Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:16:27.046Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - America’s Small-Footprint Wars

Asia, Africa, and the Middle East

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2021

Thomas H. Henriksen
Affiliation:
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, California
Get access

Summary

This chapter takes up the pursuit of the global war on terrorism, as the Pentagon deploys small teams of Special Operations Forces, who work with CIA professionals and State Department or Agency for International Development officials to contain the spread of terrorist groups in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. These mini-conflicts focus on counterterrorism operations where the US Green Berets or other SOFs work “by, with, and through” local partners to combat terrorists/insurgents fighting under the banner of Salafi jihadism. They train, mentor, and equip locally recruited fighters to act as force multipliers for the US detachments of between 500 and 700 personnel in each country. Underpinning this form of warfare are high-tech surveillance, along with airstrikes from drones, helicopters, and missiles. American forces have proven to be masters of eliminating key terrorist facilitators, bomb makers, and clerics who foment violent extremism. They have so far kept countries from being overrun by Islamist militants as partially took place in Syria and Iraq in 2014. While cost-effective in sparing America lives and financial expenditures, plus safeguarding the homeland and most allied countries from ravages of major terrorism, the small-footprint operations in remote non-Western lands have incurred rancor from journalists, pundits, and some elected officials. Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and now Joseph Biden have campaigned and made moves to pullout US forces from what are termed “forever wars.”

Type
Chapter
Information
America's Wars
Interventions, Regime Change, and Insurgencies after the Cold War
, pp. 176 - 213
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×