Since 2001, the US has been involved in what some have called a “Forever War” against global terrorist groups. Rubrick Biegon looks at Donald Trump’s previous record on counterterrorism and his administration’s likely approach during his second term. He writes that while the US public has grown sceptical of the US’ war on terror, Trump’s tendency to infuse the terrorism issue into other policy concerns makes an end to the “Forever War” unlikely in the next few years.  

The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term have been a veritable whirlwind on the foreign policy front. Compared to his first term, when he was limited by his own inexperience and hemmed in by the bipartisan establishment (the so-called ‘adults in the room’), Trump 2.0 appears unrestrained, and American foreign policy feels fluid and chaotic as a result. What might this mean for the United States’ decades-long global war against terrorism?

The “Forever War on Terror”

Toward the end of his first term Trump stated repeatedly (though in the vaguest of language) that he would end “endless wars”, a pledge echoed by President Biden during his tenure. Despite the formal end of the war in Afghanistan in 2021 the global campaign against transnational terrorist groups has persisted. According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, between 2021 and 2023 the US conducted counterterrorism operations in 78 countries. Overshadowed by events in Ukraine and Gaza, however, the so-called “Forever War” faded from public debate.

Meanwhile, Trump’s erratic approach to governing – symbolised by his on-again, off-again tariffs – has rekindled discussion of a possible rupture in US foreign and security policy. He feuded with Ukraine’s President Zelensky in the Oval Office. He said the US would take over Gaza. He withdrew the US from the World Health Organization for a second time. More than during his first administration, Trump’s actions have raised critical questions about US ‘leadership’ in international relations. Commentators are (again) speculating about a turn toward ‘isolationism’. Could the shift from Biden’s traditional posture to Trump’s sharp turns away from established norms lead to significant changes in US counterterrorism and military interventionism?

We’ve been here before with Trump

The long history of the US’s post-9/11 counterterrorism conflicts suggests that this is unlikely. As my coauthor Andrew Thomson and I explore in our new book, the global War on Terror has had remarkable staying power. It has now outlasted four presidential transitions. Although it has certainly evolved since its declaration by George W. Bush in 2001, the changes in its content and presentation have served to further embed it in the institutions, practices, and culture of US foreign policy. Beyond the idiosyncrasies of presidential personalities and the particularities of each administration, there are deeper structural drivers of Washington’s global, militarised approach to the threat of transnational and jihadist terrorist groups.

Moreover, we have been here before with Trump, counterterrorism, and the balance of change and continuity in US statecraft. Trump rose to political prominence by promising a radical departure in the projection of military power. ‘America First’ implied a rethinking of security partnerships and overseas commitments combined with a highly aggressive and extravagant use of force against adversaries, including groups like ISIS. Trump infamously called for the return of waterboarding and a ban on Muslims entering the country. For all of Trump’s bellicosity, however, his first administration settled into a highly conventional counterterrorism strategy, one that even drew praise from the beleaguered beltway establishment.

Terrorism and counterterrorism in Trump’s first 100 days

There have been some obvious commonalities with Trump’s first term so far. MAGA enthusiast Sebatsian Gorka was brought back as counterterrorism advisor, for example. Just days after Trump’s inauguration the administration launched strikes against ISIS in Somalia. As reported in early March, the White House loosened the rules on airstrikes and special forces raids that had been put in place under Biden, reverting to guidelines implemented in 2017 that provide a broader scope for military engagement. A National Security Council spokesperson told reporters: ‘We won’t tolerate Biden-era bureaucracy preventing our warfighters from doing their job. America is back in the business of counterterrorism and killing jihadists’.

“P20250429MR-0746” by The White House is United States government work.

Lost in the furore over the Signal group chat leak in March was the substance of the administration’s policy toward Yemen. In the most significant military intervention of his term thus far Trump escalated military operations against the Houthis, a rebel group backed by Iran, over their attacks in the Red Sea. The administration hinted at a longer-term effort to eliminate the group and deny them the ability to block shipping lanes and damage international commerce. Trump revelled in the bombing, posting a video on social media purporting to show Houthi fighters targeted by a US airstrike. Dubbed ‘Operation Rough Rider’ by US Central Command, the campaign appears to be intensifying, but it is hardly a new endeavour. Since 2002, Yemen has a been a major frontline in the US’s wars in the Middle East.

Additionally, and rather predictably, the terrorism issue has been infused into other policy concerns in the first few months of Trump’s second term. In February the White House designated eight Latin American drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. This was accompanied by insinuations that the US could intervene in Mexico directly. The controversial expulsion of individuals such as Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia and other migrants has been justified by references to terrorism. The administration has told Congress it plans to apply the ‘terrorist’ label to Haitian gangs. Officials have routinely cast anti-Tesla vandals and pro-Palestinian activists as terrorists. This pattern shows a strategy to conflate terrorism with everything from criminal violence to economic migration to lawful protest. The aforementioned Gorka has suggested that those who oppose the administration are ‘on the side of the cartel members, on the side of the illegal aliens, on the side of the terrorists’.

No end in sight?

As we discuss in our book, the American public has grown sceptical of the US’ sprawling counterterrorism apparatus and global approach, a reality reflected in the bipartisan use of the term “Forever War”. Yet Trump’s actions indicate there is still political traction to be gained through creative (and, in some cases, disingenuous) application of the “terrorist” label. Against this backdrop, the framing of the Forever War may have entered a new era. Some supporters of Trump insist that he did, in fact, end the War on Terror as it previously was, partly by refocusing on state-actors such as Iran. This is far-fetched, even if it contains a kernel of truth. There are a number of throughlines connecting Trump 2.0 not only to his first term but also the Bush, Obama, and Biden presidencies as well, and the focus on states (as sponsors of terrorist groups) has long been part of the War on Terror.

Scholars and analysts will continue to debate the origins and causes of the Forever War as well as its utility, objectives, and overall trajectory. It will probably persist until there is a concerted effort to dismantle it. Such a project is not on the horizon. Unfortunately, over the next few years we are more likely to see a ratcheting up of the Forever War than meaningful steps to bring it to a definitive end.

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• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.