Who Won the ‘Global War on Terror’?

A few years ago, I was teaching a course on US foreign policy at Sciences Po. We had reached the session devoted to the American experience in Afghanistan, and I was explaining how the most significant national security event of my thirty-year diplomatic career had led us to that distant battlefield. For the previous generation, the assassination of Kennedy had been an event that everyone remembered precisely. For my generation, it was 11 September: everyone could remember exactly where they were when they saw those terrifying images of aeroplanes crashing into the World Trade Centre towers. I turned to a student and asked, ‘Where were you during the 11 September attacks?’ ’ A moment of confusion followed. Another student raised her hand. ‘Professor,’ she explained, ‘none of us had even been born at the time.’

It then struck me how much time and distance separated us from the deadliest terrorist attack in history. The trauma had been so profound for most Americans, and the repercussions on our politics so far-reaching, that 11 September had always seemed to me to be part of the most immediate current affairs. And yet, for my students, it was ancient history, an event that now belonged to another era.

This is true, to a certain extent, of policymakers in Washington today as well. I would be quite unable to tell you whether we have won what we once called the ‘global war on terror’ — or even whether it ever actually ended. But it is no longer the major national campaign — or, as our enemies in al-Qaeda might put it, the ‘crusade’ — that dominated US foreign policy for two decades. And perhaps that is for the best.

My own career in government spanned almost the entire duration of that ‘war’. As a young American diplomat fresh to the profession in the mid-1990s, I experienced a few years of that happy era when America had won the Cold War and displayed a somewhat smug self-assurance, bolstered by virtually unchallenged global power. Terrorism, including the jihadist-inspired kind embodied by al-Qaeda, was already a reality for us. Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organisation had already carried out several particularly deadly attacks against US embassies in Africa, as well as against a US ship anchored off the coast of Yemen. But at the time, terrorism was primarily a concern for the intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. We diplomats were busy building a new world order.

11 September changed everything. The fight against terrorism, previously regarded as an important but secondary issue, became the priority of our foreign policy. All components of the foreign policy apparatus — the armed forces, intelligence, diplomacy and foreign aid — were mobilised, to varying degrees, in a global struggle. As stated in the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy of 2002: ‘The fight against global terrorism is unlike any other war in our history. It will be waged on many fronts against a particularly elusive enemy and over a long period of time. Progress will come from the persistent accumulation of successes — some visible, others invisible.’

Certain aspects of this struggle were overtly military — the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, of course — but also included more covert operations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The intelligence community has, of course, devoted enormous resources to tracking down and neutralising terrorist networks. We diplomats, too, were fully engaged in the fight. During the 2000s, perhaps 20 per cent of all US Foreign Service officers, myself included, served in Afghanistan or Iraq, and the proportion was even higher amongst USAID staff. Almost all US diplomatic relations involved some element of cooperation or pressure relating to the fight against terrorism. Securing our allies’ support for our wars, fostering intelligence cooperation, cutting off sources of terrorist funding, supporting local efforts against Islamist groups, and providing development aid aimed at ‘countering violent extremism’: we were constantly engaged on all these fronts. It could be argued that, for a time, the focus on the fight against terrorism was just as intense as the attention we had devoted to the fight against communism during the Cold War.

The struggle proved surprisingly enduring and outlasted the Bush administration. President Obama was sceptical of the very concept of the ‘global war on terror’ – known at the time by the acronym ‘GWOT’ – and he certainly saw the value in withdrawing from certain conflicts whose link to that war was more tenuous. Following the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 and with the rise of Islamic State, the priorities of this struggle also shifted. And yet, even under Obama, the war expanded geographically: to Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria and the Sahel. Other priorities took centre stage during the Obama years, but terrorism remained a major concern for the United States.

Then this was no longer the case.

At the start of Trump’s first term, the fight against Islamist extremism was still a priority. Trump’s first National Security Strategy, published in 2017, still referred to ‘jihadist terrorists’ as one of the main transnational threats to US territory. In 2025, however, Trump’s new National Security Strategy no longer even mentioned the word ‘terrorism’.

A major turning point was our withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2020–2021. Ten years earlier, Obama had drawn a direct link between failure in Afghanistan and threats to US security. “…If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban — or allows al-Qaeda to operate with impunity — that country will once again become a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our fellow citizens as they possibly can,” he said in a speech in 2009. During his first term, Trump reassessed the conflict and concluded that a Taliban takeover did not, after all, appear to pose a major threat. The agreement he negotiated with the Islamist movement in 2020 — an agreement that effectively guaranteed the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan — stipulated, in general terms, that the Taliban would not allow groups or individuals to “threaten the security of the United States”, without, however, offering any firm guarantee that the Taliban would honour this commitment. Surprisingly, his successor, Joe Biden, appeared to share this assessment and completed the withdrawal.

Two years into Trump’s second term, the concept of the ‘global war on terror’ seems to have all but disappeared. The United States continues to carry out operations against terrorist groups, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia. Islamist groups that have an impact on the administration’s broader objectives — notably Iran’s proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the Houthis — are all designated as terrorist organisations. They are sometimes targeted by the US military, although the Trump administration adopts different approaches towards them depending on the nature of their involvement in the relevant regional conflicts.

For the rest, however, Trump seems to have little interest in a global fight against ‘terrorism’, and his administration is not organised along those lines. A particularly striking example is our now-friendly relationship with the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa — whom President Trump has described as a ‘strong man… respected by all’ — even though he was, at one time, associated with the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.

Abandoning the concept of the GWOT is probably a good thing. I fully understand the desperate need to react in the period immediately following 11 September. An attack on such a scale called for a decisive and global response. But terrorism, whether Islamist or otherwise, is hardly a monolithic and undifferentiated phenomenon, and our mobilisation against it has led to numerous excesses, in places such as Guantanamo, in Cuba, or Abu Ghraib, in Iraq.

It is therefore better to deal with each threat individually, within its own context and with a proper assessment of its nature and scale.

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Read regular opinion pieces by Jeff Hawkins, a former US diplomat and research fellow at IRIS, in his ‘Diary of a State Department Veteran’.

Results That Defy Predictions

First, voter turnout stood at nearly 78 percent, showing that Israeli citizens considered the stakes of this election to be crucial. Palestinians in Israel, for their part, voted at a rate of nearly 80 percent, expressing a total rejection of the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, the outgoing prime minister.

The electoral system, based on near-full proportional representation, once again highlights the difficulty of securing a clear majority without resorting to coalitions—where, traditionally, secret negotiations are the norm, accompanied by their share of broken promises, betrayals, and shifting alliances.

However, beyond the parameters related to the rules of the electoral system itself, the results of these elections are above all an expression of the divisions plaguing Israeli society over domestic policy issues. A wide variety of scenarios are therefore possible in the days and weeks ahead, and it would be futile to make any predictions with even a modicum of certainty in the context of this article.

The officially announced results show that the coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu, composed of five parties, came in first with 53 elected seats out of the 120 in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament; the opposition coalition led by Gadi Eisenkot, composed of four parties, won 48 seats; and finally, the two Arab lists won 19 seats. Since an absolute majority requires 61 members of the Knesset, negotiations are now beginning to determine the composition of the future government.

Several observations can be made at this stage.

Although it has seen a significant reduction in the number of its members—the outgoing majority coalition had 64—the fact remains that the bloc led by Netanyahu has not collapsed, despite the various accusations leveled against it throughout the election campaign: corruption, violations of democratic principles—notably embodied by its judicial reform plan aimed at bringing the Supreme Court to heel—and, above all, its responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7 attacks, or worse, for having been informed of Hamas’s preparations and failing to alert the relevant security services. Despite these accusations, a significant portion of the electorate has absolved him of responsibility for the genocidal policy implemented in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing carried out in the West Bank.

Nevertheless, the other 67 members of the Knesset, representing the opposition, point out that the coalition led by Netanyahu has been rejected by a majority of the electorate.

The coalition led by Gadi Eisenkot, the former chief of staff, has failed to meet the goals it set for itself and is also unable to form a government on its own. It is also worth noting that most polls were once again incorrect, as they had placed this coalition ahead of the one led by Netanyahu. During the campaign, Gadi Eisenkot distinguished himself from his main opponent on numerous domestic policy issues. For instance, he called for the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the security failures that led to the October 7 attacks, even though Netanyahu has stubbornly refused to do so; he expressed support for the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews—the “God-fearing”—who have been exempt since 1948; and he has frequently emphasized the need to respect the principle of the separation of powers. Gadi Eisenkot has also frequently stated that, if he were to win the election, he would relentlessly return to the foundations of the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, which he defines as “Jewish and democratic.” We can therefore conclude that, in addition to his condemnation of Netanyahu’s populist and illiberal excesses, he also distances himself—at least publicly—from the Basic Law on “Israel, the Nation-State of the Jewish People,” adopted in 2018, which codifies the existence of two categories of Israeli citizens with different rights based on ethnic criteria: Jews and non-Jews. If he comes to power, the coming weeks will confirm—or not—whether he keeps this promise on a matter of paramount importance.

The Palestinians of Israel, however, are the real surprise of this election due to their strong showing. Arab parties have won a total of 19 seats, compared to just 10 in the previous legislature. This result can be explained by their very strong turnout, which in turn was driven by the increasingly stigmatizing situation they face in Israel, particularly since October 7. As has been frequently noted in recent days, they are de facto the “kingmakers” of the future government structure. Benjamin Netanyahu is well aware of this, and during his October 28 press conference, he stated bluntly that “the Arabs stole the election.” The meaning of this statement is crystal clear and confirms that, for him and his coalition—composed of racist and supremacist parties—the Palestinians of Israel possess no legitimacy.

In light of these results, one of the key questions is whether Gadi Eisenkot’s “Change” bloc will agree to form an alliance with Arab lawmakers. The answer is difficult to discern, given the deep divisions within the bloc. One of its components—Avigdor Liberman’s party, with 7 seats—has, for example, repeatedly expressed its opposition to such a prospect, while Yair Golan’s Democrats, with 8 seats, would be more inclined to support it. A possible solution could take the form of support without the participation of the parties representing the Palestinians of Israel, but what assurances would Gadi Eisenkot then be able to offer them?

The Palestinian issue: conspicuously absent from the campaign

While there are many differences among the various Jewish electoral coalitions on domestic policy issues, these differences are clearly less pronounced when it comes to the Palestinian question.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s convictions have long been known, and one must acknowledge his unwavering obsession with the subject. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, he has consistently opposed any form of compromise with the Palestinians and the prospect of a sovereign Palestinian state. He has never deviated from these positions, and the other members of his coalition fully share them. The methods used against the Gaza Strip since October 7 and the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank show just how far this policy can go.

Gadi Eisenkot, for his part, has also clearly rejected the prospect of a Palestinian state, ultimately reflecting the conviction of the majority of Israeli public opinion. The difference between him and Benjamin Netanyahu lies in the fact that he does not rule out the possibility of negotiations a priori, though their goal would be to determine the status of a hypothetical “autonomous region” or “quasi-state” that would remain under Israel’s exclusive security control. While he has certainly condemned the policy of terror organized by the outgoing government in the West Bank—which encourages daily abuses by fanatical settlers against the Palestinian civilian population—he does not oppose the very principle of settlement. For him, it is, in a sense, a matter of settling “properly.”

There is therefore no agreement on methods, but the shared disregard for international law appears to be the same in both rival coalitions. Despite the nuances—and even the differences—the outgoing head of government and the leader of the opposition essentially hold the same position: no Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and an open disregard for international law. It is also striking to note that none of the Israeli political leaders—aside, of course, from those representing the Palestinians in Israel—bothers to formulate specific, positive proposals to break the deadlock and reverse the deterioration currently plaguing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The trauma of October 7 is so profound within Israeli society that a national consensus exists among the country’s Jewish parties, preventing any critical reflection.

Upcoming Episodes

Now that the official results have been announced, the Israeli president must meet with political leaders and appoint the person he deems suitable to form a government. It will be up to that person to find a way to secure the 61 Knesset members needed to achieve a majority in the Knesset. The negotiations could be lengthy and, if they fail, could lead to the calling of new early parliamentary elections. President Herzog has certainly urged political leaders to find a solution as soon as possible, but nothing is certain, and speculation is futile.

In the meantime, Benjamin Netanyahu, the outgoing prime minister, remains in office. He has proven over the past few years that he is capable of making the worst possible decisions to stay in power, and we cannot rule out yet another attempt to charge ahead regardless of the consequences. Unfortunately, the possibility of a new campaign of strikes against Iran—following the U.S. midterm elections—which would undoubtedly provoke a response from Tehran and help foster the reestablishment of a national unity government in Tel Aviv, cannot be ruled out.

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This article has been translated from French into English using artificial intelligence.