Stern in POV: Is the War on Terrorism Winnable?
Jessica Stern, Research Professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed discussing whether the war on terror is winnable as we approach the 15th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Stern wrote an article entitled “Is the War on Terrorism Really Winnable?” on September 9, 2016 for BU Today’s POV Series, an opinion page that provides timely commentaries from students, faculty, and staff on a variety of issues: on-campus, local, state, national, or international.
From the text of the Op-Ed:
On the 15th anniversary of the tragic attacks on the United States by a millenarian hate group determined to punish American citizens, it is hard not to return to nagging questions: Are we any safer than we were on September 10, 2001? Can we win this seemingly endless war on terror?
The United States has spent roughly a trillion dollars in its war on terrorism, since the 9/11 attacks, depending on what we include in the assessment. The figure is significantly higher if we add in the costs of the continuing military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, according to the Watson Institute’s Costs of Warproject. What has that money bought us? It is now much more difficult for foreign terrorists to get into the country than it was before 9/11, and there are numerous impediments to carrying out a 9/11-style attack. Our worst fears, immediately after 9/11, have not been realized. No nonstate enemy—ISIS or any other—poses an existential threat to the continued viability of our country.
You can read the entire Op-Ed here.
Stern’s main focus is on perpetrators of violence and the possible connections between trauma and terror. She has written on terrorist groups across religions and ideologies, among them neo-Nazis, Islamists, anarchists, and white supremacists. She has also written about counter-radicalization programs for both neo-Nazi and Islamist terrorists. Learn more about her here.