Rendering: "Three Wars on Terror"

The article “Three Wars on Terror” was published by John Arquilla in National Security on September 10. It discusses three wars on terror in the US, which had been hold by Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.

   First of all it’s important to note that one of Barack Obama's earliest acts as president was to discard the phrase "war on terror," but despite that he has been waging just such a campaign these past four years. However, his counter-terrorism strategy was a far less costly than was undertaken in Iraq by George W. Bush, as Moammar Qaddafi was taken down when Obama engineered and enabled a NATO air campaign that began by preventing a slaughter of innocents in Benghazi, then went on to effect regime change in Tripoli.

   In resolute terms the author of the article makes it clear that the difference in the approaches taken by the American two most recent presidents really speaks to there being two different wars on terror. If Bush chose to attack other nations in his attempt to create a less permissive international environment for terrorist networks, Obama has decided to take the more direct approach: going straight after the networks. And here the article reports at length that 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. But Obama's concept of operations has been working well, and will never break the bank or exhaust the US military.

   Analyzing the situation with Reagan’s strategy, it’s necessary emphasize that 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. But despite success of the first war on terror, in the wake of 9/11 the second war on terror has begun.

   Giving appraisal of the situation, it’s necessary to point out that Obama acceded to a status-of-forces agreement allowing senior political advisers to talk him into living with the consequences of a complete withdrawal from Iraq - where keeping even a slight residual force would have deterred the resurgence of violence that now threatens to undo all the progress of the past decade.

   In conclusion the author mentions that in the battle for Reagan's strategic soul, the conventional thinkers won out because they convinced him that there was far too much of the "dark side" in the plan. 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.

   I think of course each country has its own strategy and means to achieve the goal (to obliterate terrorism), but nevertheless, in my opinion, everything is useless, because all these presidents have tried and are trying to fight with terror, while terrorist acts must be prevented. But, unfortunately, these three words ("war on terror") have already done their work - sowed uncertainty and fear in people, because there’s a question - whether this so-called war can eradicate terrorism?! And now, watching how the situation goes out of our control, we are steadily moving to the one, but certainly not to the victory over terror...