https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-culturalnorms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissance—in the Age of Reason of 17th-century thought and the 18th-century Enlightenment. Commentators variously consider the era of modernity to have ended by 1930, with World War II in 1945, or as late as the period falling between the 1980s and 1990s; the following era is often referred to as "postmodernity". The term "contemporary history"
is also used to refer to the post-1945 timeframe, without assigning it
to either the modern or postmodern era. (Thus "modern" may be used as a
name of a particular era in the past, as opposed to meaning "the current
era".)
Depending on the field, modernity may refer to different time periods or qualities. In historiography, the 16th to 18th centuries are usually described as early modern, while the long 19th century corresponds to modern history proper. While it includes a wide range of interrelated historical processes and cultural phenomena (from fashion to modern warfare),
it can also refer to the subjective or existential experience of the
conditions they produce, and their ongoing impact on human culture,
institutions, and politics.
As an analytical concept and normative idea, modernity is closely linked to the ethos of philosophical and aesthetic modernism; political and intellectual currents that intersect with the Enlightenment; and subsequent developments such as existentialism, modern art, the formal establishment of social science, and contemporaneous antithetical developments such as Marxism. It also encompasses the social relations associated with the rise of capitalism, and shifts in attitudes associated with secularization, liberalization, modernization and post-industriallife.
In the context of art history, modernity (Fr. modernité) has a more limited sense, modern art covering the period of c. 1860–1970. Use of the term in this sense is attributed to Charles Baudelaire, who in his 1863 essay "The Painter of Modern Life",
designated the "fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban
metropolis", and the responsibility art has to capture that experience.
In this sense, the term refers to "a particular relationship to time,
one characterized by intense historical discontinuity or rupture,
openness to the novelty of the future, and a heightened sensitivity to
what is unique about the present".
Etymology
The Late Latin adjective modernus, a derivation from the adverb modo ("presently, just now", also "method"), is attested from the 5th century CE, at first in the context of distinguishing the Christian era of the Later Roman Empire from the Pagan era of the Greco-Roman world. In the 6th century CE, Roman historian and statesman Cassiodorus appears to have been the first writer to use modernus ("modern") regularly to refer to his own age.
The terms antiquus and modernus were used in a chronological sense in the Carolingian era. For example, a magister modernus referred to a contemporary scholar, as opposed to old authorities such as Benedict of Nursia. In its early medieval usage, the term modernus referred to authorities regarded in medieval Europe as younger than the Greco-Roman scholars of Classical antiquity and/or the Church Fathers
of the Christian era, but not necessarily to the present day, and could
include authors several centuries old, from about the time of Bede, i.e. referring to the time after the foundation of the Order of Saint Benedict and/or the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
The Latin adjective was adopted in Middle French, as moderne, by the 15th century, and hence, in the early Tudor period, into Early Modern English.
The early modern word meant "now existing", or "about the present
times", not necessarily with a positive connotation. English author and
playwright William Shakespeare used the term modern in the sense of "everyday, ordinary, commonplace".
The word entered wide usage in the context of the late 17th-century quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns within the Académie Française,
debating the question of "Is Modern culture superior to Classical
(Græco–Roman) culture?" In the context of this debate, the ancients (anciens) and moderns (modernes)
were proponents of opposing views, the former believing that
contemporary writers could do no better than imitate the genius of
Classical antiquity, while the latter, first with Charles Perrault (1687), proposed that more than a mere Renaissance of ancient achievements, the Age of Reason had gone beyond what had been possible in the Classical period of the Greco-Roman civilization. The term modernity,
first coined in the 1620s, in this context assumed the implication of a
historical epoch following the Renaissance, in which the achievements
of antiquity were surpassed.
Phases
Modernity has been associated with cultural and intellectual movements of 1436–1789 and extending to the 1970s or later.
According to Marshall Berman, modernity is periodized into three conventional phases dubbed "Early", "Classical", and "Late" by Peter Osborne:
Early modernity: 1500–1789 (or 1453–1789 in traditional historiography)
People were beginning to experience a more modern life (Laughey, 31).
Consisted of the rise and growing use of daily newspapers,
telegraphs, telephones and other forms of mass media, which influenced
the growth of communicating on a broader scale (Laughey, 31).
Consisted of the globalization of modern life (Laughey, 31).
In the second phase, Berman draws upon the growth of modern
technologies such as the newspaper, telegraph, and other forms of mass
media. There was a great shift into modernization in the name of
industrial capitalism. Finally, in the third phase, modernist arts and
individual creativity marked the beginning of a new modernist age as it
combats oppressive politics, economics as well as other social forces
including mass media.
Some authors, such as Lyotard and Baudrillard,[citation needed] believe that modernity ended in the mid- or late 20th century and thus have defined a period subsequent to modernity, namely Postmodernity
(1930s/1950s/1990s–present). Other theorists, however, regard the
period from the late 20th century to the present as merely another phase
of modernity; Zygmunt Bauman calls this phase liquid modernity, Giddens labels it high modernity (see High modernism).
Definition
Political
Politically, modernity's earliest phase starts with Niccolò Machiavelli's
works which openly rejected the medieval and Aristotelian style of
analyzing politics by comparison with ideas about how things should be,
in favour of realistic analysis of how things really are. He also
proposed that an aim of politics is to control one's own chance or
fortune, and that relying upon providence actually leads to evil.
Machiavelli argued, for example, that violent divisions within political
communities are unavoidable, but can also be a source of strength which
lawmakers and leaders should account for and even encourage in some
ways.
Machiavelli's recommendations were sometimes influential upon
kings and princes, but eventually came to be seen as favoring free
republics over monarchies. Machiavelli in turn influenced Francis Bacon, Marchamont Needham, James Harrington, John Milton, David Hume, and many others.
Important modern political doctrines which stem from the new Machiavellian realism include Mandeville's influential proposal that "Private Vices by the dextrous Management of a skilful Politician may be turned into Publick Benefits" (the last sentence of his Fable of the Bees), and also the doctrine of a constitutional separation of powers in government, first clearly proposed by Montesquieu. Both these principles are enshrined within the constitutions of most modern democracies.
It has been observed that while Machiavelli's realism saw a value to
war and political violence, his lasting influence has been "tamed" so
that useful conflict was deliberately converted as much as possible to
formalized political struggles and the economic "conflict" encouraged
between free, private enterprises.
Starting with Thomas Hobbes, attempts were made to use the methods of the new modern physical sciences, as proposed by Bacon and Descartes, applied to humanity and politics. Notable attempts to improve upon the methodological approach of Hobbes include those of John Locke, Spinoza, Giambattista Vico, and Rousseau. David Hume made what he considered to be the first proper attempt at trying to apply Bacon's scientific method to political subjects, rejecting some aspects of the approach of Hobbes.
A second phase of modernist political thinking begins with
Rousseau, who questioned the natural rationality and sociality of
humanity and proposed that human nature
was much more malleable than had been previously thought. By this
logic, what makes a good political system or a good man is completely
dependent upon the chance path a whole people has taken over history.
This thought influenced the political (and aesthetic) thinking of Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke,
and others and led to a critical review of modernist politics. On the
conservative side, Burke argued that this understanding encouraged
caution and avoidance of radical change. However, more ambitious
movements also developed from this insight into human culture, initially
Romanticism and Historicism, and eventually both the Communism of Karl Marx, and the modern forms of nationalism inspired by the French Revolution, including, in one extreme, the German Nazi movement.
On the other hand, the notion of modernity has been contested
also due to its Euro-centric underpinnings. Postcolonial scholars have
extensively critiqued the Eurocentric nature of modernity, particularly
its portrayal as a linear process originating in Europe and subsequently
spreading—or being imposed—on the rest of the world. Dipesh Chakrabarty
contends that European historicism positions Europe as the exclusive
birthplace of modernity, placing European thinkers and institutions at
the center of Enlightenment, progress, and innovation. Latin America's
version of modernity is a prime example of a contradiction to European
modernity. During Europe's imperial conquest, ultimately created a
dominant version of colonialism that the world would associate with
modernity, Mexico provided an alternative version of modernity that
contradicted the brutal and harsh nature of colonial Europe. This narrative marginalizes non-Western thinkers, ideas, and
achievements, reducing them to either deviations from or delays in an
otherwise supposedly universal trajectory of modern development. Frantz Fanon similarly exposes the hypocrisy of European modernity,
which promotes ideals of progress and rationality while concealing how
much of Europe’s economic growth was built on the exploitation,
violence, and dehumanization integral to colonial domination. Similarly, Bhambra argued that beyond economic advancement, Western
powers "modernized" through colonialism, demonstrating that developments
such as the welfare systems in England were largely enabled by the
wealth extracted through colonial exploitation.
In sociology, a discipline that arose in direct response to the social problems of modernity, the term most generally refers to the social conditions, processes, and discourses consequent to the Age of Enlightenment. In the most basic terms, British sociologist Anthony Giddens describes modernity as
...a shorthand term for modern
society, or industrial civilization. Portrayed in more detail, it is
associated with (1) a certain set of attitudes towards the world, the
idea of the world as open to transformation, by human intervention; (2) a
complex of economic institutions, especially industrial production and a
market economy; (3) a certain range of political institutions,
including the nation-state and mass democracy. Largely as a result of
these characteristics, modernity is vastly more dynamic than any
previous type of social order. It is a society—more technically, a
complex of institutions—which, unlike any preceding culture, lives in
the future, rather than the past.
Other writers have criticized such definitions as just being a
listing of factors. They argue that modernity, contingently understood
as marked by an ontological formation in dominance, needs to be defined
much more fundamentally in terms of different ways of being.
The modern is thus defined by the
way in which prior valences of social life ... are reconstituted through
a constructivist reframing of social practices in relation to basic
categories of existence common to all humans: time, space, embodiment,
performance and knowledge. The word 'reconstituted' here explicitly does
not mean replaced.
This means that modernity overlays earlier formations of traditional
and customary life without necessarily replacing them. In a 2006 review
essay, historian Michael Saler extended and substantiated this premise,
noting that scholarship had revealed historical perspectives on
modernity that encompassed both enchantment and disenchantment.
Late Victorians, for instance, "discussed science in terms of magical
influences and vital correspondences, and when vitalism began to be
superseded by more mechanistic explanations in the 1830s, magic still
remained part of the discourse—now called 'natural magic,' to be sure,
but no less 'marvelous' for being the result of determinate and
predictable natural processes." Mass culture, despite its
"superficialities, irrationalities, prejudices, and problems," became "a
vital source of contingent and rational enchantments as well."
Occultism could contribute to the conclusions reached by modern
psychologists and advanced a "satisfaction" found in this mass culture.
In addition, Saler observed that "different accounts of modernity may
stress diverse combinations or accentuate some factors more than
others...Modernity is defined less by binaries arranged in an implicit
hierarchy, or by the dialectical transformation of one term into its
opposite, than by unresolved contradictions and oppositions, or
antinomies: modernity is Janus-faced."
In 2020 Jason Crawford critiqued this recent historiography on
enchantment and modernity. The historical evidence of "enchantments" for
these studies, particularly in mass and print cultures, "might offer
some solace to the citizens of a disenchanted world, but they don't
really change the condition of that world." These "enchantments" offered
a "troubled kind of unreality" increasingly separate from modernity. Per Osterrgard and James Fitchett advanced a thesis that mass culture,
while generating sources for "enchantment", more commonly produced
"simulations" of "enchantments" and "disenchantments" for consumers.
Cultural and philosophical
The
era of modernity is characterised socially by industrialisation and the
division of labour, and philosophically by "the loss of certainty, and the realization that certainty can never be established, once and for all". With new social and philosophical conditions arose fundamental new challenges. Various 19th-century intellectuals, from Auguste Comte to Karl Marx to Sigmund Freud,
attempted to offer scientific and/or political ideologies in the wake
of secularisation. Modernity may be described as the "age of ideology".
For Marx what was the basis of
modernity was the emergence of capitalism and the revolutionary
bourgeoisie, which led to an unprecedented expansion of productive
forces and to the creation of the world market. Durkheim
tackled modernity from a different angle by following the ideas of
Saint-Simon about the industrial system. Although the starting point is
the same as Marx, feudal society, Durkheim emphasizes far less the
rising of the bourgeoisie as a new revolutionary class and very seldom
refers to capitalism as the new mode of production implemented by it.
The fundamental impulse to modernity is rather industrialism accompanied
by the new scientific forces. In the work of Max Weber, modernity is closely associated with the processes of rationalization and disenchantment of the world.
Critical theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Zygmunt Bauman
propose that modernity or industrialization represents a departure from
the central tenets of the Enlightenment and towards nefarious processes
of alienation, such as commodity fetishism and the Holocaust. Contemporary sociological critical theory presents the concept of rationalization
in even more negative terms than those Weber originally defined.
Processes of rationalization—as progress for the sake of progress—may in
many cases have what critical theory says is a negative and
dehumanising effect on modern society.
Enlightenment, understood in the
widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating
human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly
enlightened earth radiates under the sign of disaster triumphant.
What prompts so many commentators
to speak of the 'end of history', of post-modernity, 'second modernity'
and 'surmodernity', or otherwise to articulate the intuition of a
radical change in the arrangement of human cohabitation and in social
conditions under which life-politics is nowadays conducted, is the fact
that the long effort to accelerate the speed of movement has presently
reached its 'natural limit'. Power can move with the speed of the
electronic signal – and so the time required for the movement of its
essential ingredients has been reduced to instantaneity. For all
practical purposes, power has become truly exterritorial, no longer
bound, or even slowed down, by the resistance of space (the advent of
cellular telephones may well serve as a symbolic 'last blow' delivered
to the dependency on space: even the access to a telephone market is
unnecessary for a command to be given and seen through to its effect.
Consequent to debate about economic globalization, the comparative analysis of civilizations, and the post-colonial perspective of "alternative modernities", Shmuel Eisenstadt introduced the concept of "multiple modernities". Modernity as a "plural condition" is the central concept of this
sociologic approach and perspective, which broadens the definition of
"modernity" from exclusively denoting Western European culture to a culturally relativistic definition, thereby: "Modernity is not Westernization, and its key processes and dynamics can be found in all societies".
Central to modernity is emancipation from religion, specifically the hegemony of Christianity (mainly Roman Catholicism), and the consequent secularization. According to writers like Fackenheim and Husserl, modern thought repudiates the Judeo-Christian belief in the Biblical God as a mere relic of superstitious ages. It all started with Descartes' revolutionary methodic doubt,
which transformed the concept of truth in the concept of certainty,
whose only guarantor is no longer God or the Church, but Man's
subjective judgement.
Theologians have adapted in different ways to the challenge of modernity. Liberal theology,
over perhaps the past 200 years or so, has tried, in various
iterations, to accommodate, or at least tolerate, modern doubt in
expounding Christian revelation, while Traditionalist Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and fundamentalistProtestant thinkers and clerics have tried to fight back, denouncing skepticism of every kind. Modernity aimed towards "a progressive force promising to liberate humankind from ignorance and irrationality".
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo,
and others developed a new approach to physics and astronomy which
changed the way people came to think about many things. Copernicus
presented new models of the Solar System
which no longer placed humanity's home, Earth, in the centre. Kepler
used mathematics to discuss physics and described the regularities of
nature this way. Galileo actually made his famous proof of uniform
acceleration in freefall using mathematics.
Francis Bacon, especially in his Novum Organum, argued for a new methodological approach. It was an experimental-based approach to science, which sought no knowledge of formal or final causes. Yet, he was no materialist. He also talked of the two books of God, God's Word (Scripture) and God's work (nature). But he also added a theme that science should seek to control nature
for the sake of humanity, and not seek to understand it just for the
sake of understanding. In both these things, he was influenced by
Machiavelli's earlier criticism of medieval Scholasticism, and his proposal that leaders should aim to control their own fortune.
Influenced both by Galileo's new physics and Bacon, René Descartes argued soon afterward that mathematics and geometry
provided a model of how scientific knowledge could be built up in small
steps. He also argued openly that human beings themselves could be
understood as complex machines.
One
common conception of modernity is the condition of Western history
since the mid-15th century, or roughly the European development of movable type and the printing press. In this context the modern society is said to develop over many periods
and to be influenced by important events that represent breaks in the
continuity.
After modernist political thinking had already become widely known in France, Rousseau's re-examination of human nature led to a new criticism of the value of reasoning
itself which in turn led to a new understanding of less rationalistic
human activities, especially the arts. The initial influence was upon
the movements known as German Idealism and Romanticism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Modern art therefore belongs only to the later phases of modernity.
For this reason art history keeps the term modernity distinct from the terms Modern Age and Modernism – as a discrete "term applied to the cultural condition in which the seemingly absolute necessity of innovation
becomes a primary fact of life, work, and thought". And modernity in
art "is more than merely the state of being modern, or the opposition
between old and new".
In the essay "The Painter of Modern Life" (1863), Charles Baudelaire gives a literary definition: "By modernity, I mean the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent".
Advancing technological innovation, affecting artistic technique
and the means of manufacture, changed rapidly the possibilities of art
and its status in a rapidly changing society. Photography challenged the
place of the painter and painting. Architecture was transformed by the
availability of steel for structures.
Theological
From conservative Protestant theologian Thomas C. Oden's perspective, modernity is marked by "four fundamental values":
"Moral relativism (which says that what is right is dictated by culture, social location, and situation)"
"Autonomous individualism (which assumes that moral authority comes essentially from within)"
"Narcissistic hedonism (which focuses on egocentric personal pleasure)"
"Reductive naturalism (which reduces what is reliably known to what one can see, hear, and empirically investigate)"
Modernity rejects anything "old" and makes "novelty ... a criterion
for truth." This results in a great "phobic response to anything
antiquarian." In contrast, "classical Christian consciousness" resisted
"novelty".
Within Roman Catholicism, Pope Pius IX and Pope Pius X claim that Modernism (in a particular definition of the Catholic Church) is a danger to the Christian faith. Pope Pius IX compiled a Syllabus of Errors published on December 8, 1864, to describe his objections to Modernism. Pope Pius X further elaborated on the characteristics and consequences
of Modernism, from his perspective, in an encyclical entitled "Pascendi Dominici gregis" (Feeding the Lord's Flock) on September 8, 1907. Pascendi Dominici Gregis states that the principles of Modernism, taken
to a logical conclusion, lead to atheism. The Roman Catholic Church was
serious enough about the threat of Modernism that it required all Roman
Catholic clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors
and seminary professors to swear an Oath against modernism from 1910 until this directive was rescinded in 1967, in keeping with the directives of the Second Vatican Council.
Defined
Of the available conceptual definitions in sociology, modernity is "marked and defined by an obsession with 'evidence'," visual culture, and personal visibility. Generally, the large-scale social integration constituting modernity, involves the:
increased movement of goods, capital, people, and information among formerly discrete populations, and consequent influence beyond the local area
increased formal social organization of mobile populaces,
development of "circuits" on which they and their influence travel, and
societal standardization conducive to socio-economic mobility
increased specialization of the segments of society, i.e., division of labor, and area inter-dependency
increased level of excessive stratification in terms of social life of a modern man
Increased state of dehumanisation, dehumanity, unionisation, as man
became embittered about the negative turn of events which sprouted a
growing fear.
man became a victim of the underlying circumstances presented by the modern world
Increased competitiveness among people in the society (survival of the fittest) as the jungle rule sets in.
(937,000+ direct deaths including 387,000+ civilians, 3.6–3.7 million indirect deaths)
At least 38 million people displaced
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is a global military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks in 2001, and is one of the most recent global conflicts spanning multiple wars. Some researchers and political scientists have argued that it replaced the Cold War.
The main targets of the campaign were militant Islamist movements such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their allies. Other major targets included the Ba'athist regime in Iraq, which was deposed in an invasion in 2003, and various militant factions that fought during the ensuing insurgency. Following its territorial expansion in 2014, the Islamic State also emerged as a key adversary of the United States.
The term "war on terror" uses war as a metaphor to describe a variety of actions which fall outside the traditional definition of war. U.S. president George W. Bush first used the term "war on terrorism" on 16 September 2001, and then "war on terror" a few days later in a formal speech to Congress. Bush indicated the enemy of the war on terror as "a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them". The initial conflict was aimed at al-Qaeda, with the main theater in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a region that would later be referred to as "AfPak". The term "war on terror" was immediately criticized by individuals including Richard Myers, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and eventually more nuanced terms came to be used by the Bush administration to define the campaign. While "war on terror" was never used as a formal designation of U.S. operations, a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal was and is issued by the U.S. Armed Forces.
With the major wars over and only low-level combat operations in some places, the end of the war in Afghanistan
in August 2021 symbolizes the visible ending of the war, or at least
its main phase, for many in the West. The American military ceased
issuing its National Defense Service Medal on 31 December 2022. As of
2025, various global operations in the campaign are ongoing, including a
U.S. military intervention in Somalia. According to the Costs of War Project, the post-9/11 wars of the campaign have displaced 38 million people, the second largest number of forced displacements of any conflict since 1900, and caused more than 4.5 million deaths (direct and indirect) in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the Philippines, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and
Yemen. They also estimate that it has cost the U.S. Treasury over $8 trillion.
While support for the "war on terror" was high among the American
public during its initial years, it had become deeply unpopular by the
late 2000s. Controversy over the war has focused on its morality, casualties, and
continuity, with critics questioning government measures that infringed
civil liberties and human rights. Critics have notably described the Patriot Act as "Orwellian" due to its substantial expansion of the federal government's surveillance powers. Controversial practices of coalition forces have been condemned, including drone warfare, surveillance, torture, extraordinary rendition and various war crimes. The participating governments have been criticized for implementing authoritarian measures, repressing minorities, fomenting Islamophobia globally, and causing negative impacts to health and environment. Security analysts assert that there is no military solution to the
conflict, pointing out that terrorism is not an identifiable enemy, and
have emphasized the importance of negotiations and political solutions
to resolve the underlying roots of the crises.
Etymology
The phrase war on terror was used to refer specifically to the
military campaign led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and
allied countries against organizations and regimes identified by them as
terrorist, and usually excludes other independent counter-terrorist operations and campaigns such as those by Russia and India. The conflict has also been referred to by other names, such as "World War IV", "World War III", "Bush's War on Terror", "The Long War", "The Forever War", "The Global War on Terror", "The War Against al-Qaeda", or "The War of Terror".
Use of phrase and its development
The phrase "war against terrorism" existed in North American popular
culture and U.S. political parlance prior to the war on terror. But it was not until the 11 September attacks that it emerged as a globally recognizable phrase and part of everyday lexicon. Tom Brokaw, having just witnessed the collapse of one of the towers of the World Trade Center, declared "Terrorists have declared war on [America]." On 16 September 2001, at Camp David, U.S. president George W. Bush used the phrase war on terrorism
in an ostensibly unscripted comment when answering a journalist's
question about the impact of enhanced law enforcement authority given to
the U.S. surveillance agencies on Americans' civil liberties:
"This is a new kind of—a new kind of evil. And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient. I'm going to be patient."
The reference to Crusades became subject to heavy criticism due to its controversial connotations in the Muslim world and historical Muslim-Christian relations. On 20 September 2001, during a televised address to a joint session of
Congress, George Bush said, "Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but
it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of
global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." Both the term and the policies it denotes have been a source of ongoing controversy, as various critics and organizations like Amnesty International have argued that it has been used to justify unilateral preventive war, human rights abuses and other violations of international law.
The political theorist Richard Jackson has argued that "the 'war
on terrorism' [...] is simultaneously a set of actual practices—wars,
covert operations, agencies, and institutions—and an accompanying series
of assumptions, beliefs, justifications, and narratives—it is an entire
language or discourse". Jackson cites, among many examples, a statement by John Ashcroft that "the attacks of September 11 drew a bright line of demarcation between the civil and the savage".
Administration officials also described "terrorists" as hateful,
treacherous, barbarous, mad, twisted, perverted, without faith, parasitical, inhuman, and, most commonly, evil. Americans, in contrast, were described as brave, loving, generous, strong, resourceful, heroic, and respectful of human rights. Denouncing the remarks of George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden stated during an interview in 21 October 2001:
"The events proved the extent of terrorism that America exercises in the world. Bush
stated that the world has to be divided in two: Bush and his
supporters, and any country that doesn't get into the global crusade is
with the terrorists. What terrorism is clearer than this? Many
governments were forced to support this "new terrorism."
Decline of phrase's usage by U.S. government
In April 2007, the British government announced publicly that it was
abandoning the use of the phrase "war on terror" as they found it to be
less than helpful. This was explained later by Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller. In her 2011 Reith lecture, the former head of MI5 said that the 9/11 attacks were "a crime, not an act of war. So I never felt it helpful to refer to a war on terror."
Letter
from Barack Obama indicating appropriation of congressional funds for
"Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism"
U.S. president Barack Obama
rarely used the term, but in his inaugural address on 20 January 2009,
he stated: "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of
violence and hatred." In March 2009 the Defense Department officially changed the name of
operations from "Global War on Terror" to "Overseas Contingency
Operation" (OCO). In March 2009, the Obama administration requested that Pentagon staff members avoid the use of the term and instead to use "Overseas Contingency Operation". Basic objectives of the Bush administration "war on terror", such as
targeting al Qaeda and building international counterterrorism
alliances, remained in place.
Abandonment of phrase
In May 2010, the Obama administration published a report outlining its National Security Strategy.
The document dropped the Bush-era phrase "global war on terror" and
reference to "Islamic extremism," and stated, "This is not a global war
against a tactic—terrorism, or a religion—Islam. We are at war with a
specific network, al-Qaeda, and its terrorist affiliates who support
efforts to attack the United States, our allies, and partners."
Usage of the term "war on terror" was initially discontinued in May 2010 and again in May 2013. On 23 May 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the "war on terrorism" was over, saying that the U.S. would not wage war against a tactic but would instead focus on a specific group of terrorist networks. Other American military campaigns during the 2010s have also been
considered part of the "war on terror" by individuals and the media. The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria during 2014–2015 led to the global Operation Inherent Resolve, and an international campaign to destroy the terrorist organization. This was considered to be another campaign of the "war on terror".
In December 2012, Jeh Johnson, the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, speaking at Oxford University,
stated that the war against al-Qaeda would end when the terrorist group
had been weakened so that it was no longer capable of "strategic
attacks" and had been "effectively destroyed." At that point, the war
would no longer be an armed conflict under international law, and the military fight could be replaced by a law enforcement operation.
In May 2013, two years after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama delivered a speech that employed the term global war on terror
put in quotation marks (as officially transcribed by the White House):
"Now, make no mistake, terrorists still threaten our nation. ... In
Afghanistan, we will complete our transition to Afghan responsibility
for that country's security. ... Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our
effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror,' but rather as a series
of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of
violent extremists that threaten America. In many cases, this will
involve partnerships with other countries." Nevertheless, in the same
speech, in a bid to emphasize the legality of military actions
undertaken by the U.S., noting that Congress had authorised
the use of force, he went on to say, "Under domestic law, and
international law, the United States is at war with al Qaeda, the
Taliban, and their associated forces. We are at war with an organization
that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not
stop them first. So this is a just war—a war waged proportionally, in
last resort, and in self-defense."
Nonetheless, the use of the phrase "war on terror" persists in U.S. politics. In 2017, for example, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence called the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing "the opening salvo in a war that we have waged ever since—the global war on terror."
In May 1996, the group World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (WIFJAJC), sponsored by Osama bin Laden (and later re-formed as al-Qaeda), started forming a large base of operations in Afghanistan, where the Islamist extremist regime of the Taliban had seized power earlier in the year. In August 1996, Bin Laden declared jihad against the United States. In February 1998, Osama bin Laden signed a fatwa, as head of al-Qaeda, declaring war on the West and Israel; in May al-Qaeda released a video declaring war on the U.S. and the West.
On 7 August 1998, al-Qaeda struck the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans. In retaliation, U.S. President Bill Clinton launched Operation Infinite Reach, a bombing campaign in Sudan and Afghanistan against targets the U.S. asserted were associated with WIFJAJC, although others have questioned whether a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan
was used as a chemical warfare facility. The plant produced much of the
region's antimalarial drugs and around 50% of Sudan's pharmaceutical needs. The strikes failed to kill any leaders of WIFJAJC or the Taliban.
On the morning of 11 September 2001, nineteen menhijacked four jet airliners,
all of them bound for California. Once the hijackers assumed control of
the jet airliners, they told the passengers that they had a bomb
on board and would spare the lives of passengers and crew once their
demands were met—no passenger and crew actually suspected that they
would use the jet airliners as suicide weapons
since it had never happened before in history, and many previous
hijacking attempts had been resolved with the passengers and crew
escaping unharmed after obeying the hijackers. The hijackers—members of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell—intentionally crashed two jet airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
in New York City. Both buildings collapsed within two hours from fire
damage related to the crashes, destroying nearby buildings and damaging
others. The hijackers crashed a third jet airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth jet airliner crashed into a field near Shanksville,
Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to
retake control of the jet airliners, which the hijackers had redirected
toward Washington, D.C., to target the White House or the U.S. Capitol. None of the flights had any survivors. A total of 2,977 victims and the 19 hijackers perished in the attacks. Fifteen of the nineteen were citizens of Saudi Arabia, and the others were from the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt, and Lebanon.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists
or "AUMF" was made law on 14 September 2001, to authorize the use of
United States Armed Forces against those responsible for 11 September
attacks. It authorized the President to use all necessary and
appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he
determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist
attacks that occurred on 11 September 2001, or harbored such
organizations or persons, to prevent any future acts of international
terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or
individuals. Congress declares this is intended to constitute specific
statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
Enhance measures to ensure the integrity, reliability, and
availability of critical, physical, and information-based
infrastructures at home and abroad
Implement measures to protect U.S. citizens abroad
Ensure an integrated incident management capacity
The 2001 AUMF has authorized US President to launch military
operations across the world without any congressional oversight or
transparency. Between 2018 and 2020 alone, US forces initiated what it
labelled "counter-terror" activities in 85 countries. Of these, the 2001
AUMF has been used to launch classified military campaigns in at least
22 countries. The 2001 AUMF has been widely perceived as a bill that grants the
President powers to unilaterally wage perpetual "world wide wars".
Operation Enduring Freedom is the official name used by the Bush administration for the War in Afghanistan, together with three smaller military actions, under the umbrella of the global war on terror. These global operations
are intended to seek out and destroy any al-Qaeda fighters or
affiliates. Originally, the campaign was named "Eternal Justice" but due
to widespread controversy and condemnation in the Muslim world, the phrasing was changed to "Enduring Freedom".
On 20 September 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, George W. Bush delivered an ultimatum to the Taliban government of Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, to turn over Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leaders operating in the country or face attack. The Taliban demanded evidence of bin Laden's link to 11 September
attacks and, if such evidence warranted a trial, they offered to handle
such a trial in an Islamic Court.
Subsequently, in October 2001, U.S. forces (with UK and coalition allies) invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime. On 7 October 2001, the official invasion began with British and U.S. forces conducting airstrike
campaigns over enemy targets. Shortly after, Bush rejected a Taliban
offer to hand over bin Laden on the condition the bombing campaign was
halted, and by mid-November, Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, fell.
The remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants fell back to the rugged
mountains of eastern Afghanistan, mainly Tora Bora. In December,
Coalition forces (the U.S. and its allies) fought within that region. It is believed that Osama bin Laden escaped into Pakistan during the battle.
In March 2002, the U.S. and other NATO and non-NATO forces launched Operation Anaconda with the goal of destroying any remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shah-i-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains of Afghanistan. The Taliban suffered heavy casualties and evacuated the region.
The Taliban regrouped in western Pakistan and began to unleash an
insurgent-style offensive against Coalition forces in late 2002. Throughout southern and eastern Afghanistan, firefights broke out
between the surging Taliban and Coalition forces. Coalition forces
responded with a series of military offensives and an increase of troops
in Afghanistan. In February 2010, Coalition forces launched Operation Moshtarak
in southern Afghanistan along with other military offensives in the
hopes that they would destroy the Taliban insurgency once and for all. Peace talks were also underway between Taliban affiliated fighters and Coalition forces.
In September 2014, Afghanistan and the United States signed a
security agreement, which allowed the United States and NATO forces to
remain in Afghanistan until at least 2024. However, on 29 February 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed a conditional peace deal in Doha which required that US troops withdraw from Afghanistan
within 14 months so long as the Taliban cooperated with the terms of
the agreement not to "allow any of its members, other individuals or
groups, including Al Qaeda, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten
the security of the United States and its allies". The Afghan government was not a party to the deal and rejected its terms regarding release of prisoners. After Joe Biden became president, he moved back the target withdrawal date to 31 August 2021. On 15 August 2021, the Afghan capital Kabul fell to a surprisingly effective Taliban offensive, ending the war in Afghanistan. The US military and NATO troops took control of Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport for use in Operation Allies Refuge and the large-scale evacuation of foreign citizens and certain vulnerable Afghans, executed in cooperation with the Taliban.
On 30 August 2021, the United States completed its hasty withdrawal of its military from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was heavily criticized both domestically and abroad for being chaotic and haphazard, as well as for lending more momentum to the Taliban offensive. However, many European countries followed suit, including Britain, Germany, Italy, and Poland.Despite evacuating over 120,000 people, the large-scale evacuation has also been criticized for leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, residents, and family members.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was created in December 2001 to assist the Afghan Transitional Administration
and the first post-Taliban elected government. With a renewed Taliban
insurgency, it was announced in 2006 that ISAF would replace the U.S.
troops in the province as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The British 16th Air Assault Brigade (later reinforced by Royal Marines)
formed the core of the force in southern Afghanistan, along with troops
and helicopters from Australia, Canada and the Netherlands. The initial
force consisted of roughly 3,300 British, 2,000 Canadian, 1,400 from
the Netherlands and 240 from Australia, along with special forces from
Denmark and Estonia
and small contingents from other nations. The monthly supply of cargo
containers through Pakistani route to ISAF in Afghanistan is over 4,000
costing around 12 billion in Pakistani Rupees.
In January 2002, the United States Special Operations Command, Pacific deployed to the Philippines to advise and assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines in combating Filipino Islamist groups. The operations were mainly focused on removing the Abu Sayyaf group and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) from their stronghold on the island of Basilan. The second portion of the operation was conducted as a humanitarian
program called "Operation Smiles". The goal of the program was to
provide medical care and services to the region of Basilan as part of a
"Hearts and Minds" program.
Joint Special Operations Task Force – Philippines disbanded in June 2014, ending a successful 12-year mission. After JSOTF-P had disbanded, as late as November 2014, American forces
continued to operate in the Philippines under the name "PACOM
Augmentation Team", until 24 February 2015. On 1 September 2017, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis designated Operation Pacific Eagle – Philippines
(OPE-P) as a contingency operation to support the Philippine government
and the military in their efforts to isolate, degrade, and defeat the
affiliates of ISIL (collectively referred to as ISIL-Philippines or
ISIL-P) and other terrorist organisations in the Philippines. By 2018, American operations within the Philippines against terrorist groups involved as many as 300 advisers.
Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara (OEF-TS), now Operation
Juniper Shield, is the name of the military operation conducted by the
U.S. and partner nations in the Sahara/Sahel region of Africa,
consisting of counter-terrorism efforts and policing of arms and drug
trafficking across central Africa.
The conflict in northern Mali
began in January 2012 with radical Islamists (affiliated to al-Qaeda)
advancing into northern Mali. The Malian government had a hard time
maintaining full control over their country. The fledgling government
requested support from the international community on combating the
Islamic militants. In January 2013, France intervened on behalf of the
Malian government's request and deployed troops into the region. They
launched Operation Serval on 11 January 2013, with the hopes of dislodging the al-Qaeda affiliated groups from northern Mali.
Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa is an extension of
Operation Enduring Freedom. Unlike other operations contained in
Operation Enduring Freedom, OEF-HOA does not have a specific
organization as a target. OEF-HOA instead focuses its efforts to disrupt
and detect militant activities in the region and to work with willing
governments to prevent the reemergence of militant cells and activities.
Task Force 150 consists of ships from a shifting group of
nations, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Netherlands, Pakistan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The primary
goal of the coalition forces is to monitor, inspect, board and stop
suspected shipments from entering the Horn of Africa region and
affecting the United States' Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Included in the operation is the training of selected armed forces units of the countries of Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency
tactics. Humanitarian efforts conducted by CJTF-HOA include rebuilding
of schools and medical clinics and providing medical services to those
countries whose forces are being trained.
The program expands as part of the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative as CJTF personnel also assist in training the armed forces of Chad, Niger, Mauritania and Mali. However, the war on terror does not include Sudan, where over 400,000 have died in an ongoing civil war.
On 1 July 2006, a Web-posted message purportedly written by Osama bin Laden urged Somalis to build an Islamic state in the country and warned western governments that the al-Qaeda network would fight against them if they intervened there.
The Prime Minister of Somalia claimed that three "terror suspects" from the 1998 United States embassy bombings are being sheltered in Kismayo. On 30 December 2006, al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called upon Muslims worldwide to fight against Ethiopia and the TFG in Somalia.
On 14 September 2009, U.S. Special Forces killed two men and wounded and captured two others near the Somali village of Baarawe.
Witnesses claim that helicopters used for the operation launched from
French-flagged warships, but that could not be confirmed. A Somali-based
al-Qaida affiliated group, the Al-Shabaab, has verified the death of "sheik commander" Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan along with an unspecified number of militants. Nabhan, a Kenyan, was wanted in connection with the 2002 Mombasa attacks.
"Iraq
continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.
The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and
nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already
used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the
bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime
that agreed to international inspections, then kicked out the
inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the
civilized world."
On 17 March 2003, Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein and his two sons to flee Iraq within a 48-hour deadline or else face "military conflict". Justifying his policy Bush declared:
"Terrorists
and terror states do not reveal these threats with fair notice, in
formal declarations—and responding to such enemies only after they have
struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide. The security of the
world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now."
The first ground attack came at the Battle of Umm Qasr on 21 March 2003, when a combined force of British, U.S. and Polish forces seized control of the port city of Umm Qasr. Baghdad, Iraq's capital city, fell to U.S. troops in April 2003 and Saddam Hussein's government quickly dissolved. On 1 May 2003, Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq had ended.
However, an insurgency arose against the U.S.-led coalition and the
newly developing Iraqi military and post-Saddam government. The
rebellion, which included al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, led to many coalition casualties. Other elements of the insurgency were led by fugitive members of President Hussein's Ba'ath regime, which included Iraqi nationalists and pan-Arabists. Many insurgency leaders were Islamists and claimed to be fighting a religious war to reestablish the Islamic Caliphate of centuries past. Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces in December 2003 and was executed in 2006.
In 2004, the insurgent forces grew stronger. The U.S. launched offensives on insurgent strongholds in cities like Najaf and Fallujah.
In January 2007, President Bush presented a new strategy for
Operation Iraqi Freedom based upon counter-insurgency theories and
tactics developed by General David Petraeus. The Iraq War troop surge of 2007 was part of this "new way forward", which along with U.S. backing of Sunni
groups it had previously sought to defeat has been credited with a
widely recognized dramatic decrease in violence by up to 80%.
The war entered a new phase on 1 September 2010, with the official end of U.S. combat operations.
President Obama ordered the withdrawal of most troops in 2011, but began redeploying forces in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group. As of July 2021, there were approximately 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq,
who continue to assist in the mission to combat the remnants of IS.
Following 11 September attacks, former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf
sided with the U.S. against the Taliban government in Afghanistan after
an ultimatum by then U.S. President George W. Bush. Musharraf agreed to
give the U.S. the use of three airbases for Operation Enduring Freedom.
United States Secretary of StateColin Powell
and other U.S. administration officials met with Musharraf. On 19
September 2001, Musharraf addressed the people of Pakistan and stated
that, while he opposed military tactics against the Taliban, Pakistan
risked being endangered by an alliance of India and the U.S. if it did
not cooperate. In 2006, Musharraf testified that this stance was
pressured by threats from the U.S., and revealed in his memoirs that he
had "war-gamed" the United States as an adversary and decided that it
would end in a loss for Pakistan.
On 12 January 2002, Musharraf gave a speech against Islamic
extremism. He unequivocally condemned all acts of terrorism and pledged
to combat Islamic extremism and lawlessness within Pakistan itself. He
stated that his government was committed to rooting out extremism and
made it clear that the banned militant organizations would not be
allowed to resurface under any new name. He said, "the recent decision
to ban extremist groups promoting militancy was taken in the national
interest after thorough consultations. It was not taken under any
foreign influence".
In 2002, the Musharraf-led government took a firm stand against
the jihadi organizations and groups promoting extremism, and arrested Maulana Masood Azhar, head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, chief of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and took dozens of activists into custody. An official ban was imposed on the groups on 12 January. Later that year, the Saudi born Zayn al-Abidn Muhammed Hasayn Abu Zubaydah
was arrested by Pakistani officials during a series of joint
U.S.–Pakistan raids. Zubaydah is said to have been a high-ranking
al-Qaeda official with the title of operations chief and in charge of
running al-Qaeda training camps. Other prominent al-Qaeda members were arrested in the following two years, namely Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is known to have been a financial backer of al-Qaeda operations, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
who at the time of his capture was the third highest-ranking official
in al-Qaeda and had been directly in charge of the planning for 11
September attacks.
In 2004, the Pakistan Army launched a campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan's Waziristan region, sending in 80,000 troops. The goal of the conflict was to remove the al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the area.
After the fall of the Taliban regime, many members of the Taliban
resistance fled to the Northern border region of Afghanistan and
Pakistan where the Pakistani army had previously little control. With
the logistics and air support of the United States, the Pakistani Army
captured or killed numerous al-Qaeda operatives such as Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, wanted for his involvement in the USS Cole bombing, the Bojinka plot, and the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
The United States has carried out a campaign of drone attacks on targets all over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. However, the Pakistani Taliban
still operates there. To this day it is estimated that 15 U.S. soldiers
were killed while fighting al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants in Pakistan
since the war on terror began.
The use of drones by the Central Intelligence Agency in Pakistan
to carry out operations associated with the global war on terror sparks
debate over sovereignty and the laws of war. The U.S. Government uses
the CIA rather than the U.S. Air Force for strikes in Pakistan to avoid breaching sovereignty through military invasion. The United States was criticized by a report on drone warfare and aerial sovereignty
for abusing the term 'global war on terror' to carry out military
operations through government agencies without formally declaring war.
After 11 September attacks, U.S. economic and security aid to
Pakistan spiked considerably. With the authorization of the Enhanced
Partnership for Pakistan Act, Pakistan was granted US$7.5 billion over
five years from FY2010–FY2014.
The United States has conducted a series of military strikes on al-Qaeda militants in Yemen since the war on terror began. Yemen has a weak central government and a powerful tribal system that
leaves large lawless areas open for militant training and operations. Al-Qaeda has a strong presence in the country. On 31 March 2011, AQAP declared the Al-Qaeda Emirate in Yemen after its captured most of Abyan Governorate.
The U.S., in an effort to support Yemeni counter-terrorism
efforts, increased their military aid package to Yemen from less than $11 million in 2006 to more than $70 million in 2009, as well as providing up to $121 million for development over the next three years.
The Obama administration began to re-engage in Iraq with a series of airstrikes aimed at ISIL starting on 10 August 2014. On 9 September 2014, President Obama said that he had the authority he
needed to take action to destroy the militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,
citing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against
Terrorists, and thus did not require additional approval from Congress. The following day on 10 September 2014 President Barack Obama made a
televised speech about ISIL, which he stated: "Our objective is clear:
We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive
and sustained counter-terrorism strategy". Obama has authorized the deployment of additional U.S. Forces into
Iraq, as well as authorizing direct military operations against ISIL
within Syria. On the night of 21/22 September the United States, Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan and Qatar started air attacks against ISIL in
Syria.
In October 2014, it was reported that the U.S. Department of
Defense considers military operations against ISIL as being under
Operation Enduring Freedom in regards to campaign medal awarding. On 15 October, the military intervention became known as "Operation Inherent Resolve".
Islamic State of Lanao and the Battle of Marawi
With the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), jihadist offshoots sprung up in regions around the world, including the Philippines. The Maute group, composed of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas and foreign fighters led by Omar Maute, the alleged founder of a Dawlah Islamiya, declared loyalty to ISIL and began clashing with Philippine security forces and staging bombings. On 23 May 2017, the group attacked the city of Marawi, resulting in the bloody Battle of Marawi that lasted 5 months. After the decisive battle, remnants of the group were reportedly still recruiting in 2017 and 2018.
NBC News reported that in mid-2014, ISIL had about 1,000 fighters in Libya. Taking advantage of a power vacuum in the center of the country, far from the major cities of Tripoli and Benghazi,
ISIL expanded rapidly over the next 18 months. Local militants were
joined by jihadists from the rest of North Africa, the Middle East,
Europe and the Caucasus. The force absorbed or defeated other Islamist groups inside Libya and the central ISIL leadership in Raqqa, Syria, began urging foreign recruits to head for Libya instead of Syria. ISIL seized control of the coastal city of Sirte
in early 2015 and then began to expand to the east and south. By the
beginning of 2016, it had effective control of 120 to 150 miles of
coastline and portions of the interior and had reached Eastern Libya's
major population center, Benghazi. In spring 2016, AFRICOM estimated that ISIL had about 5,000 fighters in its stronghold of Sirte.
However, the indigenous rebel groups who had staked their claims
to Libya and turned their weapons on ISIL—with the help of airstrikes by
Western forces, including U.S. drones, the Libyan population resented
the outsiders who wanted to establish a fundamentalist regime on their
soil. Militias loyal to the new Libyan unity government, plus a separate and rival force loyal to a former officer in the Gaddafi regime, launched an assault on ISIL outposts in Sirte
and the surrounding areas that lasted for months. According to U.S.
military estimates, ISIL ranks shrank to somewhere between a few hundred
and 2,000 fighters. In August 2016, the U.S. military began airstrikes
that, along with continued pressure on the ground from the Libyan
militias, pushed the remaining ISIL fighters back into Sirte. In all,
U.S. drones and planes hit ISIL nearly 590 times, the Libyan militias
reclaimed the city in mid-December. On 18 January 2017, ABC News reported that two USAF B-2 bombers
struck two ISIL camps 28 miles (45 km) south of Sirte, the airstrikes
targeted between 80 and 100 ISIL fighters in multiple camps, an unmanned
aircraft also participated in the airstrikes. NBC News reported that as
many as 90 ISIL fighters were killed in the strike, a U.S. defense official said that "This was the largest remaining ISIL presence in Libya," and that "They have been largely marginalized, but I am hesitant to say they have been eliminated in Libya."
American military intervention in Cameroon
In October 2015, the U.S. began deploying 300 soldiers to Cameroon,
with the invitation of the Cameroonian government, to support African
forces in a non-combat role in their fight against ISIL insurgency in
that country. The troops' primary missions will revolve around providing
intelligence support to local forces as well as conducting
reconnaissance flights.
Operation Active Endeavour was a naval operation
of NATO started in October 2001 in response to 11 September attacks. It
operated in the Mediterranean and was designed to prevent the movement
of militants or weapons of mass destruction and to enhance the security of shipping in general.
In a 'Letter to American People' written by Osama bin Laden in 2002, he stated that one of the reasons he was fighting America is because of its support of India on the Kashmir issue. Indian sources claimed that in 2006, al-Qaeda claimed they had
established a wing in Kashmir; this worried the Indian government. India also argued that al-Qaeda has strong ties with the Kashmir militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pakistan. While on a visit to Pakistan in January 2010, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated that al-Qaeda was seeking to destabilize the region and planning to provoke a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
In September 2009, a U.S. drone strike reportedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri, who was the chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, a Kashmiri militant group associated with al-Qaeda.Kashmiri was described by Bruce Riedel as a 'prominent' al-Qaeda member, while others described him as the head of military operations for al-Qaeda. Waziristan had now become the new battlefield for Kashmiri militants, who were now fighting NATO in support of al-Qaeda. On 8 July 2012, Al-Badar Mujahideen, a breakaway faction of Kashmir
centric terror group Hizbul Mujahideen, on the conclusion of their
two-day Shuhada Conference called for a mobilization of resources for
continuation of jihad in Kashmir. In June 2021, an air force station in Jammu (in India-administered
Kashmir) was attacked by drone. Investigators were uncertain whether a
state or non-state actor initiated the attack.
Colombia has also engaged on its own War on Terror, as terrorism by both guerrillas and paramilitaries remains a major concern in the country since the escalation of armed violence in the 2000s in the context of the Colombian conflict. Álvaro Uribe's
Presidency, in particular, was marked by a significant focus on
counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency. The counterterrorism measures
of Plan Colombia acquired further expansion during the presidency of George W. Bush and an important focus on national security after the events of 9/11, as the threat of global terrorism received greater attention.
In the 2010s, China has also been engaged in its own war on terror, predominantly a domestic campaign in response to violent actions by Uyghur separatist movements in the Xinjiang conflict. This campaign was widely criticized in international media due to the perception that it unfairly targets and persecutes Chinese Muslims, potentially resulting in a negative backlash from China's predominantly MuslimUighur population. Xi Jinping's government has imprisoned up to two million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang internment camps, where they are reportedly subject to abuse and torture.
The United Kingdom was the second-largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan.
The invasion of Afghanistan is seen to have been the first action of
this war, and initially involved forces from the United States, the
United Kingdom, and the Afghan Northern Alliance.
Since the initial invasion period, these forces were augmented by
troops and aircraft from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy,
Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway among others. In 2006, there were
about 33,000 troops in Afghanistan.
On 12 September 2001, less than 24 hours after 11 September
attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., NATO invoked Article 5 of
the North Atlantic Treaty and declared the attacks to be an attack against all 19 NATO member countries. Australian Prime Minister John Howard also stated that Australia would invoke the ANZUS Treaty along similar lines.
In the following months, NATO took a broad range of measures to
respond to the threat of terrorism. On 22 November 2002, the member
states of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council
(EAPC) decided on a Partnership Action Plan against Terrorism, which
explicitly states, "[The] EAPC States are committed to the protection
and promotion of fundamental freedoms and human rights, as well as the
rule of law, in combating terrorism." NATO started naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea designed to
prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction as
well as to enhance the security of shipping in general called Operation
Active Endeavour.
Support for the U.S. cooled when America made clear its
determination to invade Iraq in late 2002. Still, many of the "coalition
of the willing" countries that unconditionally supported the U.S.-led
military action have sent troops to Afghanistan, particular neighboring
Pakistan, which has disowned its earlier support for the Taliban and
contributed tens of thousands of soldiers to the conflict. Pakistan was
also engaged in the Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
(a.k.a. Waziristan War or North-West Pakistan War). Supported by U.S.
intelligence, Pakistan attempted to remove the Taliban insurgency and
al-Qaeda element from the northern tribal areas.
In addition to military efforts abroad, in the aftermath of 9/11, the
Bush Administration increased domestic efforts to prevent future
attacks. Various government bureaucracies that handled security and
military functions were reorganized. A new cabinet-level agency called
the United States Department of Homeland Security
was created in November 2002 to lead and coordinate the largest
reorganization of the U.S. federal government since the consolidation of
the armed forces into the Department of Defense.
The USA PATRIOT Act of October 2001 dramatically reduces
restrictions on law enforcement agencies' ability to search telephone,
e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records; eases
restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States;
expands the Secretary of the Treasury's
authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those
involving foreign individuals and entities; and broadens the discretion
of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and
deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also
expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus
enlarging the number of activities to which the USA PATRIOT Act's
expanded law enforcement powers could be applied. A new Terrorist Finance Tracking Program monitored the movements of terrorists' financial resources (discontinued after being revealed by The New York Times). Global telecommunication usage, including those with no links to terrorism, is being collected and monitored through the NSA electronic surveillance program. The Patriot Act is still in effect.
Political interest groups have stated that these laws remove
important restrictions on governmental authority, and are a dangerous
encroachment on civil liberties, possible unconstitutional violations of the Fourth Amendment. On 30 July 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the first legal challenge against Section 215 of the Patriot Act, claiming that it allows the FBI to violate a citizen's First Amendment rights, Fourth Amendment rights, and right to due process,
by granting the government the right to search a person's business,
bookstore, and library records in a terrorist investigation, without
disclosing to the individual that records were being searched. Also, governing bodies in many communities have passed symbolic resolutions against the act.
In a speech on 9 June 2005, Bush said that the USA PATRIOT Act had
been used to bring charges against more than 400 suspects, more than
half of whom had been convicted. Meanwhile, the ACLU quoted Justice
Department figures showing that 7,000 people have complained of abuse of
the Act.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began an initiative in early 2002 with the creation of the Total Information Awareness
program, designed to promote information technologies that could be
used in counter-terrorism. This program, facing criticism, has since
been defunded by Congress.
By 2003, 12 major conventions and protocols were designed to
combat terrorism. These were adopted and ratified by many states. These
conventions require states to co-operate on principal issues regarding
unlawful seizure of aircraft, the physical protection of nuclear
materials, and the freezing of assets of militant networks.
In 2005, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1624
concerning incitement to commit acts of terrorism and the obligations
of countries to comply with international human rights laws. Although both resolutions require mandatory annual reports on
counter-terrorism activities by adopting nations, the United States and
Israel have both declined to submit reports. In the same year, the United States Department of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
issued a planning document, by the name "National Military Strategic
Plan for the War on Terrorism", which stated that it constituted the
"comprehensive military plan to prosecute the Global War on Terror for
the Armed Forces of the United States...including the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and a rigorous examination with the Department of Defense".
On 9 January 2007, the House of Representatives passed a bill, by
a vote of 299–128, enacting many of the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission The bill passed in the U.S. Senate, by a vote of 60–38, on 13 March 2007 and it was signed into law on 3
August 2007 by President Bush. It became Public Law 110–53. In July
2012, U.S. Senate passed a resolution urging that the Haqqani Network be designated a foreign terrorist organization.
The Office of Strategic Influence
was secretly created after 9/11 for the purpose of coordinating
propaganda efforts but was closed soon after being discovered. The Bush
administration implemented the Continuity of Operations Plan (or Continuity of Government) to ensure that U.S. government would be able to continue in catastrophic circumstances.
Since 9/11, extremists made various attempts to attack the United
States, with varying levels of organization and skill. For example,
vigilant passengers aboard a transatlantic flight prevented Richard Reid, in 2001, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in 2009, from detonating an explosive device.
Other terrorist plots have been stopped by federal agencies using
new legal powers and investigative tools, sometimes in cooperation with
foreign governments.
The Obama administration promised the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (GITMO), increased the number of troops in Afghanistan, and promised the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq.
Due to congressional opposition, the Obama Administration was unable to
close GITMO but brought down its prison population from 242 detainees
to 40 detainees. President Trump, during his first administration, signed an executive order keeping Guantanamo Bay's detention camp opened indefinitely, bringing an end to efforts to close it. During his first term, only one detainee was transferred. The Biden
Administration, like the former Obama Administration, pledged to close
GITMO, but proved unsuccessful too and added million-dollar expansions. A total of 25 detainees were transferred during the Biden presidency.
After being inaugurated for his second term, President Trump signed a
Presidential memorandum to begin expansion of the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Center to allow for detainment of up to 30,000 migrants.
Transnational actions
"Extraordinary rendition"
Alleged "extraordinary rendition" illegal flights of the CIA, as reported by RzeczpospolitaCIA's Extraordinary Rendition and Detention Program – countries involved in the Program, according to the 2013 Open Society Foundations' report on torture
After 11 September attacks, the United States government commenced a program of illegal "extraordinary rendition", sometimes referred to as "irregular rendition" or "forced rendition", the government-sponsored abduction and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one country to transferee countries, with the consent of transferee countries. The aim of extraordinary rendition is often conducting torture on the detainee that would be difficult to conduct in the U.S. legal environment, a practice known as torture by proxy. Starting in 2002, U.S. government rendered hundreds of illegal combatants
for U.S. detention, and transported detainees to U.S. controlled sites
as part of an extensive interrogation program that included torture. Extraordinary rendition continued under the Obama administration, with targets being interrogated and subsequently taken to the US for trial.
The United Nations considers one nation abducting the citizens of another a crime against humanity. In July 2014 the European Court of Human Rights condemned the government of Poland
for participating in CIA extraordinary rendition, ordering Poland to
pay restitution to men who had been abducted, taken to a CIA black site in Poland, and tortured.
In 2005, The Washington Post and Human Rights Watch (HRW) published revelations concerning kidnapping of detainees by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and their transport to "black sites", covert prisons operated by the CIA whose existence is denied by the US government. The European Parliament
published a report connecting use of such secret detention Black Sites
for detainees kidnapped as part of extraordinary rendition (See the European Parliament's investigation and report). Although some Black Sites have been known to exist inside European Union states, these detention centers violate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the UN Convention Against Torture, treaties that all EU member states are bound to follow. The U.S. had ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 1994.
According to ABC News
two such facilities, in countries mentioned by Human Rights Watch, have
been closed following the recent publicity with the CIA relocating the
detainees. Almost all of these detainees were tortured as part of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" of the CIA. Despite the closure of these sites, their legacies in certain countries continue to live on and haunt domestic politics.
Criticism of U.S. media's withholding of coverage
Major American newspapers, such as The Washington Post,
have been criticized for deliberately withholding publication of
articles reporting locations of Black Sites. The Post defended its
decision to suppress this news on the ground that such revelations
"could open the U.S. government
to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the
risk of political condemnation at home and abroad." However, according
to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
"the possibility that illegal, unpopular government actions might be
disrupted is not a consequence to be feared, however—it's the whole
point of the U.S. First Amendment.
... Without the basic fact of where these prisons are, it's difficult
if not impossible for 'legal challenges' or 'political condemnation' to
force them to close." FAIR argued that the damage done to the global
reputation of the United States by the continued existence of black-site
prisons was more dangerous than any threat caused by the exposure of
their locations.
The complex at Stare Kiejkuty, a Soviet-era compound once
used by German intelligence in World War II, is best known as having
been the only Russian intelligence training school to operate outside
the Soviet Union. Its prominence in the Soviet era suggests that it may
have been the facility first identified—but never named—when the Washington Post's Dana Priest revealed the existence of the CIA's secret prison network in November 2005.
The journalists who exposed this provided their sources and this information and documents were provided to The Washington Post in 2005. In addition, they also identified such Black Sites are concealed:
Former European and US intelligence
officials indicate that the secret prisons across the European Union,
first identified by the Washington Post, are likely not permanent
locations, making them difficult to identify and locate.
What some believe was a network of secret prisons was most probably a
series of facilities used temporarily by the United States when needed,
officials say. Interim "black sites"—secret facilities used for covert
activities—can be as small as a room in a government building, which
only becomes a black site when a prisoner is brought in for short-term
detainment and interrogation.
The journalists went on to explain that "Such a site, sources say,
would have to be near an airport." The airport in question is the Szczytno-Szymany International Airport.
In response to these allegations, former Polish intelligence chief, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski,
embarked on a media blitz and claimed that the allegations were "...
part of the domestic political battle in the US over who is to succeed
current Republican President George W Bush," according to the German
news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur.
Prison ships
The United States has also been accused of operating "floating prisons"
to house and transport those arrested in its war on terror, according
to human rights lawyers. They have claimed that the US has tried to
conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees. Although no credible
information to support these assertions has ever come to light, the
alleged justification for prison ships is primarily to remove the
ability for jihadists to target a fixed location to facilitate the
escape of high value targets, commanders, operations chiefs etc.
Guantanamo Bay detention camp
Detainees upon arrival at Camp X-Ray, January 2002
The U.S. government set up the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in 2002, a United States military prison located in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. President Bush declared that the Geneva Convention, which protects prisoners of war, would not apply to Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees captured in Afghanistan. Since inmates were detained indefinitely without trial and several detainees have allegedly been tortured, this camp is considered to be a major breach of human rights by Amnesty International. The detention camp was set up by the U.S. government on Guantanamo Bay
since the military base is not legally domestic US territory and thus
was a "legal black hole." Most prisoners of Guantanamo were eventually freed without ever being
charged with any crime, and were transferred to other countries. By July of 2021, 40 men remain in the prison and almost three-quarters
of them have never been criminally charged. They're known as "forever
prisoners" and are being detained indefinitely. As of 2025, 15 detainees remain, with three awaiting transfer, nine who have been charged or convicted of war crimes, and three who are held in indefinite law-of-war detention without facing tribunal charges nor being recommended for release.
Major terrorist attacks and plots since 9/11
Following the launch of "war on terror" by the United States, several
Islamist militant groups as well as militant individuals have launched
attacks against the assets of US-led coalition, including in Western
countries where active warfare is not taking place.
Morocco blamed Al-Qaeda for the 2011 Marrakech bombing which targeted French nationals. However, al-Qaeda denies involvement in the attack.
To date, no one has claimed responsibility for the 2012 U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi in Libya, and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,
pro-al-Qaeda militias and individuals "sympathetic to al-Qaeda" are
considered to be the orchestrators of the attack. The attacks were
launched 18 hours after al-Qaeda Emir Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video urging Muslims to attack on American targets in Libya to avenge the killing of al-Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi. The release of the video as well as the launching of the attacks coincided with the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
2013 Reyhanlı bombings in Turkey that led to 52 deaths and the injury of 140 people.
2014 Canadian parliament shootings, an ISIL-inspired attack on Canada's Parliament, resulting in the death of a Canadian soldier and that of the perpetrator.
November 2015 Paris attacks
on the 13th that left at least 137 dead and injured at least 352
civilians caused France to be put under a state of emergency, close its
borders and deploy three French contingency plans. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, with French President François Hollande later stated the attacks were carried out "by the Islamic state with internal help".
2015 San Bernardino attack
on 2 December 2015, two gunmen attacked a county building in San
Bernardino, California killing 16 people and injuring 24 others.
2016 Orlando nightclub shooting
on 12 June 2016 a gunman opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando,
Florida killing 50 people and wounding 53 others. It was the second
worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
The 2012 Toulouse and Montauban shootings which targeted French soldiers and a Jewish school, were committed by Mohammed Merah. Although Merah claimed ties to al-Qaeda, French authorities have denied any connection.
The 2023 7th October Attack which targeted Israeli soldiers and civilians, were committed by Hamas and its allies. With a barrage of at least 3,000 rockets launched against Israel and vehicle-transported and powered paraglider and infantry incursions into Israel, it was the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history and the third-deadliest terrorist attack in the 21st century.
Alleged plots and unsuccessful attacks
There have also been reports of alleged plots and other planned attacks that were not successful.
There is no widely agreed on figure for the number of people that
have been killed so far in the war on terror as the Bush Administration
has defined it to include the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and
operations elsewhere. According to Joshua Goldstein, an international relations professor at the American University, the global war on terror has seen fewer war deaths than any other decade in the past century.
A 2015 report by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Global Survival estimated between 1.3 million to 2 million casualties from the war on terror. A report from September 2021 by Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
"Costs of War" project puts the total number of casualties of the war
on terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan at between 518,000 and
549,000. This number increases to between 897,000 and 929,000 when the
wars in Syria, Yemen, and other countries are included. The report
estimated that many more may have died from indirect effects of war such
as water loss and disease. They also estimated that over 38 million people have been displaced by
the post-9/11 wars participated in by the United States in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines; 26.7 million people have returned home following displacement. The conflict has caused the largest number of forced displacements by any single war since 1900, with the exception of World War II.
In a 2023 report, the "Costs of War" project estimated that, as
the result of the destruction of infrastructure, economies, public
services and the environment, there have been between 3.6 and
3.7 million indirect deaths in the post-9/11 war zones, with the total
death toll being 4.5 to 4.6 million and rising. The report defined post-9/11 war zones as conflicts that included
significant United States counter-terrorism operations since 9/11, which
in addition to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, also includes the civil wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. The report derived its estimate of indirect deaths using a calculation from the Geneva Declaration of Secretariat
which estimates that for every person directly killed by war, four more
die from the indirect consequences of war. The report's author
Stephanie Savell stated that in an ideal scenario, the preferable way of
quantifying the total death toll would have been by studying excess
mortality, or by using on-the-ground researchers in the affected
countries.
An estimated 7,052 US military combatants, over 8,100 US military
contractors and more than 14,800 US-allied coalition troops are
estimated to have been killed in the wars as of 2023.
The total number of insurgent deaths since the commencement of
the war on terror in 2001 is generally estimated as being well into the
hundreds of thousands, with hundreds of thousands of others captured or
arrested. Some estimates for regional conflicts include the following:
In Iraq, some 26,544 insurgents were killed by the American-led coalition and the Iraqi Security Forces from 2003 to 2011. 119,752 suspected insurgents were arrested in Iraq from 2003 to 2007
alone, at which point 18,832 suspected insurgents had been reported
killed; applying this same arrested-to-captured ratio to the total number of
insurgents killed would equate to approximately 26,500 insurgents killed
and 168,000 arrested from 2003 to 2011. At least 4,000 foreign fighters
(generally estimated at 10–20% of the insurgency at that point) had been killed by September 2006, according to an official statement from al-Qaeda in Iraq. Insurgent casualties in the 2011–2013 phase of the Iraqi conflict numbered 916 killed, with 3,504 more arrested.
From 2014 to the end of 2017, the United States government stated
that over 80,000 Islamic State insurgents had been killed by American
and allied airstrikes from 2014 to the end of 2017, in both Iraq and
Syria. The majority of these strikes occurred within Iraq. ISIL deaths caused by the Iraqi Security Forces in this time are
uncertain, but were probably significant. Over 26,000 ISF members were
killed fighting ISIL from 2013 to the end of 2017, with ISIL losses likely being of a similar scale.
Total casualties in Iraq range from 62,570 to 1,124,000:
Iraq Body Count project documented 185,044 to 207,979 dead from 2003 to 2020 with 288,000 violent deaths including combatants in total.
110,600 deaths in total according to the Associated Press from March 2003 to April 2009.
Opinion Research Business (ORB) poll
conducted 12–19 August 2007 estimated 1,033,000 violent deaths due to
the Iraq War. The range given was 946,000 to 1,120,000 deaths. A
nationally representative sample of approximately 2,000 Iraqi adults
answered whether any members of their household (living under their
roof) were killed due to the Iraq War. 22% of the respondents had lost
one or more household members. ORB reported that "48% died from a
gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial
bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another
blast/ordnance."
Between 392,979 and 942,636 estimated Iraqi (655,000 with a
confidence interval of 95%), civilian and combatant, according to the
second Lancet survey of mortality.
A minimum of 62,570 civilian deaths reported in the mass media up to 28 April 2007 according to Iraq Body Count project.
4,431 U.S. Department of Defense
dead (941 non-hostile deaths), and 31,994 wounded in action during
Operation Iraqi Freedom. 74 U.S. Military Dead (36 non-hostile deaths),
and 298 wounded in action during Operation New Dawn as of 4 May 2020
Insurgent and terrorist deaths in Afghanistan are hard to estimate. Afghan Taliban
losses are most likely of a similar scale to Afghan National Army and
Police losses; that is around 62,000 from 2001 to the end of 2018. In addition, al-Qaeda's main branch and ISIL's Afghanistan branch are
each thought to have lost several thousand killed there since 2001.
Total casualties in Afghanistan range from 10,960 and 249,000:
16,725–19,013 civilians killed according to Cost of War project from 2001 to 2013
According to Marc W. Herold's extensive database, between 3,100 and 3,600 civilians were directly killed by U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom
bombing and Special Forces attacks between 7 October 2001 and 3 June
2003. This estimate counts only "impact deaths"—deaths that occurred in
the immediate aftermath of an explosion or shooting—and does not count
deaths that occurred later as a result of injuries sustained, or deaths
that occurred as an indirect consequence of the U.S. airstrikes and
invasion.
In an opinion article published in August 2002 in the magazine The Weekly Standard, Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute, questioned Professor Herold's study entirely by one single incident
that involved 25–93 deaths. He did not provide any estimate his own.
In a pair of January 2002 studies, Carl Conetta of the Project on
Defense Alternatives estimates that "at least" 4,200–4,500 civilians
were killed by mid-January 2002 as a result of the war and Coalition
airstrikes, both directly as casualties of the aerial bombing campaign,
and indirectly in the resulting humanitarian crisis.
His first study, "Operation Enduring Freedom: Why a Higher Rate of Civilian Bombing Casualties?", released 18 January 2002, estimates that, at the low end, "at least"
1,000–1,300 civilians were directly killed in the aerial bombing
campaign in just the three months between 7 October 2001 to 1 January
2002. The author found it impossible to provide an upper-end estimate to
direct civilian casualties from the Operation Enduring Freedom bombing campaign that he noted as having an increased use of cluster bombs. In this lower-end estimate, only Western press sources were used for
hard numbers, while heavy "reduction factors" were applied to Afghan
government reports so that their estimates were reduced by as much as
75%.
In his companion study, "Strange Victory: A critical appraisal of Operation Enduring Freedom and the Afghanistan war", released 30 January 2002, Conetta estimates that "at least" 3,200 more
Afghans died by mid-January 2002, of "starvation, exposure, associated
illnesses, or injury sustained while in flight from war zones", as a
result of the war and Coalition airstrikes.
In similar numbers, a Los Angeles Times
review of U.S., British, and Pakistani newspapers and international
wire services found that between 1,067 and 1,201 direct civilian deaths
were reported by those news organizations during the five months from 7
October 2001 to 28 February 2002. This review excluded all civilian
deaths in Afghanistan that did not get reported by U.S., British, or
Pakistani news, excluded 497 deaths that did get reported in U.S.,
British, and Pakistani news but that were not specifically identified as
civilian or military, and excluded 754 civilian deaths that were
reported by the Taliban but not independently confirmed.
According to Jonathan Steele of The Guardian between 20,000 and 49,600 people may have died of the consequences of the invasion by the spring of 2002.
2,046 U.S. military dead (339 non-hostile deaths), and 18,201 wounded in action.
This table shows a comparison of total casualties between the two main theaters of the war on terror—Iraq (since 2003) and Afghanistan (since 2001)—up until August 2021, as conducted by Brown University.
1,467 and 2,334 people were killed in U.S. drone attacks as of 6 May
2011. Tens of thousands have been killed by terrorist attacks and
millions have been displaced.
The War in Northwest Pakistan resulted in the deaths of 28,900+ militants from 2004 to 2018, with an unknown number captured, per the Pakistani government. The majority of these were killed in engagements with the Pakistan Armed Forces. However, thousands were also killed in American drone strikes.
Somalia
There have been 7,000+ casualties in Somalia.
The December 2006 to January 2009 Ethiopian-led intervention in Somalia resulted in the deaths of 6,000 to 8,000 Islamist insurgents, according to the Ethiopian government. The Kenyan Defence Forces claimed another 700+ insurgents killed in their own intervention of October 2011 to May 2012. American drone strikes, air strikes, and special forces ground raids in
Somalia killed between 1,220 and 1,366 militants up to July 2019,
according to the New American Foundation.
In December 2007, The Elman Peace and Human Rights
Organization said it had verified 6,500 civilian deaths, 8,516 people
wounded, and 1.5 million displaced from homes in Mogadishu alone during the year 2007.
Yemen
American forces (mostly via drone strikes) killed between 846 and 1,609 terrorists in Yemen (mostly AQAP
members) up to June 2019, according to a variety of media organizations
including the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the New America
Foundation. An Emirati spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition intervening in Yemen claimed that they had killed 1,000 al-Qaeda linked militants and captured 1,500 up to August 2018.
Philippines and North Caucasus
Over 1,600 Islamic State fighters (Abu Sayyaf having sworn allegiance to ISIL in 2014) were killed by government forces in the Philippines from 2014 to 2017 alone.
From April 2009 to March 2019, Russian military and police (primarily in the North Caucasus) killed 2,329 and captured 2,744 insurgents of the Caucasus Emirate and related groups.
United States
1 June 2009, Pvt. William Andrew Long was shot and killed by Abdulhakim Muhammad, while outside a recruiting facility in Little Rock, Arkansas.
On 5 November 2009, Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others at Fort Hood, Texas.
Children wounded by American airstrikes in Afghanistan's Surkh-Rōd District in 2001
Between 363,939 and 387,072 civilians were killed in post–9/11 wars
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and other war zones,
according to a 2021 report by the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute. Many more may have died due to related effects, including water loss and disease.
Costs
The war on terror, spanning decades, is a multitrillion-dollar war that cost much more than originally estimated.
According to the Costs of War Project
at Brown University's Watson Institute, the war on terror will have
cost $8 trillion for operations between 2001 and 2022 plus $2.2 trillion
in future costs of veterans' care over the next 30 years. Out of this number, $2.313 trillion is for Afghanistan, $2.058 trillion
for Iraq and Syria, and $355 billion was spent on other warzones. The
remainder was for DHS ($1.1 trillion).
According to the Soufan Group in July 2015, the U.S. government was spending $9.4 million per day in operations against ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
A March 2011 Congressional report estimated war spending through the fiscal year 2011 at $1.2 trillion,
and future spending through 2021 (assuming a reduction to 45,000 troops)
at $1.8 trillion. A June 2011 academic report covering additional areas of war spending estimated it through 2011 at
$2.7 trillion, and long-term spending at $5.4 trillion including
interest.
In direct spending, the United States Department of Defense reports spending $1.547 trillion from 2001 to February 2020 in war costs in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
Adversary groups have taken an interest in agricultural bioterrorism and this is a continuing concern as of 2022. The US government takes steps to prepare for threats from agricultural pathogens. The National Plant Disease Diagnostic Network (NPDN) coordinates efforts to combat agrowarfare against the US.
Participants in a rally, dressed as hooded detainees
Criticism of the war on terror addresses the issues, morality,
efficiency, economics, and other questions surrounding the war on terror
and made against the phrase itself, calling it a misnomer.
The notion of a "war" against "terrorism" has proven highly
contentious, with critics charging that it has been exploited by
participating governments to pursue long-standing policy/military
objectives, including structural Islamophobia, reduce civil liberties, and infringe upon human rights. It is argued that the term war is not appropriate in this context (as in the "war on drugs")
since there is no identifiable enemy and that it is unlikely
international terrorism can be brought to an end by military means.
Other critics, such as Francis Fukuyama, state that "terrorism" is not an enemy but a tactic, and calling it a "war on terror" obscures differences between conflicts such as anti-occupation insurgents and international mujahideen. With a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and its associated collateral damage, Shirley Williams posits that this increases resentment and terrorist threats against the West. There is also perceived U.S. hypocrisy, media-induced hysteria, and that differences in foreign and security policy have damaged America's reputation internationally. The campaign has also been rebuked for being a perpetual war with no
end-goal and for normalising permanent violence as the status-quo.
In addition, Professor Richard Jackson notes how countries like
Russia, India, Israel and China adopted the language of the war on
terror to describe their own fight against domestic insurgents and
dissidents. He argues that "Linking rebels and dissidents at home to the
global 'war on terrorism' gives these governments both the freedom to
crack down on them without fear of international condemnation, and in
some cases, direct military assistance from America".
Professor of Law Antony Anghie has asserted that "war on terror" is essentially an imperialist project that constitutes a breach of International law and the United Nations Charter. There has also been systematic cover-ups of war crimes
by military officers participating in campaign operations across the
world. A public enquiry in the UK published in July 2023 reported that 3
British SAS units were involved in the summary executions of at least 80 civilians during 2010–2013, accompanied by a decades-long coverup at the highest echelons of British special forces.
US occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq became heavily unpopular among the American public by the late 2000s. Numerous US military veterans have handed back their service medals—including the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal—in
fierce protest rallies denouncing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
with many condemning the military campaigns as "illegal occupation" of
other countries.
Criticism of the war on terror
has focused on its morality, efficiency, and cost. The notion of a "war
on terror" remain contentious, with critics charging that it has been
used to reduce civil liberties and infringe upon human rights, such as controversial actions by the U.S. including surveillance, torture, and extraordinary rendition, and drone strikes that resulted in the deaths of alleged terrorists but also civilians. Many of the U.S.' actions were supported by other countries, including the 54 countries that were involved with CIA black sites, or those that assisted with drone strikes.
Forced displacement
According to a 2021 study by the Costs of War Project,
the several post-9/11 wars participated in by the United States in its
war against terror have caused the displacement, conservatively
calculated, of 38 million people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria,
Yemen, Somalia, Philippines and Pakistan; 11.3 million remain displaced.
This makes it the war that has caused the largest number of forced displacements since 1900, with the exception of World War II. Another report by the Costs of War Project
in 2023 estimates that the wars in these countries have caused a total
number of 4.5–4.6 million deaths, including 3.6 million indirect deaths
and 906,000–937,000 direct killings. Rather than basing this estimate on
detailed data of the concerned countries, the Cost of War report simply
multiplied the tallied violent death toll of 906,000–937,000 by four,
"by applying the Geneva Declaration Secretariat's average ratio of four
indirect for every one direct death." Of the approximately 925,000 violent deaths estimated by the Cost of
War project, 542,000 were combatants and 387,000 were civilians. The war costs have risen over $8 trillion for the US Treasury. Critics accuse participating governments of using the "war on terror" to repress minorities or sideline domestic opponents, of fomenting Islamophobia globally, and have criticized negative impacts to health and the environment resulting from it. Critics assert that the term "war" is not appropriate in this context (much like the term "war on drugs")
since terror is not an identifiable enemy and it is unlikely that
international terrorism can be brought to an end by military means.
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