National security

US lays down the law for war

...There are several portions of the NDS and its roll-out that are noteworthy. 

First, the most important change from previous strategies is that the Pentagon,under Secretary of Defence James Mattis has wisely abandoned the practice of professing wholly implausible claims made during the past 16-plus years that the US would ‘defeat’ an array of terrorist groups. These claims stretch from George W Bush’s pledge that the war on terror would continue until ‘every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated’, to Trump’s claim that he would ‘eradicate’ ‘radical Islamic terrorism … completely from the face of the earth’. 

Now, the strategic objective is to reduce terrorism to a ‘manageable’ level. Air Force chief of staff, General David Golden, recently described America’s new counterterrorism approach. ‘The strategy is to drive violent extremism down so local police can manage it. That is the strategy from the Philippines to Nigeria and everywhere in between,’ he said. 

 The dilemma is that while Pentagon officials are lowering the bar of expectations, they have adopted the same assumptions that resulted in America’s post-9/11 ‘Forever War’. As Mattis said with regards to Afghanistan, any reduction in troops deployed there would mean ‘you get hit again’ − meaning another 9/11.