In the past month there's been greater United States media attention on the dozens of attacks by Iran-backed militias on American soldiers at bases in Iraq and Syria. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas assault and Israel's war on Gaza, the U.S. military has surged troops to the Middle East to "send a message of deterrence." The Pentagon said it will not hesitate to defend U.S. troops and has already launched counter-strikes.
Yet very few public voices are asking why the U.S. has thousands of personnel stationed in Iraq and Syria to begin with. How does this fit into broader military strategy? And what underlying beliefs drive that strategy?
Here's what most Americans don't know: despite the official withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan two years ago, the so-called war on terror, launched in 2001 after 9/11, continues apace under the Biden administration. My research, released today by the Costs of War project at Brown University's Watson Institute, revealed that Iraq and Syria are just two of the 78 countries where the U.S. has conducted counterterrorism operations in the past three years. Strikingly, this global stretch of activities looks remarkably similar to how it looked under the Trump administration, when the U.S. engaged in counterterrorism operations in 85 countries between 2018-2020.
Today, this sprawling counterterror apparatus is dramatically increasing the chances of the U.S. getting embroiled in a broader war in the Middle East. In Iraq and Syria specifically, the presence of U.S. service members can be explained on a strategic level: they are there to fight the Islamic State (also known as ISIS)—and to counter Iran. The U.S. ground presence makes it more difficult for Iran to move weapons to itsallies across the region.
But U.S. operations in Iraq and Syria are just a small part of the government's broader post-9/11 militarized activities. This latest Costs of War data on global counterterrorism showed U.S. airstrikes against militants in at least four countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria); combat against and detention of militants in nine countries (these four plus Cuba, Kenya, Mali, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen); military exercises in 30 countries; and training/assistance in 73 countries.
The actual counterterrorism footprint is bigger still, for many actions and physical postures are not included—military bases from which this fighting has been waged; arms sales to foreign governments; psychological operations; and all special operations forces and Central Intelligence Agency operations. And that's just counterterrorism, which today pales in comparison to U.S. military operations focused on Russia and China.
Why is the U.S. military footprint so huge? For that, we need to look beyond explanations focused on military strategy. Scholars in my field, anthropology, point to how U.S. bases and other military tools abroad work to support a global political economic order that benefits the U.S. and its military industrial complex at the expense of other nations and peoples. Historically, beliefs in white American supremacy have undergirded U.S. leaders' "deeply held belief in their right to deploy military power into the lands of others," wrote anthropologist David Vine.
We see that pattern continuing to play out in my data: U.S. counterterrorism is most active in the Middle East and Africa, regions that are home to people of color. In most countries on my map, the U.S. is engaged in training and "capacity building" for foreign military, police, and border patrol forces—the implication being that American forces have superior knowledge and capabilities to local forces.
Even on a strategic level, research showed that such activity has been spectacularly counterproductive. Terror attacks in Africa, where the U.S. began counterterrorism operations in 2002, have risen from nine attacks in 2002-2003 to 6,756 attacks this year alone. While this dramatic increase is due to many complex factors, a report from West Point's Combating Terrorism Center stated, "Africa is, in some ways, worse for the fix" of counterterrorism.
One reason for this is "blowback"—one of the biggest recruitment devices of militant groups in Africa is people's desire to retaliate against government violence targeted at oppressed minorities. Worse, a government "war on terror" emphasizes a military approach as the solution to terror attacks, obscuring the structural injustices that fuel militant movements—factors such as poverty, government corruption, and colonial legacies of ethnic rivalries—all of which are exacerbated by the devastations of climate change. For these reasons, waging a war on terrorism is proven to be ineffective.
Today, in the current geopolitical context of the Middle East, the U.S. counterterrorism machinery is like a spark, ready to ignite. The U.S. footprint in the region does not only make U.S. forces sitting ducks—it also threatens to dramatically escalate the current war on Gaza. Research has shown that having U.S. troops at the ready in so many places actually make the chances of the U.S. waging aggressive, offensive wars far more likely.
It is time for the U.S. to think deeply about the costs of overseas counterterrorism and to admit it has been a failure, underlaid by structural racism. It is time to truly end the post-9/11 war era.
Stephanie Savell is co-director of the Costs of War project at Brown University's Watson Institute.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
