gives a warning that the Reagan's strategic soul won out because they convinced him that there was far too much of the "dark side" in the Shultz-inspired plan; but in the battle for Barack Obama's strategic soul, the "overwhelming force" approach has not yet carried the day -- and with luck it won't. As for me, the US president thinks himself as an all-powerful person who can change the situation in the world. But I think that to stop terrorism it is necessary to combine the all countries’ power and work together.