Part 1. Basic Concepts and Ideas War on Terror: Definition

War on Terrorism is referred to as the response by the administration of George W. Bush on the attacks of September 11. Immediately after the attacks, Bush declared that this constituted an act of war. Recognizing the international background of the attackers, however, the war was not directed specifically against one particular country. Instead, the war was to be waged against any country harbouring terrorists. It was on this basis that Afghanistan became the first nation to be targeted by the US. The US supported the Northern Alliance troops by pounding the ruling Taliban regime which harboured the al-Qaeda network with bombs. Once the Taliban were destroyed, the US sent elite troops to pursue al-Qaeda fighters in the mountains and caves of the Afghan interior, though by winter 2002 al-Qaeda's leader, Osama Bin Laden, had not been captured.

The War on Terrorism allowed the huge mobilization of US resources that previous campaigns had been unable to muster. It lent itself to language that captured the moral high ground, though this could backfire, for instance in Bush's ill-judged reference to a ‘crusade’ against an ‘axis of evil’, with its connotations of religions warfare. It also allowed the US to define its aims flexibly and adjust them pragmatically to the current military and political situation. These advantages, however, entailed tremendous problems. (1) Since terrorism was by its nature without established, visible structure, it was impossible to define. This meant that the war aims were elusive, and that the war could in theory be carried on forever.(2) From the start, Bush struggled to define where the War on Terrorism would go after Afghanistan. In early 2002, the Bush administration extended the rhetorical War on Terrorism to Saddam Hussein of Iraq, but this proved very divisive amongst America's allies.(3) As shown by the examples of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tadjikistan, the War on Terrorism relied on assistance from dictatorial regimes whose values were themselves not far removed from the aims of terrorists.(4) The War on Terrorism relied on Afghan anti-Taliban war lords. These maintained their power through money generated from the harvesting opium. This rendered the US virtually powerless to prevent the harvesting of a bumper crop of opium in 2002.(5) The War on Terrorism elevated captured al-Qaeda fighters at least potentially to prisoner-of-war status, which the US sought to deny. Despite these problems, President Bush remained hugely popular in the US, primarily because of his leadership, which defined the War.

However there are alternative approaches towards giving the definition to this notion. If you go back to the term's origins, it clearly applied to the war in the fall of 2001 against the Taliban in Afghanistan, which was sheltering Al Qaeda. That offensive largely succeeded. The Taliban was deposed, the terrorist camps destroyed, and Al Qaeda's leadership killed, captured, or driven into hiding. No other government has stepped forward to shelter Al Qaeda; and Osama bin Laden's organization of fighters has become a loose network that can't be engaged militarily, but that is also capable of concerted political action. This network is still very dangerous. It is capable of acts of terror, or of planning them--witness the latest arrests from north of the border--but it is not a concern for war planners, but for police and intelligence activity and homeland security officials.

There have been attempts to formulate a broader definition of the war against terror, which would be directed against any group that employs terrorist tactics, including Chechnyan rebels. But in spite of urgings by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Bush administration has been unwilling to target the mere tactic of terrorism. Rhetoric aside, the administration has never been at war with a tactic, but rather with a specific group and set of groups that target Americans and American allies.