The Long War By Alan W. Dowd
Ten Septembers ago, some Americans tried to make sense of the senseless by looking for historical analogies. Many turned to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, which, like the 9/11 at- tacks, came without warning and roused America to war. But as historical parallels go, Pearl Harbor doesn’t really work. The enemy that attacked Pearl Harbor struck military
targets; al-Qaida’s heaviest blows landed on civilian targets. Pearl Harbor announced the beginning of Japan’s war against America; al-Qaida’s attack on Washington and New York was an exclamation point to years of terrorism. Japan was a cen- tralized state; al-Qaida is a stateless network. A decade after that first day of infamy, Japan not only had been defeated but also was on its way to rehabilitation; Afghanistan, 9/11’s spawning ground, is still the central front in a wider war. There is another parallel, albeit an imperfect one, for what
It may seem rather strange, but I believe 9/11 had a somewhat positive influence on my life. The (relatively) rapid response by President [George W.] Bush brought about a new feeling in the general American public con- cerning the military. As a Vietnam vet, it was the first time I no lon- ger felt like a pariah and began to be comfortable with my “Vietnam Vet” license plate! People began to stop me and say “Thanks for your service,” something that never happened prior to 9/11. Of course, the tragedy struck home and angered me, as I’m sure it did all veterans. But there was still this feeling that once again in my life (the last time was in the 1940s!), Americans were coming together and had pride in their country and their military and a willingness to work togeth- er to deal with a new enemy.
—Maj. Kent Goldsmith, USAF-Ret.
9/11 unleashed. Ten years in, the struggle against terrorists with a global reach — and the regimes that feed them — shares simi- larities with the long war against Soviet communism. Consider the words of NSC-68, penned in 1950 to provide a roadmap for waging the Cold War: Now, as then, America’s enemies are animated by a “fanatic faith, antithetical to our own”; the chal- lenge is “momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this republic but of civilization itself”; and success depends on citizens’ recognition that this “is in fact a real war in which the survival of the free world is at stake.” Like the Cold War, this conflict demands a durable national
consensus. A decade of war was unimaginable Sept. 10, 2001, when many Americans thought they were invulnerable — and thought of war as a push-button, bloodless affair. Yet today, Americans largely agree the terrorist threat is real and answer- ing it by force of arms is necessary. They have ratified the post- 9/11 campaign in multiple elections. As in the Cold War, when administrations of both political parties followed the same roadmap, there is remarkable continuity between the George W. Bush and Obama administrations on war policy, both em- ploying largely the same means to pursue the same ends: helping Afghanistan build institutions to resist the impulses to jihadism; killing or indefinitely detaining the enemy; waging the drone war; carrying out operations with or without U.N. ap- proval; and striking targets from Somalia to Yemen to Pakistan. The most important of those targets — Osama bin Laden
— recently was eliminated. His takedown, like the 9/11 at- tacks, carries great symbolic significance. It sends an un- mistakable message about America’s resolve, resilience, and reach. But just as the elimination of Yamamoto didn’t end World War II, just as the death of Stalin didn’t end the Cold War, bin Laden’s death doesn’t end the war on terrorism. An- other battle has been won, but the long war goes on.
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