Introduction

Since the attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States has entered a period of counterterrorism warfare that seems endless. The United States has committed American troops and air power to the fight against al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other jihadist groups with little or no coherent explanation of when or, more importantly, how these wars could conclude.

Political rhetoric abounds regarding ending America’s endless wars, yet much of it is little more than talk—proclaiming an end to endless war while continuing to wage them. This situation has led some to dismiss ending endless war as nothing more than a political talking point or a vague expression of a desire to bring more troops home rather than a commitment to actually ending the wars. However, the concept of endless war is not a meaningless talking point. It is a description of the character of today’s counterterrorism wars in which the United States pursues objectives it is unable to achieve while its jihadist enemies prove incapable of ending the war by defeating the United States. Insofar as these two conditions appear unlikely to change, America’s counterterrorism wars have become endless.

Even where the U.S. troop commitment is small, this endless character poses substantial risks. It fuels the militarization of American politics. At the same time, the state of war risks escalation. Even the small numbers of U.S. forces active in Syria and Iraq have clashed with forces tied to Iran, Russia, the Syrian regime, and Turkey—hardly a record that suggests escalation control. Evaluating the costs today makes a temporal error of analysis—calculating the costs of the war before they have ended under conditions where there is no clear plan to end them. While all wars bring risks, those risks are magnified when wars are pursued in strategically incoherent ways without achievable objectives.

The only way to truly end America’s endless wars is to bring American objectives in line with achievable results. As long as politicians remain committed to defeating jihadist terrorist groups, America’s counterterrorism wars will not end. This is because these groups are rooted in the Middle East’s contentious politics and have decentralized to the point that they may not even hold a centralized governing body capable of being defeated in a traditional sense.

The rest of this report is divided into three sections. The first section presents a definition of endless war and responds to criticism that the phrase is a new and meaningless pejorative. The second section presents a framework for analyzing what gives rise to endlessness in America’s counterterrorism wars. This framework both illustrates the meaningfulness of the definition and can be used to assess the root of endlessness in America’s ongoing wars and the risk for potential future wars to become endless. The third section discusses the relevance of the definition for policy and responds to critics who affirm endless war as an acceptable strategy. The paper also includes two appendices. The first appendix uses the framework presented here to discuss the lessons of the attack in Pensacola, Fla. for understanding the threat to the United States. The second appendix provides detail on the distinctions this report uses when assessing terrorist threats.

Key Findings

Endless war is a definable concept. Endlessness emerges when a belligerent adopts objectives it lacks the capability to achieve and at the same time is not at risk of being defeated.

• Because endlessness is rooted in objectives and their achievability, there is no linear relationship between troop numbers and endless war, and hence no linear relationship between withdrawals on their own and ending endless war.
• Accepting troop drawdowns without discussion of objectives is a trick that encourages advocates of restraint-oriented policy to trust politicians rather than build a full platform to end endless war.

Four factors play a key role in giving America’s counterterrorism wars an endless character.

• First, the United States lacks a terrorist enemy capable of posing an existential threat.
• Second, the United States has tended to adopt unlimited objectives seeking to destroy not just specific terrorist organizations but the jihadist movement as a whole. Even America’s limited objectives tend towards the unachievable.
• Third, the United States has set unclear or unstable objectives for its wars.
• And finally, the United States has done little in the way of planning and preparation for the termination of its current wars; it faces an enemy that is particularly difficult to negotiate terms to end wars with, and often lacks effective partners who might protect U.S. interests in the absence of direct U.S. involvement.

The United States is incapable of achieving the unlimited objective of defeating jihadist terrorism and is likely incapable of even destroying most major jihadist groups.

• Unlimited objectives may simply be incoherent when it comes to terrorist groups because they lack governments in a traditional sense.
• Jihadist terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda and ISIS, have survived decades of American counterterrorism warfare and resurged after having been declared defeated or near defeat.
• Jihadist terrorism arises out of real grievances and socioeconomic conditions in the region that make it difficult to defeat groups formed in response to these conditions.
• The jihadist movement and particular groups have decentralized. Killing leaders or even destroying particular organizations—itself a tall order—is unlikely to provide a lasting defeat.

The adoption of unlimited objectives—such as destroying or defeating a terrorist group or movement—makes it difficult to end wars even when the true aim is more limited than the total destruction of a movement.

• Unlimited objectives stigmatize negotiations that are essential to ending wars and even consolidating victory when a group is defeated.
• Unlimited objectives also blur the line between individual participation in a movement and the existence of organizational structures, making it difficult to claim victory when a group lacks the control to enforce surrender upon its members.
• Calls for the defeat or destruction of terrorist groups leave administrations that seek to withdraw from or end a war open to public criticism that they have not truly defeated the enemy and to internal bureaucratic efforts to continue the war no matter how decimated the enemy is.

The United States decides whether to wage counterterrorism warfare in a strategic context where the available choices are far from stark. The United States has a wide spectrum of available responses to terrorism, including choosing not to view it as an issue requiring war. Jihadists lack the capability to impose major costs on the U.S. homeland, allowing the United States to decide the character of the wars it chooses to wage.

• Jihadist terrorist groups lack the power projection capability to pose an existential threat to the United States or seize American territory. Nor can they deny the United States access to the battlefield.
• Jihadist groups have not demonstrated a capability to direct and carry out sustained campaigns of deadly terrorism inside the United States.
• If terrorist violence proves to be an existential threat, the mechanism by which it becomes existential will be societal overreaction to terrorist violence.

Endless war poses significant costs and risks even when an administration is able to keep the number of troops involved and the resultant casualties low.

• Assessments that the cost of U.S. counterterrorism wars are low make a temporal error of analysis, assessing costs before the wars are over. The endless character of America’s wars means that the United States is vulnerable to greater costs if and when systemic conditions change.
• Even small troop deployments pose escalation risks, as exchanges of fire between U.S. forces and Iranian, Russian, Syrian regime, and Turkish-aligned forces in Syria and Iraq prove.
• Endless war harms American democracy by militarizing American politics, even if the wars themselves do not escalate and impose direct costs.