The world has witnessed a war waged not only with weapons but with dangerous assumptions, a war that, for over two decades, promised to eradicate terror. Yet instead of delivering security and stability, it left behind shattered nations, broken societies, and a growing disillusionment with the very idea of peace. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Somalia, the so-called “War on Terror” has spent trillions of dollars, toppled entire regimes, and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. But terrorism has not disappeared. It has mutated, adapted, and in many places, grown stronger. Why? Because the problem was fundamentally misdiagnosed and the treatment often made the disease worse.
Rather than confronting the root causes of extremism, deprivation, marginalization, poverty, political exclusion, foreign occupation, and ideological manipulation, the global response focused obsessively on military raids, airstrikes, and mass surveillance. But extremism is rarely a random eruption of violence. It is often the final symptom of deeper wounds: social despair, psychological trauma, and generational hopelessness. The war in Afghanistan was launched under the banner of fighting terrorism and bringing security. Yet tens of thousands of Afghan civilians lost their lives in U.S. and NATO airstrikes. Entire villages were reduced to rubble. Those killed were often hastily labeled as “militants,” a term that blurred the line between combatant and innocent. What was hailed as precision warfare often turned, in Afghan eyes, into a campaign of indiscriminate destruction.
The long-term outcome of foreign intervention in Afghanistan was not the peace that had been promised, but deep and lasting trauma. Entire communities became radicalized as a result of prolonged conflict and disillusionment. Many Afghans who were once portrayed as beneficiaries of Western protection began to see foreign troops not as liberators, but as destructive forces, arriving with promises of freedom and departing with little more than ashes and grief left behind. This enduring sense of betrayal, more than any narrative of democracy or counterterrorism, continues to define how many Afghans remember the war. Those who once justified bombing villages in the name of counterterrorism did not eliminate ideological hatred, but fertilized it. Each airstrike that killed a child, every home reduced to rubble, every funeral misidentified as a militant gathering became a seed of resentment sown deep in the heart of a community.
Hatred did not die under drone fire; it multiplied in the dust of destroyed homes and the silence surrounding unacknowledged grief. The strategy of using force to eradicate extremism failed to grasp the nature of ideological struggle, one that feeds not merely on propaganda, but on real, lived injustice. They tried to bomb their way to peace, but instead carved a legacy of bloodshed and generational rage.
This flawed strategy was compounded by the dangerous oversimplification of complex realities. The world was told this was a war between good and evil, civilization and barbarism, a narrative that left no room for nuance. Binary thinking erased the legitimacy of local grievances and alienated the very populations whose support was essential. Many of the groups hastily labeled as terrorists were, at their origin, resistance movements born out of occupation, exclusion, or national humiliation. By refusing to distinguish between resistance and extremism and between extremism and terrorism, the international response helped fulfill its own worst prophecy: those seeking justice through peaceful means were criminalized, marginalized, and, in some cases, pushed toward radicalization.
Worse still, the global War on Terror was repeatedly exploited by regional powers to pursue their own strategic interests. Under the banner of counterterrorism, some states selectively supported military operations while simultaneously enabling non-state actors aligned with their geopolitical goals. Afghanistan became a theater of proxy conflict, where the language of “security” masked decades of interference and manipulation. Across the broader region, this war was repackaged under different names, doctrines, and visions, but its essence remained a misdiagnosed illness. The ideological battlefield was neglected. Extremism does not only thrive on the frontlines; it spreads quietly, through classrooms, pulpits, prisons, and digital spaces, wherever unaddressed grievances meet manipulative narratives.
Yet instead of investing in inclusive education, critical thinking, and responsible religious discourse, many states restricted dialogue, silenced reformist voices, and allowed regressive institutions to operate unchecked. Perhaps most damaging was the normalization of collective suspicion. Entire ethnic and refugee communities were viewed as security threats, profiled, surveilled, and, in many cases, dehumanized. From drone strike lists to digital blacklists, the presumption of guilt deepened fragile social divides. But radicalization does not emerge in isolation. It thrives wherever identity is criminalized. When people are taught directly or indirectly that their faith, ethnicity, or background makes them inherently suspect, they lose trust in the system, and eventually, faith in the very idea of justice.
True and lasting security cannot be built on fear. It must be rooted in dignity, fairness, and inclusion. That demands far more than military operations; it requires moral clarity, historical honesty, and structural reform. Terror is not just a battlefield problem, it is a symptom of deeper political failures, economic injustices, and broken social contracts. If the goal is truly to eliminate terror, then both the world and the region must stop treating it solely as a military challenge and start addressing it as a human crisis. The cost of failing to do so has already been unbearable. But it is not too late to rethink the strategy, reframe the mindset, and abandon the reckless habit of killing people while labeling them as terrorists, enemies, or agents of instability without due process. Defeating terror requires more than eliminating armed groups. It means dismantling the grievances, illusions, and inequalities that give those groups purpose, recruits, and reason to exist.
