The Cost of Ending Counterterrorism

Few Americans support wasting money trying to solve unsolvable problems. Fewer still support the continued deployment of U.S. troops in harms’ way for unclear and undefined objectives. Years of U.S. counterterrorism efforts have not brought total victory against al Qaeda and the Islamic State any closer. They only cost American blood and treasure, spent in conflicts in far-away places that have nothing to do with the United States.

Such critiques—and the near impossibility that al Qaeda or the Islamic State could attack the United States today—lay at the heart of calls to end the U.S. military deployments for counterterrorism operations that constitute America’s so-called “forever wars.” But the critiques miss the bigger picture:  U.S. counterterrorism activities actually deliver results, and the real cost of simply pulling U.S. forces from the fight will likely be high.

An ongoing strategic rebalancing has already shifted resources from counterterrorism missions to countering rising Chinese influence and immediate Russian threats. Indeed, the U.S. military has gone from tens of thousands of troops on counterterrorism deployments to thousands. The majority of these forces—such as 1,000 troops in Niger, for instance, or 2,500 in Iraq—serve in over-watch positions at U.S. bases in Africa and the Middle East, where they maintain an over-the-horizon strike capability against emergent terrorist threats.

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