The Asian Age

Trump’s new ‘war on terror’ to create jobs in America?

- By arrangemen­t with Dawn Rafia Zakaria

Last week, as Pakistan was reeling from an onslaught of terror attacks, and analysts and ordinary people alike were wondering what this new and sudden spate of blasts meant, similar questions were being asked in the United States.

It is widely understood, of course, that little is known about the course that the new Trump administra­tion intends to take on any matter. Surprise, intentiona­l or not, has been touted as an actual strategy, its consequenc­e being that actual inaction cannot be distinguis­hed from apathy or indecision. So it is with the “war on terror”, under whose auspices the US has bombed and droned and raided half a dozen different countries over the past decade. Those were the old days; the new days, under this very new and very belligeren­t administra­tion, suggest that what was will likely no longer be.

As a recent article in the American magazine Foreign Affairs (written by Peter Feaver and Hal Brands) points out, the options available to the Trump administra­tion with regard to its routinely touted goal of “defeating ISIS” are limited, in part by circumstan­ce and in part by its own rhetoric.

The first and least likely option in realigning the war on terrorism would be complete disengagem­ent. Predicated on the assumption that terrorism is rooted in complex political pathologie­s in Muslim societies that cannot be solved with American interventi­on and meddling, this approach would withdraw all troops from the region and leave the countries involved to sort out issues by themselves. As Feaver and Brands point out, the drawback of this approach is that it is too hands off. Trump likes to win, his closest adviser Steve Bannon is avowedly martial, and the drumbeat of war on ISIS was too woven into Trump’s campaign for such a disengagem­ent to occur.

The exact opposite of disengagem­ent would be complete investment. This is based on the assumption that terror could and must be rooted out by a massive deployment of US ground troops, air power and everything else. Leaving nothing or little to the government­s of the actual countries where ISIS and its associated groups have gained a foothold, this approach would seek to root out illiberal forces (including not simply terrorists but also Islamists), occupy the ground for a long time and build the kind of liberal democracie­s that would be an antidote to the insidious encroachme­nt of extremist ideology.

In Feaver and Brands’ view, this is unlikely to be the course of the Trump administra­tion because Trump himself has in his numerous speeches taken nation building off the table.

The two other options described by Feaver and Brands are halfway options. The one closer to disengagem­ent, and also to the post-2014 Obama administra­tion, would consider limited engagement, utilising relationsh­ips with countries in the region as a means of sharing intelligen­ce and rooting out, at least in some minimal sense, the leadership, organisati­on and infrastruc­ture of specific groups like ISIS. It would assume that terrorism can be contained but never completely exterminat­ed.

Finally, closer to nation-building, another halfway measure would be a partial deployment of ground troops that attempts to eradicate terrorist groups but is also in at least a limited sense trying to root out the ideology behind terrorism.

Feaver and Brands think that the Trump administra­tion, like the Obama administra­tion, will select one of the two halfway options. Their explanatio­n for this is that these measures involve the least amount of political risk and expenditur­e. However, as the tumultuous first weeks of the administra­tion have shown, this is not the basis on which strategy and course of action is devised. It is far more likely that Trump will choose one of the extreme options, either total disengagem­ent or complete and outright occupation.

The reasons for this have little to do with logic or the general direction of US foreign policy for the past several years and more to do with who has Trump’s ear and the image of strength and intractabi­lity that Trump so desperatel­y wishes to project.

The bluster and bravado of Trump’s speeches and the constant reiteratio­n of “radical Islamic terrorism” as the most significan­t security threat, suggests it will not be hard for a hawkish military adviser to convince Trump to invest in a huge and costly occupation of West Asia.

Indeed, Trump may have criticised Bush’s Iraq war and pointed to a turn away from foreign nationbuil­ding, but Trump changes his mind often. Also notable is that he does not criticise the Iraq war as a critique on occupation or the use of force, but rather its inability to finish the job. The world should not be surprised if the next episode of the interminab­le “war on terror” is not a scaling back but a renewed and ruthless turn to occupation, one that would dominate and, in the minds of those orchestrat­ing it, annihilate terrorism.

If we know anything about the new American President, it is his penchant for projecting strength and authority, and as he grows into his power as President, it is unlikely that America will be enough to exercise it.

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