Adam Griffin
   Staff Writer

The War on Terror is a war that has been going on for many years and has been in full swing since, at least, the attacks of September 11, 2001. Since then, America has been involved in nearly every Middle Eastern country and while the threat is, militarily speaking, the grounds for success or victory are illusory at best.

The idea of exporting democracy, which seemed so attractive under the Bush administration, has come to be discredited by most people on both sides of the political spectrum. From Afghanistan and Iraq to Egypt, Libya, and Syria, U.S. involvement has cost exorbitant amounts of money from the taxpayer and brought them very little in the way of a beneficial return.

The problem America faces in this war is that it is so unlike all others in history. Furthermore, the objective of victory is much more visibly obtainable when the enemy is Germany, Italy or Japan. However, it is much less so when the enemy has no country or borders.

America began to feel the repercussions of fighting these type of wars when they fought the ideology of Communism during the Cold War through containment rather than traditional warfare; overall, the objective remained victory at any cost. Both the Korean and Vietnam Wars were fought with rules and lines in the sand that prevented the military and its generals from fighting a traditional all-out war to eliminate the enemy. This style of warfare prevents victory by pushing an enemy back to a line where they can take refuge and prepare to fight again.

The War on Terror is similar but different. In this war the line between enemy combatant and civilian is blurred and the battleground crosses the borders of many Middle Eastern countries and even bleeds into countries outside of the Middle East, such as our own in the case of homegrown terrorists.

The blurry lines as to who exactly the enemy is makes victory over that indefinable enemy a difficult task especially when America is lukewarm to fighting an all out war that is bound to render civilian casualties.

The element of spreading democracy or setting up democratic governments in place of formerly autocratic or theocratic regimes is another facet of the War on Terror that makes this fight difficult to win on traditional grounds.

And it should be noted that it is significantly more difficult to fight a ruthless enemy, like ISIS or the Taliban, when simultaneously attempting to urge democratic and Western reforms on the populace.

Perhaps the greatest burden of the War on Terror is the cost it puts on the home front, economically, politically and socially.

The War on Terror has cost the U.S. billions if not in the trillions of dollars without much in the way of tangible assets for the American citizen. Since the attacks on 9/11, the War on Terror has also served to curb civil liberties through legislation such as the Patriot Act, which aids the government in the collection of bulk data and the rise of the surveillance state. The greater the war effort and the longer it persists, there will be a greater financial cost to the taxpayer and further infringements on the people’s civil liberties; of course, all of this will be initiated by politicians in the name of national security.

The War on Terror is a non-traditional war without definable boundaries. It is a war that requires a much greater force to achieve victory than we currently employ and the costs of doing so, if it can be accomplished, may outweigh any benefit that can be gained from victory.

Terrorism is a tremendous threat to the modern world and remains an enemy that must be confronted; but the current rules of engagement and military tactics that we employ are not designed for a true military victory.

America needs to focus on the facets of the war that are in its best interests and on objectives that can be attained and lead to the actual eradication of terrorism and not the encouragement of growing more terrorists.