 Welcome. I'm David Sturman, a senior policy analyst here at New America. We're here to discuss my new report launching today titled Defining Endless Wars, the first step towards ending them. To discuss it with me, we have Alexander Stark, who's a senior researcher with New America's political reform program, and Jason Fritz, who's a lecturer at John Hawkins Center for Governance Studies. But first, I'll present a short PowerPoint about the report and put some of its key findings out to you, at which point we'll move towards moderating moderated discussion and then your Q&A. Can we put the slides up? So the topic of this report is defining Endless Wars. Next slide. And to go over it, I'm going to focus on six main things this report addresses or does. First, whether Endless War is a mere pejorative or whether it has meaning. Second, what is an Endless War? I present a definition in this report. Third, are the wars the U.S. is currently waging or the counterterrorism wars, specifically Endless Wars. Fourth, I'll quickly run through a framework that this report presents on how to analyze Endlessness. Fifth, a short discussion of why it matters if our wars are endless. And then some concluding statements and recommendations. So this paper comes out of watching a number of articles and comments come over 2020 that dismiss Endless War as being meaningless, missing the point, back to us, a trope or talking point. Some examples are here. But in my view, this misses the core of what Endlessness is that it actually does have a meaning rooted in our culture. Now, I think it's important to note that these sort of crit, these criticisms of the concept of Endless War come at a time when there's been a lot of misuses of the concept to talk about things that are not ending Endless War or just as an actual political talking point without content. But to dismiss the concept as a whole, in my view, misses how deeply rooted it is in our culture and strategic discussions. Next slide. So we look at George Orwell's 1984. We have a concept of continuous war or permanent war, where he differentiates between the previous wars or war throughout most history that usually ends as he puts it in mistakable victory or defeat. The war between the super states of 1984 that he compares to the battles between ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. This concept of a war that goes on, but there's no threat of either super state losing the war. It's very central and really is pretty big in our culture as this widely cited book on the subject should demonstrate. However, it's not just fiction as seen in the next slide. So in the conversations over the Vietnam War, endless war emerges and strategic conversations. For example, here we have a quote from Leslie Galb's 1972 testimony on the Vietnam War, quote, there are costs that we cannot run away from, but it is better than persisting in an endless hopeless and tragic war. A concept he expanded upon in his book, the irony of Vietnam, which also uses the phrase endlessness. It's not just galb though here we have a selection from the Marxist magazine monthly review published in 1969. First notice titled Vietnam colon endless war, but more interestingly in this screenshot I have here. You can see that they're reaching back to historians that uses the phrase endless war to discuss the German experience and theory in World War One and World War Two, and then proceeds to pull this forward to discuss Vietnam, which really runs counter to arguments that this is a mere turning point or something that people have not used as a concept to describe their experience and even attempt to do put forward fuller analytical understandings of to interpret how wars occur. Some other reasons I reject the conclusion it's the mere pejorative are the widespread use of quagmire language and other synonyms for endless war, including forever war. Recent research as you can see on the right in the field of studying civil wars that has actually given the concept of quagmire and operationalized definitions that can be compared across large end data sets. That's the phrase that's been used before 911, and also in wars that don't involve the US as a central actor including Columbia Civil War, and the New York Times referring to the Israeli Palestinian conflict as endless. Another sign that endless war might be a concept is that our enemies use the concept in a letter to the American people Bin Laden warns us specifically that they're waging a war without end. And while that's certainly propagandistic in its use. It shows that this is a concept that is being drawn upon, both by people within the US strategic studies, but also rivals to the United States. Next slide. But the existence of references to endless war does not mean there's an actual usable definition. In this report, I present what I think is a useful definition that can ground analysis. In my view wars take on an endless character. When two conditions are met. First, when a belligerent adopts objectives while lacking the capability to achieve said objectives. And second, when despite the inability to achieve those objectives, the belligerent is not at risk of being defeated itself. And I would add here also not at risk of being denied access to the battlefield. Next slide. By focusing in on objectives, we can pull out a few concepts about endlessness and ways to understand it today. For one thing, a focus on objectives suggests that there's no direct relationship between troop numbers and ending endless war. Because troop numbers decline in the absence of a statement of objectives and statements that reframes objectives to be achievable. Does not mean anything there's no linear relationships there. So let's just look at objectives as a key determinant. Now there's two things to think about with those definitions that might challenge it. One is unexpected systemic change, saying that a war's endless seems to be a statement about what is to come. We should not understand endlessness as just about duration. If there's a sudden systemic change that's unexpected or not part of the belligerent strategy. That doesn't mean that the war strategy they've been pursuing has not given a characteristic of endlessness prior to that sudden systemic change. And people still feel that endlessness. The other concept is how do you divide war from other activities, whether it's training or war by proxy. My report focuses on direct US coercive military action. You could certainly define it to include training. In my view that broadens it too much but it's a fair thing to look at. Next slide. So are we waging endless wars. Well one sign to look at is the duration of the wars. I would suggest based on this list that we certainly do seem to be waging endless wars. Another sign is the extent of political and public rhetoric using the phrase endlessness. The last three administrations, including the current one have all used endless war or a concept similar, like forever war in their speeches. In addition, President Biden's competitors for the 2020 Democratic nomination, or many of them also use this concept. We're not necessarily proof that our wars are endless. As noted previously, the core of whether wars endless is the objectives. I would submit that the objectives the US has chosen in its counter terrorism wars remain expansive to the extent that they're not accomplishable whether it's the defeat of ISIS which still several years in as not materialized or whether it's the defeat of Al Qaeda that Obama suggested we were on the path to a path that then wound for another administration and continues to wind in this new administration. To my eyes that suggests that we are, we have set objectives that are not accomplishable or being accomplished. Next slide. So I propose a framework for analyzing how that endlessness arose, they focused on four factors. One that's a lack of an enemy capable of posing an existential threat to us, or denying access to the battlefield. We can discuss more about my assessment there later, but I won't focus on that too much. Second, expansive and unlimited objectives. Third, unclear undefined objectives and forth a lack of war termination plan development. Next slide. So, expansive and unlimited objectives. Here, I have four quotes regarding what the United States is seeking. The first one is from George W Bush right after 911. And it's pretty expansive it says not only Al Qaeda but we're fighting all global terrorist groups, and they will be found stopped and defeated. Now, this comes maybe a couple days after 911. And I think it's fair to say that to some extent the war has certainly been narrowed, since that largely rhetorical statement of what's objective as. This seems these next three quotes, that narrowing is not actually all that much of a narrowing. We have Obama promising or stating we've sent a message from the Afghan border to the Arabian Peninsula. We will not relight we will not waiver and we will defeat you a rhetoric that seems pretty similar to Bush's comment. We have Trump in this recent presidential campaign stating that he would wipe out global terrorists who threatened to harm Americans. And now the Biden administration comes with Biden during the campaign having written that he would narrowly define our mission. But what is that narrow to mission definition is still defeating Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. Not really much of a narrowing except from the heights of the Bush type, every global terrorist frame. Next slide. So I present a framework for looking at what our objectives are actually saying. In my view we should distinguish between unlimited objectives, which are very difficult to achieve and may actually be incoherent when it comes to terrorist groups, because they are generally understood as meaning an objective that seeks the destruction of a government, terrorist groups generally are not governments in the same way that is status. But even if we look past that the evidence suggests that they are very difficult to achieve, especially via military means. You might signal that you're waging an unlimited objective or a war for an unlimited aim words like lasting defeat defeat presented without a qualifier like territorial, or words like destroy. In contrast, we can see the US could pursue limited objectives, which are objectives that do not seek the total destruction of the terrorist group or the government. I think we can divide this into transformative objectives, things like territorial defeat that seek to rewrite governance or social conditions in an area but not necessarily destroy a terrorist movement as a whole. The history of US intervention suggests to me that this is pretty difficult to do, although not as difficult depending on the specific transformative aim as simply destroying a terrorist group as a whole and extirpating it from the Middle East. And then there's disruptive objectives, things that seek to not rewrite governance, but seek to destroy a particular threat or capability. These, as you might expect, could be signaled by words such as disrupt or an example is targeting a high value targets that are viewed as a particular danger to the US, rather than as a way of destroying or mitigating the group's overall capability. These can actually be not that difficult to achieve, although in operational terms. There are certainly challenges. But the larger problem comes that, well, they may be accomplishable. They're often unsatisfying. The reason being that the danger generally arises out of systemic and social conditions, not out of a particular individual or set of individuals, which suggests that once the disruption is done, when the threat arises again, because it is rooted in those conditions, it will actually find that the US is pursuing a transformative objective, just not deploying the means necessary. Next slide. So I also look at unclear or undefined objectives. If you don't define your objectives, you can't determine if it's achievable. That's a great way to get endless war. But also if you're shifting your objectives. That's another way to get it. And I present a set of definitions for analyzing specific cases in the paper. Next slide. And then finally, war termination planning. You might have an objective that appears to be achieved, say something like the territorial destruction of ISIS. But where the assumption is that it is only achieved insofar as the US continues to apply military force. In other words, not actually ending the war. I present sort of a framework for analyzing this in particular cases, defined as the amount of planning and development of efforts to hand over security provision and the actual war fighting. If the war continues after the US removes itself to another party that is not the US. Next slide. So that's the framework. Why do we care? Some people assert that the cost of the US's current wars are not all that high. For example, the number of fatalities for US troops in Syria or elsewhere are relatively low compared to previous examples or previous conflicts. This makes a temporal error analysis. It analyzes the war's cost before it's done. We've seen in Syria that there are actually substantial escalation risks, whether it's clashes with Russian backed semi-state forces, exchanges of fire with Syrian government forces or Turkish forces and Turkish backed rebels. We're in Iraq where the US actually exchanged fire with the Iranian government after Iranian backed militia killed a US contractor there, bringing us to what many feared might be the brink of a larger war, although it seemed to back off from that. This is problems with the sort of theory of mowing the grass that has emerged in US rhetoric. But even if the escalation issues can be managed, fighting endless wars and the decision to do so militarizes American politics and has democratic risks as President Obama himself acknowledged when criticizing the dangers of being on a permanent war authorization pudding. And it also has impacts on the areas where the US wages its wars. It's certainly not beneficial for a society to have an external power waging war in a way with no sight of how it might end. And with little ability of people in those regions to actually affect the United States. Next slide. So some conclusions and recommendations. My paper suggests we should reject equation of troop withdrawals with ending war. It's about the objectives, not the troop numbers. The numbers can go down and up and they have both in Iraq where the Obama administration returned to fight ISIS in Yemen and Pakistan where there have been pauses and returns to airstrikes. We should also abandon unlimited objectives of defeat. Instead, we should state our objectives in specific measurable terms and tend towards limited objectives in most cases. We should open space for negotiations with groups deemed terrorist. This is particularly important as it's something that unlimited objectives tend to militate against. If we fight wars, we should push the transparency agenda that makes clear why they're being fought what the objectives are and how they're being fought. This is probably repealed in 2001 AUMF. And if the US populist decides that there are still wars that need to be fought. There should be authorized with specific authorizations about particular areas and enemies that named objectives and make the case for why those are achievable. Next slide. I'll just leave you with this quote from representative Lee, three days after the 911 attacks that I think emphasizes a couple of things. First, the fear of an open ended war or an endless war is not new. This, the effort needed to make the point about endless war is a lot more difficult to make in the wake of a major attack, or a crisis, which is something to be concerned about when you have a large number of people in the foreign policy pushing the idea that there's not actually meaning to endless wars. And finally, just to note that in the days after 911, this may have been a diagnosis or this may have been a warning about what the wars would become. But now almost two decades out. This is really a diagnosis that in my view should not be controversial of where we're at. And it's in some ways depressing that we're not able to recognize that our wars have become endless. So we can move on to discuss how we get out of that. And thanks with that I turn it over to Alice to present some questions. Thanks for joining us for what I think is, excuse me a really important conversation, especially at the start of a new presidential administration and there's room hopefully for fresh and innovative thinking about our kind of conceptions of national security what does security mean, and more specifically about this topic which as you point out in a way has been with us for decades. And David thank you so much for presenting this incredibly thorough research. So David I'm going to start with you. But Jason keep in mind I'll ask you a similar question after this. So, as you point out endless wars is one of those terms that is used so often in the media world and the policy world by politicians. But in spite of that it's not clear that we actually have a shared definition of what that term endless wars actually means. And I think this can lead to analytical confusion, and it certainly and it can also dilute the potency of the term itself. So if you're applying it to such a wide range and a variety of types of wars or interventions or proxy wars. You know we don't really have a common language to understand what is the concept or the thing that we're talking about. So I was hoping you could start by explaining a bit more the inspiration kind of behind this report. Why do you think that we need to define endless wars in order as your title says in order to end them. And what will having a shared definition mean in analytic and in policy terms. I think that this point about not having a shared meeting is really both true and at the center of why I sort of put together this report. And that is sort of what I see as misuses of it over the past four years in particular. For example, justifications of the so called withdrawal from Syria that Trump put together twice both times, calling it an endless war, despite there being troops in Syria and despite there being a public commitment that the US would continue to wage airstrikes and Harry ISIS in Syria, but just move its troops. I think it's pretty objectionable and also not in line with really any understanding of what a war is to view a movement of troops out of a particular area. And in the absence of some broader peace deal or a decision to rewrite sort of the societal understanding of what's being done. And certainly not to claim a war that's now just pursued via airstrikes or airstrikes and more secretive special forces activity as an end to endless war. I think there are some alternative definitions to the one I present that are worth considering. There's sort of a tension between a single war that takes on endlessness and endless war as a broader societal condition where society keeps fighting wars that may have different objectives. And I think there's also. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the main one. But I think there's something about our particular moment that makes this concept of endlessness. When many of the wars do seem to not just be repeating we see that too but the wars themselves taking so much longer and whacking this clarity or even a concept of when or how they might end. And the other thing I would add is, I think one lesson of this report is that saying a war is endless is not the only root of criticism that should be made about wars, or it could be made about wars. The war could not be endless could be very quick, but also be immoral or otherwise bad to do either immoral or counterproductive for us interest, but still end quickly. And I think those should be sort of separated for a discussion of a broader anti war position and a discussion of what it is specifically about endlessness that is so dangerous. And turning to you Jason, I'm hoping you can talk a bit about your your general response to the report as well as why it might be useful to have these conversations around defining the term endless wars. Yeah, thanks Alex, and thanks for monitoring this discussion and David, thanks for having me, thanks to America as well I really like this paper for a number of reasons. First it gives content to a political term that's been been thrown about and allows us to think about it in a more and more analytical way. But I think it also has some more theoretical and policy implications as well to add, add some definitions like particularly like this, this definition around objectives and I teach military strategy to master students. And then of course that's based mostly on Klaus Witz's conception of you know ends ways and means right and if we don't have ends that we are achievable how do you align the ways and means with that well you get the last 20 years of, of what we've, we've been experiencing. It's also important to recognize that this is in the mainstream of both foreign and military policy. Right, the idea that we should have attainable objectives is get codified if you will in the Weinberger and Powell doctrines of the 80s and 90s and the aftermath of the Vietnam war. This is an issue we've been dealing with for a long time that we jettisoned after 911. And I think there will be time to make a return to it. I think David also the in the paper bringing out the, the particular characteristics of this series of wars against terrorism is important and there's, there's an element of the nature of terrorism and fighting it. This is particularly prone to this endlessness I mean Raymond and at home in the 1950s looking at Francis war in Algeria was talking about how, you know, if you're the colonial power you have to have complete and total victory to be considered said to have to have one but terrorists can throw bombs, like as criminals can commit crimes it's impossible to stop it. So there's not really any point in perpetuating a war to prevent what is inevitable. There's also the policy implications of objectives that are wide ranging but also very. I want to say it's sort of like definitive because defeat is this it's this nebulous ideal what does that mean there's no there's no actual definition of what defeat means I guess other than, there's no more terrorism, but that also makes it a very definitive term as well and that it's it's it's it's complete. There's a tendency for that to drive our thinking and how we approach these wars as well and to talk about the effects of of the of these wars on the areas that we fight them right so if we think that if the goal is to defeat terrorists and we will, that's how we will focus our efforts. Right and then that creates policies and strategies that actually only exacerbate the problem right so if we if we focus on the whack-a-mole of terrorist leaders and middle management, and we have we approach that with drone strikes and bombings that cause a lot of damage that create grievances that create terrorists like there's this self perpetuating system that's that's based off this mindset that's encapsulated by this term defeat, and that that changing how we think about how we are engaging with the world really in addressing these real security challenges for the United States, but putting them in the proper context compared to the other the other threats that we're facing and how we how we should approach just the other peoples of the world. So this this question of the objective of defeat is really interesting. I think, David, and I would even build on that to say you kind of you define endless wars as a mismatch between these sort of maximalist objectives, and then the capabilities that we're willing to invest to achieve in these in these outcomes in a way so whether or not we're able to achieve them is in part I think a function of the resources and time and whatever we're willing to invest. And I think this is a problem that you can identify even more broadly across US policy, at least in the Middle East, which is kind of my area, where you see maximalist policy aims like regime change in Iran, for example, rather than pushing Iran to make specific concessions in some cases, or in Yemen, where the objective is forcing the Houthis to unilaterally capitulate or fighting a war to defeat of the Houthis rather than negotiating some kind of power sharing agreement. So, David, can you talk a bit more about the problems of having defeat as an objective. And why does the United States continue to maintain defeat as a goal in our counterterrorism wars even after, you know, 20 plus years of little success there at best. And what are some of the problems with continuing to have these, these maximalist objectives. I think, well to begin with, in my view, defeat when it comes to terrorist groups or terrorist movements is generally incoherent. It's not the understanding of what defeat means or what an unlimited objective is. And much of strategic studies and sort of the theorization is about governments and governments have a set of sort of stage structures and an understanding of how they relate to each other. It makes an unlimited objective regarding to them more understandable. It's become common or was common, even in the immediate aftermath of 911 to compare to the Japanese surrender and World War two, and say, there won't be one like that. One of the reasons there won't be one like that is that Japan had an actual state and the US objective wasn't we're going to hunt down and kill every imperial figure and call this war not over when we discover a few hold out soldiers on Ex Island or a group that continues to deny that Japan lost the war in another country. That wasn't what understanding was, but when it comes to al-Qaeda, because there's not that same level of institutionalized state structure. The name just keeps popping up and gets sort of redefined through sort of decentralized networks. And that poses a problem for when one wants to actually say the group has been defeated. But I think even if one views sort of a terrorist group as something that can have an unlimited objective against it. The history of sort of terrorist groups suggests that it's very difficult to defeat them. And that goes through sort of the large databases. Here are all the terrorist groups after 1968. And how did they end while a large chunk of them have not ended. And I believe the grand study of this from a ways back found only about 10% were ended through military force. And then figures like some figures have pointed out that even that probably overestimates and it looks at groups like the Red Army faction and groups and small groups that might be defeatable by policing together with larger groups that are more entrenched. And when we look at the jihadist groups the US is waging wars on and the larger movement. I think we can see that they are both entrenched and have a long history we've been fighting ISIS for in some form for 17 years. And arguably they go back to at least the 90s, but at least 2003, depending how you want to date that Al Qaeda is more than 30 years old, and also more than 20 years into it, more than like two decades and a half into its own war against the US, and about two decades into sort of what we generally recognize as the war after 911. And you can just go through these. At the same time they decentralized and not only is there the entrenched aspect, but now anyone can pick up the name Al Qaeda to some extent. And if there's just a modicum of linkage back to bin Laden, or even a group like ISIS that is formally fighting Al Qaeda. It becomes understood as the group has not been defeated. So I want to talk a bit more about your point about the connections between endless wars and the militarization of American politics. Because I think too often we act as though they're sort of the sharp or natural distinction between domestic and foreign policy that that simply is not the case. That's a special lesson that we've learned over the past year with economic and protests around racial justice. And there are complex ways in which our domestic politics is shaped by our foreign policy objectives are national security objectives, including what we choose to prioritize as a as a national security threat, and then how we choose to address those threats. So can you talk a bit more about what you mean by the militarization of American politics as a potential problem that comes out of endless wars. And how have endless wars kind of shaped our politics and society and to what extent will we need to reframe domestic political political debates and conversations in order to actually end endless wars. Yeah, I think there's a couple of aspects to this. Cost to the people actually fighting the wars that aren't soldiers dying that are often dismissed. And the willingness to accept those ongoing costs is its own course name of American society. And asking of people to keep waging war and taking injuries. Either actual physical injuries or moral injuries. Really something that course and start society and politics. I think there's also sort of the backwash of the militarization and creation of the military structure that can come back to policing in terms of not only about how to police, but also equipment. I think we're at a particular moment to be concerned about us as we rightfully react to a domestic extremist threat, but there's a whole bunch of theories about waging war on terrorism extremists that those wars have not been successful and absolutely score problems in their own theory. And now there's the danger of those being ported back to the US. Indeed, in many ways already were being ported back there's always back to the 70s and earlier been the cycle between America's wars and domestic policing. And then I also think we just need to think about what kind of society chooses to wage war and use violence without an actual end in sight. I mean I talk into the report that we can imagine cases where it might be moral to wage war without knowing what the end might be. In my view, the cases where that may be the case tend to involve much darker threats or dangers to the polity than they do in the US. So if you're actually at risk of genocide or the destruction of your political ability to imposition of dictatorship, it might make sense to keep fighting in the hopes that there might be a sudden systemic change that you don't know what it is. But when the death toll from jihadist terrorism is according to our tracking in the almost 20 years since 911 is 107 people, and those people were killed with one possible exception by people who did not have direct material ties to foreign terrorist organizations, answering that with what's keep fighting wars abroad and the death tolls that keep building up that aren't American. To me strikes or strikes me as profoundly immoral and profoundly corresponding to the way we react to other problems. I mean 107 deaths is tragic but it's also similar to such things as industrial accidents, or mass shootings generally. What doesn't mean when we accept in response to the foreign threat. There are ongoing wars and air strikes with hundreds to thousands of casualties as an appropriate response. When it comes to assessing what's happening at home and how do you justify that distinction without a racial or citizenship based emphasis that has very severe dangers of its own. So Jason on on this question of the relationship between endless wars and US politics and society. I know you've written about the militarization of US policing. And you yourself also also have experience with multiple tours as an army officer in Iraq. You talk about the links between endless wars abroad and police militarization, both abroad and at home, and then sort of from from your perspective, how endless wars have have affected and shaped US politics and society. Yeah, so the way I see it there are three direct linkages between us foreign policy and these endless wars and police militarization here at home and those are through material through psychologically or culturally. I think the materials pretty clear it's the things that we've seen particularly since the events in Ferguson Missouri in 2014 all the way through the events of this past summer. The just a number of the tools of war there in the hands of police. And those things are directly related to these these long wars and this isn't the first time we've seen this cycle of militarization through material. In the 1990s as the Cold War had come to an end and the wars, such as they were on crime and drugs were being waged, where he saw a massive explosion and the number of SWAT teams across the country which was recorded by Brian Kraska to just the giving of both military equipment and tactics to from the military to to police forces. We saw a massive spike in the transition of military equipment from to police art police agencies as the surgeon Iraq wound down and as we started winding around in Afghanistan. There was just a lot of excess and there's this policy and program for the United States federal government to give equipment through it. Beyond the material though which isn't which is important and it is related to the other to there is this psychological aspect of these never ending wars that it primes the population to be on a war footing and to at least partially accept that that is the case that is this threat that's out there that's going to potentially kill them and then it must be defended against, which is why it while militarization of police is not particularly overwhelmingly popular. There's still a large segment of population that is perfectly fine with it because of the perceived threats that are again psychologically primed by this discuss this talk of war, when it doesn't really resemble that in many ways. This was a little harder to nail down concretely. But I guess there's this term in military circles called tactical right there's the rise of the importance of special forces which has always been seen as elite and cool inside military circles right and and that has pervaded into civilian society, particularly in policing circles and also perpetuated the transition of former special operators into SWAT teams in particularly major jurisdictions. And so there's this idea of, it's the same reason we see these militias playing you know dress up soldier, because it looks cool that and there's this this cultural element of being a warrior that that's be very difficult to to eradicate I mean we can create policies to move military equipment take it out of the hands of police but the the cultural inroads are going to be very difficult to reverse. That's so interesting. So, I have a few more questions, but I also wanted to remind the audience members that you can drop your questions into that Q&A box at the bottom of the screen and we will look through them all and try to respond to as many as possible in the time that we have. So these recent conversations around the COVID pandemic and and whether and how health is a security issue have in a lot of ways reminded me of the shock of the 9-11 terrorist attacks and how much our entire national security framework kind of shifted in response to that, which in to this militarized framing and a militarized approach to counter terrorism which is exactly what you're talking about in terms of these endless wars. And so I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on how we can avoid those mistakes of the post 9-11 period in the war on terror. And this endless war framing when it comes to addressing new and emerging threats whether that's, you know, the pandemic or great power competition or racial injustice in the United States or any of the other number of emerging issues that we're facing. David, do you want to start and then we can go over to Jason. Yeah, I'm. I'm not sure how well the framework I present ports over to issues that aren't sort of military or conflict in nature. Just I think some of the dangers and costs of pursuing objectives that may not be achievable. I don't think they're as significant or as morally dangerous when you're not talking about an activity that's actually doing violence to people. But I think there is sort of an aspect of focus on slogans and sort of an improper use of endless war or defeat as a slogan but not actually meaning it. That's important to keep in mind across many issues. And I think particularly when it comes to something like to focus on great power conflict. It's important to not replicate the sort of willingness to use military force or violence without an actual without sort of two things one is an actual understanding of what you're using it for and why that's achievable. So, without sort of the danger of the violence or fighting becoming its own purpose which I talk a little bit about in the paper but I think there's a danger, especially one once once one is waging an endless war for the war fighting to become its own there's arguments about this looking at the jihadist side that question whether jihadist terrorism is really in particular a jihadist terrorism in the West is really something strategic designed to achieve ends or if it's just people are replicating an aesthetic of rebellion that happens to be jihadist flavor. And even if it's meaningfully jihadist whether that itself is just its own aesthetic and not an actual strategic theory of how the West will be defeated. And I think the US and its partners are very much at risk of replicating that whether it's a broad sense of counter terrorism in itself as always being justified, or necessary and an overhyping of the terrorist threat and the importance of responding to it, or sometimes through rhetoric of leadership divorce from what us leadership is meant to actually produce. Do we need to keep fighting in Syria to preserve us leadership. If that leadership is not actually conducive to the aims. It's designed for. I don't know if that really gets to the point that Jason do you want to respond to that. Yeah, I think, you know there's the militarization of us foreign policy which is. I don't know if it's a driver of the endlessness of these wars or a symptom of it. I don't know which arrow of causality in which direction it goes in. But I think looking at the, particularly the Trump administration's reaction to cove it such as it was put it at the feet of the military and operation warp speed. There was an article I saw this week that in West Virginia they've done a pretty good job of rolling out vaccines because they gave it to the National Guard to do. And there is truth that there's one, the Department of Defense in particularly uniform personnel are one of the very few just very large logistics capacities that that exists in the US government but we're not asking why is that the case. We're not asking the military jobs that are better suited for civilian agencies, and we go okay well they have the resources why do they have the resources well because we're fighting this endless war. Right so rethinking how we see these conflicts how we combat. Here I am using military terms again. But I think part of this this conversation this is a starting point is just fundamentally rethinking the role of the military in US society. So I want to turn to some of your policy recommendations, especially now that there's a new administration and a new Congress. There's some room to think about what they could be doing to address these problems. And one thing you mentioned David is possibly repealing and replacing the AUMF. We've already seen a bipartisan push in in Congress to do that led of course by Representative Barbara Lee who you mentioned. But members of Congress on both sides who appear interested in this. He was just confirmed, but the Secretary of State nominee or or confirmed Tony Blinken told senators in his hearings that that the Biden administration feels strongly about possibly revamping the AUMFs. So there's a lot of energy around around this but at the same time in past efforts to repeal and replace we've seen, I think substantial differences in opinion among members of Congress about what should actually replace the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. And some critics for example have pointed out that you could replace it in a way that actually makes the authority even more expansive, rather than actually reasserting Congress's role in authorization and conducting oversight of the use of force. So one of the issues that analysts have have pointed to our how a replacement AUMF should speak to which combatants it's actually authorizing force against about, you know, where geographically force can be used sunset provisions or some kind of to kind of positively reaffirm and and authorization authorization periodically so that for it to stay in force so that's not I think these all speak to kind of your your points about about endlessness about defined objectives about limited objectives and of course about having an exit plan. And we don't have to talk too much about the AUMFs, even though I'm a congress nerd but do you want to talk a little bit about the relationship between the AUMFs and endless wars and what Congress and the Biden administration should keep in mind when they're thinking about authorization for the use of force. Yeah. So for my report sort of discussion of the AUMF. To me it really derives from Ivy, who's the 2001 AUMF and also the 02 Iraq one. As being core examples of this, not actually defining what the objective is doing that with unclear aims or shifting. Or sort of just an unlimited objective. I mean, the original one is all necessary means to go after anyone tied to the 911 attacks, which as for presentably pointed out at the time is both open ended, but it's also just an incredibly expansive objective. So the US interest served by hunting down every single individual in progressively further and further associated links to those who actually committed to attack. And to what extent is it actually important to us interest to find them all and take them all out versus destroy specific structures that allowed the attack to occur. And this goes to part of the valorizing the actual war fighting over the presumed aim, unless that presumed aim has been accepted to just be revenge, which I would reject as a immoral objective to put the power of the US state behind. I think in terms of the specific policy items. For me, at least as a way of thinking about it. The beginning point should be to repeal they will not then discuss what comes next, but they will not should not be repealed in a way that just means the president pursues the same objectives, saying it's all justified under article to authority. I think that would not be productive. The goal is to have the debate that comes about what we're actually fighting the war on in a way that defines objectives provides reporting on the objectives and transparency roles that should be integrated into an authorization. Some setting might be a good way to enforce that, and to prevent sort of mission free over time. But really it's a question of the authorization itself should tell us what the objective is being done and come from a leadership that actually lays that out and that when we conceive of a possible repeal that we get competing visions of what that might look like would be good. Is it self suggestive that the authorization is no longer functional and functioning in that manner, which is a good reason to repeal it and replace it with something else if we still view ourselves as needing to wage war, or stop waging the war. Jason do you want to respond to that. Yeah, I'm specific to the UMF. I'm also a big fan of repeal and replace particularly of sunset clauses I mean ideally having sunset clauses would drive at least having the debate and forcing Congress to vote on it, however often they need to a year or two years before you're going to have a hearing. You need to keep the authorization going I mean I can't say that I'm terribly optimistic that that would be a robust debate because there are plenty of constituencies in the US that, you know, don't want to be soft on on on terror. As far as other recommendations. There was, I don't know a year or two ago a discussion about potentially having a commission congressional commission to review us counterterrorism policies. Over the last 20 years as we get close to the 20th anniversary of of 911 and I think that would go a long way to truly investigating how effective our counterterrorism policies have been over the last two decades and there's more terrorism in the world today than there was in 2001 so it doesn't speak very well for how well we've been doing, although there have been no major catastrophic attacks in the US that's in the plus but we don't. We have a hard time assessing how things have gone at least from the specific counterterrorism perspective, and I'd like to see that that commission come in fruition. And if I could there's one more thing. I guess I guess a little more in the weeds, but as we're talking about objectives here on and we are talking about war is how how did the Department of Defense get to this point where it's in the driver's seat accepted that, you know, I don't like to attribute any sort of malice in the military officers have played their role I think that part of it's just the optimism of the officer core, broadly speaking that you know when asked to wash windows they can wash windows. What does expose a glaring hole in the professional military education of our senior military leaders that we can continue to have these maximalist objectives, just year after year after year with not much to show for. I have a few more questions about the policy of recommendations but we also have a bunch of great questions from the audience that I want to get to. I'm going to try to kind of collapse them into a couple of questions because they speak to similar themes but so David the first question is sort of about definitions. So did you think about or how do you think about proxy wars in Yemen, for example, in relation to endless wars. And do you also think about sort of how how the enemy or the opponent is is viewed or designated as part of the endless wars. So if you're, you know, defining an opponent as part of an access of evil or if you're refusing a certain political status or saying it's a terrorist organization and therefore we can't negotiate with them. What does that mean in terms of endless wars. So that's the first set of questions and then the second set is about the means so and Jason was speaking to this as well if, if this endless war framing has not really worked in terms of counter terrorism. I don't, of course, think you're suggesting that we should just ignore terrorism entirely or something like that but what is the alternative approach to instead of having defeat as an objective what should the objective be and what is, what approach is it a military approach is it a policing approach. How do you think about that. I'll start with David and then and then over to Jason. Yeah. Just I want to just add that I also think a commission reviewing our sort of war on terror counter terrorism practices is a very important agenda item. And I think there was a legislation to do some of that and the NDA aids I got stripped of my bank although I don't follow Congress that closely on this. I think there's also been calls from Matt does Senator Sanders, his policy advisor for a much broader version which I would also push to not understand it as just review within the security services. And then just quickly before I answered the questions to note that Alex also has a policy paper that maybe it's not so recent now that is probably the core thing to look at for what authorities Congress actually has to use on these points. And to sort of the designation or definition of the enemy. I think that's a big part of it and I've used that as in large part tied to the decision to pursue unlimited aims. Which is partially produced by the decision to label them terrorists, but also it's the decision that we have unlimited objectives. That means we need to destroy them and extirpate them and not just sort of remove a particular capability. I think that really comes where the rubber hits the road on that is the question of negotiations and how, if you have an unlimited objective. Well then you can't really negotiate with the enemy something very much encapsulated in the general trend to refuse to negotiate with terrorists, which I think was very destructive in Afghanistan where we're now negotiating with the Taliban, but refuse to really draw them into a discussion of post Afghan governance in 2001 when we would be radically in a better position to shape conditions of that. But I mean even looking beyond a group like the Taliban. I think we need to start thinking about not to say that it is possible now or open, but what it might look like to negotiate with an al-Qaeda group or even ISIS splinters that would not view that as reasonable or a good outcome now, but the refusal to even countenance that that sort of moralist rejection to it is part of how we got to this problem before and and it's replicated across a variety of context like Israel saying it won't negotiate with the Hamas and now that's what it does. I mean Hamas was not a particularly restrained actor regarding civilians during the Second Intifada. That doesn't mean there wasn't a need to actually start even in the limited way and problematic way it is towards mutual interaction. But I think, you know, I think that's a core aspect of it. Sorry, what was the second question. I asked you so many questions. So the second set is as if the endless wars framing isn't working in terms of our approach to counter terrorism what what does work is that a policing approach something else. Yeah, I mean I think I would start with initially questioning is our aim of what we want the terrorist threat to be reasonable. And then what do we care about outside of the US homeland. And I think first defining those and I think to some extent regarding the US homeland. Part of the problem is just we have unreasonable expectations of what it's okay to use military force for seeking no attacks over multiple decades to me is not really reasonable. Or, I mean somehow it seems to have been largely achieved over these two decades but certainly unlikely to be achievable in perpetuity. More broadly I think my sense is there is, we should understand the jihadist movement broadly as existing and as posing a real challenge to the United States and US interests that I think we should care about protecting sort of humanitarian causes, but the decision to wage war as the answer to that is something that should be perceived in particular instances and not the broader response. Once one shifts away from that you can respond with greater policing for security aid or expansion of economic opportunities to try and push down the justification for the threat, you can also respond with negotiations. And I think some of these groups, we don't actually need to be at war with them we may not like, and may find their sort of views of what governance is to be immoral, or vastly engaged in atrocity but I mean there are many other states and movements in the Middle Also, I think most Americans would view as immoral or their viewpoints and we don't wage war on them. So, I think that's another thing that begins to open up. And with hope. If you start shifting away from the war, we should also not to say this is just a simple solution because it is not. And we should expect there to be violence if there's US withdrawals in a lot of places. But we also need to remember how the US decision to be on a war footing has pushed the jihadist movement itself towards more and more acceptance of atrocity, which is something that wards due to protracted wars in particular due to both sides engaging in them. Jason, do you want to speak to this, this question in particular what what is an effective approach to counter terrorism or what could an effective approach look like. Now I think moving off of the war footing is important as I mentioned earlier this is this aspect of our approach to this war just creates more grievance throughout the worlds that just kind of helps perpetuate if not always directly than then indirectly. I'm also reticent to suggest policing as as an option at least we're talking about outside of the United States. So the tendency for our police assistance throughout the world to be highly militarized. So really all it does is continue this this war approach just with blue uniforms instead of green ones right. And that's just that's equally problematic it also increases the repressive capacity of a lot of already repressive pretty repressive states that we consider allies, and their fight against against terrorists. So this is an opportunity here with the Biden administration coming in with the Global Fragility Act having been passed, I guess, late 2019 now, which was, while it's about fragility and development and political engagement in the world was really ultimately about fighting extremism of the type that that that creates the terrorism that we're talking about today. I haven't talked to anyone in the State Department in the last couple of months about this but when I last talked to some folks in the fall they still didn't have the strategy out and to meet the requirements of the Global Fragility Act that was required by Congress and it seems that the administration may have just punted on that which suggests that there might be a blank slate for the Biden administration to take up and use the Global Fragility Act with the resources it comes with to really think about very hard about how to approach extremism violent in a different way than than had been previously because one of the issues has always been where are the resources to do it differently and where's the will, well it's not ginormous but there it exists here in the Global Fragility Act. Great I want to dig into this question of policy recommendations and what the Biden administration can do. Even more, David you mentioned in your recommendations the importance of not equating troop withdrawals or number of troops with endless wars versus ending them and I think someone pointed out in the questions this is an interesting point because whether the objections are achievable is also shaped by the numbers of troops you put in the resources you invest. So now that there is a new administration in office, can you talk a bit about what what the Biden administration in your view ought to do in its early days especially to kind of forge a path so in Afghanistan for example, the Biden administration is facing a pretty immediate decision about whether to move forward with the agreement that the Trump administration struck with the Taliban, which includes a complete drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan by May or to take another example, I think the administration is getting a lot of pressure around ending US support for the Saudi-led coalitions war in Yemen which is something that candidate Biden had promised to do. So what should the Biden administration approach be and what should they be taking into account specifically when they're looking to end either these wars or the other wars that you've mentioned. Yeah, I think to start with I view sort of the report as providing a framework that can be applied to many of these cases but the answer you get from applying to those cases would depend upon sort of the specific analysis of conditions in those cases and I don't claim to be an expert on the current state of the Afghan conflict or where the negotiations are now. So I wouldn't presume to say withdrawal, yes, no, this is how to do it. What I would say is that in sorting those, the administration should make clear that here's what the aim we would like to achieve. Here's is that aim actually achievable and if it's not we shouldn't do it. I think the sort of willingness to embrace committing to endlessness in Afghanistan and the willingness to view that as sort of a low cost activity to do is part of why we're here almost two decades out with debating how to withdraw and pretty how and whether to withdraw and pretty sort of unfavorable conditions compared to what it might have been several years ago and there's, I don't think there's really public willingness to commit to sort of that continued activity and even if it can be done, assuming that sort of policy is sustainable is a good way to run into something like the Trump proposed Syria withdrawals where supposedly it just surprised all these administration officials and others when he just tweets it out, but also Trump made his willingness to and desire to withdraw. Clear for years before he actually tweeted out to withdraw and it's a failure of the officials to have not prepared an actual effort to resolve that in a way that is conducive to actually ending the US involvement and ending the US war rather than waiting for the president to get sick of it and sick of the options available. The only other thing I would say is cut out the defeat language, which unfortunately it looks like the Biden Administration is going to port over for the fourth administration in a row since 911 because, again, it doesn't have meaning and I think everyone who's working on this issue knows we're not going to defeat them and Biden should know this. I mean, so Obama Biden Administration embrace the Al Qaeda is on the road to defeat language and we're now here four plus years later and I think everyone should know that claim turned out to not hold any meaning and to not be an actual accomplishable aspect and ever receding concept of what defeating Al Qaeda is that can never be produced can never be cited. And anytime you claim to defeat it, even if you have, even if you've used the defeat as a more limited objective as what you're really pursuing or really just care about protecting the US homeland. When you use the defeat language people correctly criticize you for not actually defeating the organization, because they know that's not what defeat means, which is why Trump got fact checked for claiming ISIS is 100% defeated. And yes, it might be the case that you really met will destroy the territorial structure. But that doesn't hold water when you're also out there. After the killing of Baghdadi saying, we're going to hunt down every ISIS member and bring the wrath of God upon them. Or when you send a letter to the next year to speaker Pelosi saying, we are continuing to fight for an objective of defeating Islam. People know it's not true. So what's cut that language and say what you actually mean. Jason, do you want to respond to this question of what the Biden administration can be doing to end endless wars and how they should be maybe framing or thinking about this. Yeah, thanks. I think, you know, David brings up a good point here about how troop numbers. There, it's not directly correlated to ending the endless war I think that someone could take this report and say well the, the answer to ending the endless war is just to bring all of the troops home and that isn't necessarily effective towards our policies and counterterrorism but also in other ways and I think the two cases David brought up or are very good ones. I, the hand handed approach to removing troops from battlefields by the Trump administration worked against the objectives that we were trying to achieve so let's start with Syria very quickly. You know we had a very small number of forces in Syria when President Trump tweeted that we were pulling out and did. The number of forces were doing very little counterterrorism at the time or were pulling massive weight way beyond the size of the force that was there they were acting as a guarantee or a guarantor for the commitment problem between Turkey and the Kurds they were deterring the Assad regime and, and its allies from invading that part of Syria, and by just saying well we're ending the war, and we're leaving. And it just introduced a significant amount of new violence and instability into the region which certainly didn't need it right. So it wasn't even a lot of troops and maintaining them there for a little while probably would have been a smarter thing to do. So anything with Afghanistan or at least similarly, you can't have negotiations about withdrawing from Afghanistan while declaring or pulling your troops out of Afghanistan. You know what is the incentive for the Taliban to take these negotiations seriously after some, some active action like that will just continue to wait us out if we're just like all right we're just going to leave. Like it has to be part of the negotiation with organizations that we don't like to negotiate with, but we have to do it in order to make sure as best that we can that we're leaving and as orderly a way as possible that as many of our objectives are being as possible so you know as the Biden administration starts, you know taking its own lead on how to address this endless war, or endless wars. I would caution, listening to some of them, the more far progressive voices that say we just need to pull out now and get out because the reality is it could create more of a problem than we face already and then an orderly end to 10 less wars is this way to go. And I would add on that that if, if the policy aim is to just get out which I think is not an unreasonable thing to consider. If there's not sort of a achievable and being presented to how alternative aims could not just root us back into another couple years or decade of endlessness. You have to actually means that. And what I think we saw with Syria was, that's not what the Trump administration meant. In fact they come out after Turkey invades to fill the vacuum the US leaves and say, Well, Turkey is not really capable of achieving our interests, which should suggest that we still had interest that we cared enough for to engage military force. Otherwise, we would have accepted that as the reasonable cost of that withdrawal plan. And that's something that needs to be in the discussion of the proposal to end endless war. And one of the risks I think there is that is that people underestimate the danger of snapback and partially that's people underestimate that as sort of criticism and that they imagine the US can never come back after withdrawing from some of these challenges when, in my view, if there was a substantial enough threat the US probably could come back, but it also comes from those who want to withdraw in underestimating the amount of material, economic and psychological ties that tie us to why we use military force in the first place something I wrote about previously with the counter ISIS war and how to increase into ISIS threat. Triggered another sort of US interest in protecting Americans at risk of being overrun by ISIS trying to rescue Americans held hostage and then sort of psychological dynamics about the specific limited objectives get interpreted into the US that require unlimited aim of defeating ISIS. So interesting that we come sort of full circle to this question of needing to have a shared definition for endless wars and, and whether we're actually talking about the same thing or not. Another definitional question from the audience so someone wanted to know if you make a distinction between the endless wars of the post 911 period specifically the counter terrorism wars. And they're asking about post 1945 when in some cases the United States has has tried to act as a global peacekeeper. So I think the question Vietnam as an example of when the kind of endless war terminology has been invoked. Do you make a distinction between the post 911 period and what comes before that or do you see similarities, or maybe both. There are similarities and I find a lot of that writing on Vietnam to be speak to the current moment in some substantial ways, although we do need to note that the costs, the enemy was well the cost enemy was capable of projecting on the battlefield were much higher and being on the US has successfully diminished even further the pressure that can come from casualties to pressure to end the endless war. But at the same time. I think there was less of a sense that the North Vietnamese would follow the US home and continue to pursue attacks. So entirely how justified that sharp distinction is but it certainly is a distinction. The only other thing is, I would distinguish between something like the US presence in Germany or Japan, which in terms of sort of direct military application of force. My definition would be slightly different in interpreting that versus the current endless wars we're fighting. That's another area where one needs to define what exactly one means by war and there's absolutely definitions that would include that presence. I think that was a bit more understood as a training or deterrence presence and some of what we're doing now where there's more of a active use of the violence but I mean these are tough definitional questions and I think we just need to say specifically what we're referring to when trying to analyze them. Thanks. So we have just a few more minutes so I wanted to end on a question but also give you both the chance to give any concluding remarks or final thoughts that you have. We talked a lot about ending endless wars, what the Biden administration could or should do. And Jason you talked a bit about the Global Fragility Act which is really interesting but I wanted to spend just a few minutes more talking about the actual not just ending endless wars but the policy alternatives so what should we be thinking about, not just in terms of counter terrorism potentially but also to avoid and to end complex proxy wars, additionally more broadly so we've talked a bit about development and diplomacy and that that's what really comes to mind for me. And I talk about Yemen a lot so I'm thinking not just that the Biden administration should end its support for the Saudi led coalition which is, I think more towards your definition of endless wars but also, you know, think about for example where we have leverage to achieve some kind of negotiated settlement there. So your example might be reassessing our relationships with Gulf security partners like Saudi Arabia arm sales that's as an issue that's come up, especially in Congress and in recent years. And the Biden administration has indicated it's something that they're that they're wanting to look into so can you speak to sort of in general terms what kinds of policies. We should be thinking about not just to end endless wars but also as alternative means of addressing these problems and in addition if you have kind of concluding thoughts or remarks. That would be great. So I'll start with Jason and then end with David. Alternative approaches I think I think you're actually right as there's diplomacy and there's development but I think specifically democratization, which has a has a bad connotation after the neocons and you know the Iraq war. Non militarized democratization I think we go a long way towards improving just kind of the conditions in the world as best we can I mean the US cannot force or even coerce or cajole our partners into accepting full democratization by that I mean institutions that are competent are not an issue, but also inclusive of all of its citizens and that ranges from military to police to just sort of the regular bureaucracies of a nation. Part of that is going to be changing our mindset away from away from militarization. We need to focus very heavily on military assistance and training as part of our counterterrorism and also something that we may not consider part of forever wars but at the same time, militaries aren't supposed to be fighting internal to their own borders, right unless there's an active base of the war on going. That's the role of the police but then we make the police look like the military and so on and so forth. I would like to see a massive change in how we approach our partners around the world and use what leverage that we have to push them down a path of more inclusive institutions and the right institutions for the problem and. I agree and I think the Yemen case is a great example where this report focuses on endlessness as perceived from the United States, but we need to be very clear and not pretend that ending America's endless wars means the endless wars. That the US has participated in, which may in some ways be rooted into regions politics but we have also certainly contributed to. And in the case of Iraq created out of mostly just not existing there anymore whatever you want to say about societal conflict in Iraq previously. We were the ones who made that a war. So I'm going to end because we remove our troops or we stopped pursuing our unachievable objectives. So I think we both morally need to recognize that I think my hope would be a United States that is not an active belligerent in these conflicts could maybe take a role in promoting negotiations to bring an end to them, creating a place for peace talks, the sort of provision of aid money that might help sustain a peace agreement. I don't want to, and maybe the US leadership could take on that role rather than leadership as readings of war effort. I don't want to overestimate how much I think that might be able to transform the Middle East but and not dismiss the dangers of US non military leadership as something that does not have its own problems but I think that would be something good and what we could hope could come out of it. I think just sort of thinking about this sort of intercultural connections and what it would mean to have a more well funded State Department focused on those issues more funded civil society. So if you look at some of the writing on the Vietnam War from figures like Martin Luther King Jr. or Rabbi Heschel, they really come back to the concept of the US waging war on behalf of people that it doesn't really know imposing US objectives over demands of the local population, and the ability to know what is needed when you're an active belligerent. So that would be my hope and what I think we should look to, as well as efforts to make reparations for the various acts of violence that we have taken that have been beyond. What is generally understood as acceptable in war, and really for much that is generally acceptable in war, whether that's civilian casualty payments, whether it's refugee admitted says to the US. I think that's the least we can do as we withdraw our participation in endless wars for those who will still suffer the endlessness of the war that we have contributed to. To you both and folks can find the link for David's report in the chat, I believe, so I encourage you to check that out. Thanks to our audience and for coming in for your great questions, and especially thank you to our events team at New America and Norma and Shannon to help who helped us organize and pull this off so thanks everyone. See you next time.