Policy and People

This chapter demonstrates why, despite Trump's doctrine and the wide-ranging promises he made during the election campaign, many of his counter-terrorism policies remained fairly mainstream. It shows that, coming into office as a complete outsider, he had neither the policies nor the people to turn his doctrine into reality. Many of the decisions affecting the War on Terror were consequently taken not by "true believers", who subscribed to his doctrine and the wider ideology of populist nationalism, but by career officials and mainstream Republicans -- which the book labels "generals" -- whose personal loyalty and commitment to his political ideas were strictly limited. Trump's problem was that he may have won an election, but lacked the policies and people that would have allowed him to turn his doctrine into reality.

The Campaign

The chapter shows how countering terrorism was a vitally important part of Donald Trump's 2015/16 election campaign. The themes he articulated represented the clearest, most radicalized version of his doctrine. In line with his idea of "killing terrorists" and "keeping Muslims out" of the country, he presented a fundamentally different idea of countering terrorism than his rivals. He portrayed the confrontation with Islamic State as a civilizational conflict, which involved not just defeating a terrorist group, but classified Muslims as part of an immigrant "out-group", described Islam as fundamentally incompatible with the American way of life, and legitimized virtually any means of achieving victory and restoring "respect".

The Trump Doctrine

This chapter outlines Trump's counter-terrorism doctrine. It shows that Trump's approach is anchored in various strands of populism, nationalism, and the so-called Alternative Right. It represents a radical break with recent US approaches towards countering terrorism, especially of the Obama and Bush administrations. Trump is not interested in addressing underlying conditions, causes or conflicts, and believes that commitments in foreign countries are rarely helpful or necessary. He also thinks that terrorism is linked to immigration and that Islam is alien to America. In Trump's mind the solution to terrorism is self-evident: terrorist need to be killed, and Muslims kept out of the country.

Homeland

This chapter covers Trump's domestic approach towards counterterrorism. It shows that Trump's attitude towards right-wing extremism is one of the most disturbing aspects of his War on Terror. Although substantive changes to domestic counterterrorism laws and policies have been relatively minor, Trump has radically transformed the political environment in which homegrown radicalization and terrorism have played out. Contrary to previous administrations, Trump has actively promoted far-right narratives, making it clear that he considers the enemy to be "radical Islam" rather than terrorism per se. In doing so, the chapter argued that he has empowered the extreme Right and "enabled" a rising number of hate crimes and terrorist attacks, while undermining the trust of Muslim communities. He has deepened divisions, further polarization, and created the fertile ground in which domestic terrorism has been able to thrive.

Rules of Engagement

This chapter deals with Trump's military counter-terrorism approach. It shows that his "generals" have moved the operational needles in the direction a more heavily kinetic approach, resulting in greater risks for soldiers and civilians, and lessening the extent to which policymakers were able to control the political consequences of military operations. At the same time, and despite Trump's willingness to sign off on virtually anything, they also decided to keep many of the existing rules in place, maintained Obama's framework for distinguishing between war zones and other areas of conflict. They preserved most of the standards and procedures for avoiding civilian casualties, and they rejected nearly all of Trump's most extreme proposals. Contrary to what one might have expected, therefore, the national security establishment was more cautious and significantly less hawkish than the President they served.

Defeating ISIS

This chapter shows that, despite Trump's claims to the contrary, he did not entirely defeat Islamic State, and it was not him or -- rather -- him alone who had achieved the military successes against the group. The campaign consisted of three distinct phases. After some hesitation, Obama made defeating Islamic State a priority, created a plan and structure, and executed a significant part of the military campaign. Trump's "generals" continued implementing this strategy, albeit with the new "rules of engagement" that involved greater risks in return for faster, more decisive operations. Trump's personal involvement was limited to the last phase, in which he declared victory over Islamic State and announced a pull-out of American forces from Syria. In doing so, he contradicted his own administration's policy, alienated allies, strengthened America's adversaries, and emboldened the nearly defeated Islamic State.

Banning Muslims

This chapter shows that there is little evidence that the "Muslim travel ban" or the idea of "extreme vetting", which Trump both presented as counter-terrorism measures, were workable or made the country safer. The reason was that immigration was not the main problem, and existing systems for vetting immigrants or visitors worked as well as they could. For Trump's "true believers", however, this had never been the point. In their mind, both the "Muslim ban" and "extreme vetting" were part of their (ideological) project of challenging multi-culturalism and the idea of America as a "nation of immigrants". The ultimate purpose was not to counter terrorism or protect the American people, but to promote "America first".

Introduction

This chapter introduces the book, defines key terms, reviews the literature, and describes the process of research. It also sets out the book's structure, and summarizes the argument, which is that Trump's War on Terror may, in many respects, not look different from the counter-terrorism campaigns of his predecessors, but that his counter-terrorism doctrine -- which can be summed up as "killing terrorists" and "keeping Muslims out of the country" -- is deeply at odds with established views of American values and America's role in the world. Since taking office, American counter-terrorism has become more militaristic and less interested in causes and consequences. Far-right extremists feel emboldened. The biggest shift, however, has been the systematic ideological conflation between terrorism, immigration, and Islam, which has undermined the idea of America as an ethnically and religiously diverse nation. Trump's War on Terror has not only made the world and America less safe, but weakened America's greatest soft power asset -- they very idea of America.

Conclusion

This chapter provides a summary and conclusion of the book. It argued that, contrary to the view of many commentators, Trump's impact has been tangible. While some of the damage he has inflicted was the result of ignorance and incompetence, other factors have been idiosyncrasy, ill-disciplines, and -- most worryingly -- his populist nationalist ideology, which has not just openly accommodated racists and the extreme right, created significant opportunity costs such as the "Muslim travel ban" and "extreme vetting", but undermined the very idea of America as a religiously and ethnically diverse nation. Trump has claimed to be tougher on terrorism than anyone, but there is no reason why Americans should feel safer now than they were under his predecessors. On the contrary, while much of his War on Terror has been bluster, its effect has been to leave America and the world more exposed to terrorist threats.

Friends and Foes

This chapter explains how Trump's foreign policy impacted his War on Terror. It argued that his approach has been shaped primarily by idiosyncrasies and his advisers' ignorance. In Afghanistan, for example, his idea of "doing a deal" with the Taliban may have sounded imaginative, but its execution has been hasty and half-hearted. In the Middle East, the effort to outsource American leadership to Saudi-Arabia has made America dependent on an erratic partner with fundamentally different priorities, whose behavior in the region has drawn America into multiple new conflicts. Finally, through his preference for foreign "strongmen", Trump has not just abandoned any pretense that America promotes freedom, but also removed all incentives for foreign partners to observe minimum standards in their own Wars on Terror. Far from promoting stability, therefore, Trump's foreign policy has resulted in a vacuum of global leadership and greater opportunities for terrorist groups to take advantage of tensions and violent conflicts.