Twenty Years Later: What Has America’s War on Terror Accomplished?

Abstract

This thesis considers the value and productivity of the extensive measures taken in the last twenty years by the United States government while it waged a global ‘War on Terror’ in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks. These measures, implemented by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the attacks, and continued by the subsequent Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, appeared in the form of widespread policies, acts, military interventions, displays of force, sanctions, enhanced interrogations, and surveillance activities at massive financial and human cost, as well as the invasion of privacy. The actions implemented were justified in the name of security, sold to the American people and the world as the means by which the U.S. would neutralize the threat of ‘terrorism’ and prevent a future attack. In passing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Congress authorized President Bush 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 9/11, or harbored such organizations or persons,”1 granting the White House the full freedom to implement measures that targeted the greater Middle East, Africa, and Asia and its people, under the guise of a ‘terrorist’ threat. After nearly two decades and four administrations, it is crucial that the widespread measures taken, in the name of security, be examined to determine what this massive securitization of America has actually accomplished and whom it has benefitted.