Rethinking the US global war on terror in the Sahel (2001-2017) between Deterrence and defeat

Abstract

Almost two decades since the global war on terrorism started, the United States is nowhere near defeating its shadowy enemy. A vexing challenger that resurges and expands after two major large-scale interventions and a plethora of security partnership initiatives, train and equip programs and capacity building of local allies to combat terrorism. The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the surge of attacks in the Sahel provide ample indices about the ineffectiveness of former strategies to defeat terrorism. This paper advocates a fully integrated approach to counterterrorism that departs from the current military centered approach towards a new one that prioritizes denial by mitigation, diplomacy and robust homegrown delegitimization process in the Sahel. Deter instead of defeat gained momentum in the fourth wave of deterrence research. Deterring terrorism is at the heart of Alex Wilner’s contemporary deterrence theory (CDT) which advocates the three pillars of deterrence by Punishment, deterrence by denial and deterrence by delegitimization. This paper commences with an overview of Wilner’s CDT, emphasizing the conceptual delineation between ‘defeat’ and ‘deterrence’. The second part examines the concepts of state fragility and ungoverned spaces, which represent the bedrock of the US problematization of the Sahel. This paper applies CTD analytical framework to the US counterterrorism effort in the Sahel through the exploration of the global terrorism database (GTD). It is concluded that the model of counterterrorism in the Trans-Saharan region presented by the United States and its partners is largely dominated by much punishment, less denial and poor delegitimization.