Anti-American Terrorism: From Eisenhower to Trump: A Chronicle of the Threat and Response
Volume I: The Eisenhower Through Carter Administrations
Volume II: The Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations
By Dennis A. Pluchinsky
Reviewed by Prof. Aaron Danis for PRISM, a journal of National Defense University
This year (2021) the counterterrorism campaign that started out as the Global War on Terrorism is 20 years old. It has not ended, but with the death of Osama bin Ladin in 2011, the operational neutralization of the al-Qaeda core in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, it has moved on to other battlefronts. Although the United States is now focusing on state-centric Great Power Competition, the terrorist fights continue at a lower intensity in the Middle East, Africa, parts of Asia, Europe, and on the American home front (it never really left). It is time for a long-term retrospective and reckoning for the counterterrorism fight. The two volumes reviewed here are the start of that process.