“U.S. Counterterrorism Twelve Years After 9/11: A Report Card,” a USP Seminar with Professor David Schanzer

On the twelfth anniversary of the September 11^th attacks, University Scholars gathered in Page Auditorium on Duke’s West Campus with over 1000 other audience members to listen to General David Petraeus’s conversation with Professor Peter Feaver.  Petraeus shared his perspectives on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where  served as a four-star general commanding forces, while carefully avoiding disclosing information about covert operations enacted during his tenure as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.   For more, please see The Chronicle’s coverage of the event, “General Petraeus discusses legacy, Syria.”

Following the Petraeus event, University Scholars convened for a USP Seminar with Professor David Schanzer, associate professor of the practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security.  Professor Schanzer is an expert on national security issues and counter-terrorism and offered his assessment of U.S. Counterterrorism strategies in the twelve years since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Professor Schanzer prefaced his remarks by stating that there are bad strategic consequences to referring to the “War on Terror.” He preferred the expression “the conflict with Al Qa’ida.”  He then outlined the 7 goals of U.S. counterterrorism post 9/11, interjecting his assessment of the successes, failures, and challenges of each goal.  Afterwards, University Scholars engaged in a lively Q&A session with him.

•  Deny safe havens to terrorist organizations
  • The U.S. has been very successful in eradicating safe havens in Afghanistan through its military intervention.
  • Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia still pose problems.  The U.S. is employing the drone program to target suspected terrorist groups in ungoverned, rural spaces in these countries.
  • The U.S. is equipping local partners to take up the fight for us, or partners who have stronger ties to a given region.  He cited the French intervention in Mali as an example.
  • There are tremendous costs to this goal.  The U.S. is still in Afghanistan with significant expenditures of blood, money, international energy and popularity.  And it’s unclear if it will pay off in the long run.
  • The drones are successful strategically, but they are incredibly unpopular internationally and it harms other aspects of counterterrorism.  For example, the dubious legality of the drone program undermines U.S. claims to uphold international law.
  • Some of the strategies used to deny safe havens can end up conflicting with each other.

• Degrade capabilities of terrorist organizations
  • One way to do this is to cut off financing to international terrorist organizations.  Prof. Schanzer referred to a brand new book by Juan Zarate called Treasury’s War:  The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare .  The U.S. deploys financial punishment tolls in consortium with banks as well as the private sector to cut terrorist organizations off from the international financial system.
  • Another way is to strengthen cooperation among international intelligence organizations, by sharing information and assets.
  • This goal has been successful in diminishing the strength of central Al Qa’ida, resulting in a diffusion of Al Qa’ida affiliates, who are more focused on the “near enemy” (the local government) vs. the “far enemy” (the U.S. or other Western powers).
  • The costs to this goal include putting us into bed with some very unsavory regimes.  This creates ideological paradoxes that feed into terrorist rhetoric.

• Strengthen other countries’ abilities to deal with terrorists in their own countries
  • The U.S. has had intermittent success in pursuing this goal.  It’s doubtful that it’s been successful in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq due to the fragility and/or corruption of the governments and armed forces (military or police) in those countries.
  • The costs include again collaborating with some very unsavory regimes, which has put the U.S. on the wrong side of history.  For example, the U.S. supported the authoritarian regime of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak so that he could quell internal terrorist threats.  This has had some obvious problematic repercussions for the local populace, not to mention any suspected terrorists.

• Restrict the flow of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to terrorist organizations
  • This goal has been largely successful in that there have been no WMD terrorist attacks on U.S. soil or elsewhere.  The Syrian government’s recent use of sarin gas against its own citizens does not count as an example, as it was used as a government tactic to gain territorial control in a regional civil war.
  • There are still big challenges on this front, including struggling to contain North Korea and Iranian nuclear capabilities, and limiting outflow of nuclear material and technology from Pakistan, which already is a nuclear power, and which is producing more nuclear material per day than any other country in the world.
  • Biological weapons could pose the biggest problem in the future, particularly as biotechnology is spreading very rapidly around the world with very few controls in place. At present, it’s mostly for positive uses, but that could shift.

• Improve intelligence collection
  • There have been a lot of strong improvements here.  Edward Snowden’s revelations about U.S. and British government surveillance programs have allowed us to see the massive capabilities that we have developed on the technological side.
  • We have lots of human assets, too.  For example, an inside operative in Yemen provided information on terrorist networks and plans in that region.
  • Agencies need to share intelligence, but this is still a work in progress.  The National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were created to integrate and analyze intelligence sourced from various agencies, including the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, the military, and others.
  • Costs include restrictions on civil liberties, in the U.S. and abroad.
  • The Arab Spring has posed problems for intelligence collection by diverting domestic intelligence agencies’ energies toward internal problems, for example in Syria and Egypt.

• Improve domestic security
  • The new Department of Homeland Security was created to address this goal, but few are satisfied with its enormous bureaucracy and unresponsiveness.
  • It’s difficult to assess the success of this goal because it’s hard to account for things that did not happen.
  • There remain burdensome immigration issues as a result of the cost of increased fidelity of border protection.
  • The FBI has been transformed into an agency of prevention as opposed to its former reactionary role in face of national security issues.
  • The Boston Marathon bombings provide an instance of how the U.S. is still facing challenges in this regard.  The FBI had a file on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother who orchestrated the bombings, but it didn’t keep it active.
  • There are so many tips that it’s impossible to keep track of all the information.
  • There are very big costs:
    • The Muslim American community suffers from discrimination by society at large but also from the government.
    • A formidable domestic security apparatus is unhealthy for civil society.
    • Obsessions with security may be overblown.
• Address ideological issues
  • This goal refers to how we can shift the narrative dynamic that makes people want to join terrorist organizations.
  • This area is where the U.S. has made the least progress.
  • U.S. actions can been seen as hypocritical compared to their rhetoric of trying to create a better world for everyone, everywhere.  Cynics suggest that the U.S. is less interested in that ideal and motivated exclusively on protecting U.S. financial, material, and/or strategic interests around the world.
  • Ironically, Al Qa’ida has helped the U.S. towards this goal because its attacks have killed so many Muslims and they’ve also made life miserable in regions where they’ve assumed control – in Mali, Iraq, etc.  Their style of governance is too repressive and results in turning people away from their ideology.