The Cato Institute

The Forgotten Anniversary: September 14th, 2001

After 16 years of war, it’s time to reckon with the less-appreciated anniversary of September 14, 2001, when Congress gave the President a relatively open-ended power to make war…

Over the last decade and a half, we’ve heard over and over again that “September 11th changed everything”—but maybe September 14 was the pivotal date. 

Sixteen years ago today, Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Aimed at the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and those who “harbored” or “aided” them, the AUMF has been transformed into an enabling act for globe-spanning presidential war.  

Two-thirds of the House members who voted for the 2001 AUMF and three quarters of the Senate are no longer in Congress today. But judging by what they said at the time, the legislators who passed it didn’t think they were committing the US to an open-ended, multigenerational war; they thought they were targeting Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Undeclared wars and drive-by bombing raids were hardly unknown before 9/11. But most of the military excursions of the post-Cold War era were geographically limited, temporary departures from a baseline of peace.

Barack Obama left office as the first two-term president in American history to have been at war every single day of his presidency. In his last year alone, U.S. forces dropped over 26,000 bombs on seven different countries. Seven months into his presidency, Donald Trump has almost certainly passed Obama’s 2016 tally already — all under the auspices of the AUMF.

The AUMF Congress passed in 2001 still serves as legal cover for current wars we fight in seven countries. War is now America’s default setting; peace, the dwindling exception to the rule.

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We Cannot “Win” in Afghanistan

President Trump’s Afghanistan strategy ignores the evidence amassed over 16 hard-fought years. There will be no winning for the U.S. in Afghanistan…

President Trump campaigned on a platform of pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. That no longer seems to be on the table. 

On Monday night, President Trump informed the nation that he is escalating America’s war in Afghanistan. That means that our longest war will continue for at least four more years, and likely longer. It also means that more Americans will be sent across the globe to fight — and die — in the pursuit of unclear objectives, and in a conflict that is not vital to U.S. national security.

While specifics about the new strategy are sketchy, it seems to be more of the same, and more of the same will not improve reality in Afghanistan; it may, in fact, make things worse. 

Trump assured Americans that he had the strategy for “winning,” but his strategy looked a lot like one that previous battlefield commanders have suggested is sorely wanting.

Trump’s “winning” rhetoric, like that of previous administrations, makes it sound as though this is America’s war to win or lose. It is not.

The failure of the Afghan government and security forces is, primarily, a failure of Afghans. The U.S. can adjust its strategy as often as it would like, but Americans should not expect substantially different outcomes until Afghans find their own way.

Despite invading two countries, toppling three regimes and conducting military strikes in seven nations, the estimated number of Islamist-inspired terrorists has grown from approximately 32,000 before initiation of the war on terror to 109,000 now.

That is an argument to end America’s involvement in Afghanistan’s civil war, not for more of the same.

President Trump’s new strategy ignores the evidence amassed over 16 hard-fought years, and, as a result, more American lives and resources will be lost as this unnecessary war continues. There will be no winning for the U.S. in Afghanistan.

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Donald Trump & Our Nuclear Future

President-elect Donald Trump makes many statements via social media and off-mic about America’s plans for nuclear weapons, but it’s not clear what they mean…

With hasty tweets about nuclear weapons, cryptic support for arms racing, and overwrought spokesmen struggling to explain, president-elect Trump horrified the national security commentariat anew last week. Complaints centered on his willingness to embrace the expense and danger of heightened nuclear competition, abandon decades of bipartisan policy aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, and jettison the commitment in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)  to “work toward the cessation of the nuclear arms race” and eventual “nuclear disarmament.”

It’s sensible to be concerned by a president rash enough to undertake nuclear diplomacy through tweets. But the furor is partly misdirected. However we interpret his incoherent statements, Trump is likely to preserve the current U.S. nuclear policy, which funds the modernization of nuclear triad at excessive expense.

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Rand Paul On Defense Spending

In this media highlight from November 11th, presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, cites Cato policy scholar Benjamin H. Friedman’s comments regarding Sen. Marco Rubio’s proposed military spending.

Watch the clip…

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