I placed the phrase “Global War on Terror” in quotes on first use to acknowledge that the phrase is used with some degree of irony and self-awareness. I am aware that the events leading up to and following September 11, 2001 do not fall neatly into traditional definitions of war. I am also aware that the definition of the current struggle as a global war on “Terror” presupposes a belief that the root of the problem is violent terrorism, rather than a belief that the problem is, for example, American or Western oppression of Palestine and the Islamic countries.
In the days following 9/11, the British historian Michael Howard argued eloquently for framing the action against Afghanistan as “a police action.” In the midst of the first Bush Administration, Donald Rumsfeld attempted to rebrand the GWOT as the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, or GSAVE (pronounced “Jesus Saves”, according to snarky blog commenter Jeff Huber). Many other voices have offered similar, seemingly rational arguments for changing the nomenclature. Yet none of these coinages have “stuck”, for the simple reason that the current President of the United States firmly believes that he is engaged in a global war on terror.
What will we call the current struggle when the Bush administration comes to its end, so eagerly anticipated by so many? It is reasonable to suspect that there will be some change in vocabulary. A Democratic administration will probably talk more about bilateral, multilateral, and international cooperation and less about war.. Even a Republican administration may well make some strategic adjustments in its terminology. Going forward, the public vocabulary will likely be less global, less bellicose, and less Manichaean.
Nevertheless, I suspect that future historians will find that our President’s linguistic stubbornness or statesmanlike consistency—call it what you will—has left them with little alternative but to refer to the current conflict (at least the portion from 2001 to 2009) as the Global War on Terror. For the reasons mentioned above, I will do the same.
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Tags: Old Front Page Stories, SF, World War II and the Global War on Terror
