Last weekend marked 20 years since the attacks on the United States that launched the “Global War on Terror.” During that time, there have been not just two invasions, but also a global financial crisis, a pandemic and a foundational shift in relations among the world’s leading powers.
While former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, might encourage caution in drawing conclusions, two decades seem to be sufficient time to try to distill some lessons from this tumultuous chapter in world history.
First, the most powerful military in the world is the answer to some, but certainly not all, of the world’s problems. The Taliban were driven from power, al-Qaida vanquished and Osama bin Laden killed — but all those victories proved temporary. Many of those threats scattered and metastasized. Military capability is a critical element of national power and there are some problems for which it is the only answer, but we should also ask to what degree the use of the military helped our adversaries, alienating publics and amplifying a message that the U.S. was the real threat.