Last Friday, the U.S. government announced a two-step peace deal with the insurgent Afghan Taliban. In the first step, the United States and the Afghan Taliban will substantially “reduce violence” against each other across Afghanistan for seven days. If satisfied with the reduction, the two sides will sign a broader agreement on withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan; measures for verifying that Afghan territory isn’t being used for international terrorism; and starting intra-Afghan talks for political power-sharing between the Kabul government and the Taliban.

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Abstract

For years, the U.S. government has been waging counterterrorism campaigns against al-Qaida and other armed groups in safe havens and weak states. What explains the effectiveness of such campaigns? The variation in effectiveness may result from differences in select tactical, organizational, and technological capabilities of the counterterrorism state and its local partner, captured by the concept of the Legibility and Speed-of-Exploitation System (L&S). Empirical studies, including novel fieldwork data, on the U.S. drone war in Pakistan's Waziristan region from 2004 to 2014 reveal the influence of the L&S on targeted groups. From 2004 to 2007, a lack of U.S. counterterrorism capabilities aligning with the L&S allowed both al-Qaida and the Pakistan Taliban to build their operational infrastructure, expand their bases, engage in extensive recruitment drives, and broker important local alliances. In contrast, as the United States made substantial improvements in the L&S from 2008 to 2014, the campaigns against both groups became increasingly effective. Both al-Qaida and the Pakistan Taliban experienced sustained reductions in operational capabilities, losses of bases, and high desertion rates; they also faced growing political challenges, including from within their own organizations. These findings contrast with the view that counterterrorism offers short-term gains at best and is counterproductive at worst.

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President Trump is in the middle of another controversy involving Russia. A New York Times article on June 26 revealed Trump was informed in March that Russia offered bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, and reportedly the president ignored the matter. Trump insists he was never briefed on it, and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Saturday said that intelligence officials had not briefed the president.

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Nineteen years after 9/11, al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has yet to achieve the household notoriety evoked by his immediate predecessor, Osama bin Laden. In part that’s because the United States hasn’t cared enough to focus attention on him. Aside from massive financial overtures for intelligence on his whereabouts—there’s currently a $25 million bounty offered for his head, higher than the reward for any other terrorist in the world—the U.S. government has been relatively blasé about al Qaeda since Zawahiri took over in 2011. Some terrorism analysts even claim a living Zawahiri has done more harm to al Qaeda than a dead one ever could.

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Nineteen years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, does al Qaeda still pose a significant threat to U.S. national security? Among researchers, military and intelligence officials, and policymakers who study the group, there is little consensus. But very few experts on Salafi-jihadi movements would dismiss the group outright. So when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confidently declared in a March interview on Fox & Friends that “al Qaeda is a shadow of its former self,” we were startled and concerned.

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