The war on terror never ended

Like millions of Americans, I remember that September morning in 2001 vividly. As the towers fell in New York City and the Pentagon smoldered, the nation’s sense of safety also crumbled.

Thousands of young Americans like me were moved to enlist in the armed forces and take the fight to al-Qaida. By Christmas 2005, I was an infantryman in Ramadi, Iraq doing just that. But a lot has changed since then.

The Global War on Terrorism fueled visions of a world in which largescale conventional wars were slipping into irrelevance. By 2006, defense policy in the U.S. had shifted from focusing on hostile nation-states to terrorist organizations.

In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney became a foreign policy pariah when he said Russia posed a major geopolitical threat to America. President Barack Obama’s initial response to Romney’s comment — that the Cold War was over and the 1980s wanted its foreign policy back — did not age well. The joke did, however, reflect a widely-held opinion, until Russia invaded Ukraine two years later.

Since 2014, the successful targeting of terrorists, Vladimir Putin’s latest incursion into Ukraine and heightened tensions between the U.S. and China have returned American strategy to a focus on interstate competition. Raising the alarm for global terrorism today might draw quips about the early 2000s wanting its foreign policy back. Yet, as the military adage goes, the enemy “gets a vote” in ending the war on terror.

One of these votes comes from Tehran, whose terrorist proxies are attacking U.S. troops abroad with little fear of reprisal. Three service members were killed in Jordan earlier this year and a more recent strike on al-Asad airbase in Iraq injured five Americans. In August, a “suicide” drone hit a small U.S. camp in Syria. The Pentagon implicated Iranian surrogates in each of these attacks, but the threats extend beyond Tehran.

Parts of Central Asia and Africa have also become fertile ground for nurturing terrorism, creating an environment eerily reminiscent of the pre-9/11 era. After the botched 2021 withdrawal of U.S. forces, Afghanistan relapsed into a terrorist safe haven, returning the birthplace of America’s War on Terrorism to its previous form. But before Osama bin Laden took refuge in Afghanistan, he planned and funded attacks on American interests while living in Sudan during the early 1990s.

Now, decades later, terrorism in Africa is once again not contained to the region. Donna Charles of the U.S. Institute of Peace testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security last September that some groups, such as the Somalia-based al-Shabab, have developed the “capability and intent” to strike the U.S.

According to the latest annual threat assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the terrorist “center of gravity” has shifted from the Middle East to Africa. Jihadist groups there are expanding their networks and growing more sophisticated.

This June, the Institute for the Study of War reported that Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen brokered a deal to sell advanced weapons to al-Shabab, including surface-to-air missiles and lethal drones. Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA, sees “echoes of the run-up to 9/11” as the “terrorism warning lights are blinking red again.” One of these signs is a sharp uptick in troubling developments on the U.S.-Mexico border.

A report from the House Committee on Homeland Security found that between 2021 and 2023 Border Patrol encounters with migrants on the terrorist watch list skyrocketed by 2,500 percent. Security officials detained hundreds of them and released dozens, including one man with ties to al-Shabab who was found in Minnesota earlier this year. In June, authorities arrested eight men linked to Islamic State after they entered the country through Mexico.

The topic of border security may have become politicized, but 80 percent of Americans agree it has been handled poorly. Most migrants are looking for a better life in America. Yet hundreds of them are affiliated with terror organizations bent on killing Americans. These two statements are not mutually exclusive.

To put this in perspective, the 9/11 hijackers began applying for U.S. visas in April 1999. They used aliases, manipulated passports and forged official documents to enter the country. A porous southern border allows extremists to bypass such sophisticated tradecraft. Alone, each of the above developments should be concerning. Taken together, they are a calamity in waiting.

Both presidential candidates have pledged to secure the border. Such bipartisan harmony only reinforces how serious the problem is. America has no shortage of challenges to address this election season, but honoring the memory of 9/11 involves walking a fine line between alarmism and complacency. In this case, unfortunately, we may have already crossed it.

Maj. Michael P. Ferguson, U.S. Army, is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and coauthor of “The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age.” His views as expressed here do not necessarily reflect official policies or positions of the Army or the Department of Defense.