Did America Win the War on Terror? | Peter Bergen

Twenty-five years after 9/11, what did America’s War on Terror actually accomplish?

Peter Bergen, one of the country’s leading experts on terrorism and national security, joins The Burn Bag to take stock of a quarter-century of American war and counterterrorism. Bergen produced the first televised interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997 and is the author or editor of ten books, including his newest, All the President’s Wars, which examines twenty-five years of the War on Terror.

From the initial invasion of Afghanistan and the decision to go to war in Iraq to the rise of ISIS, the expansion of drone warfare, the raid that killed bin Laden, and the eventual U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, we look at what worked, what failed, and what the United States should have learned.

We discuss what bin Laden hoped to achieve with 9/11; where the war in Afghanistan went wrong; whether Iraq was the defining strategic mistake of the post-9/11 era; how the United States became extraordinarily effective at disrupting terrorist organizations while struggling to translate tactical victories into political outcomes; and why four successive presidents struggled to bring America’s longest war to an end.

Finally, we take stock of the War on Terror’s legacy 25 years later: Did it succeed? Is it actually over? And are we at risk of repeating its mistakes today?

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📖 Peter Bergen’s new book:
Get All the Presidents’ Wars: Twenty-Five Years of America’s War on Terror here.