AHC: More Effective War On Terror

The Bush administration started the War on Terror in the hopes of wiping out terrorist organizations with global reach after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Make it more effective than OTL.
 
Don't waste resources on Iraq firstly, and adopt a more conventional and hard on strategy in Afghanistan to ensure that every escape route is closed and Osama can be captured or killed.
 
The only way to win a war on terror is to not allow yourself to be terrorized in the first place. The US allowed itself to be terrorized and that is why, in my opinion, it overreacted to the problem and made it worse. When you make the sole superpower on the planet overreact to something, you have won.

As dramatic and traumatic as 9/11 was, it was in no way an existential threat to the US. The fear that erupted after the event was out of proportion to what the US dealt with a bit more than a decade before when the Cold War could have gone hot at any moment. A Presidential reminder of that fact might have done a lot to tamp down the temptation to overreact.
 
Don't waste resources on Iraq firstly, and adopt a more conventional and hard on strategy in Afghanistan to ensure that every escape route is closed and Osama can be captured or killed.

About a year and a half of planning and real building up for war in Afghanistan along with a full on net to trap Monothism and Jihad, al-Qaeda and the Taliban before starting hostilities with large numbers of NATO troops blocking the exits is a huge one.

Pushing NATO counties to rearm and get their populations psychologically ready for a real war would be key. Getting NATO to commit to rearmament and changing the post-Cold War messaging to their population about issues of war and peace is vital. That in turn would mean come time to deal with Iraq lets just say I think Europe other then Russia would be on board and if Bush played his cards better with Putin and got him to play a much larger role in Afghanistan along with promises to give Russia part of the post Saddam contracting it might have changed his mindset on toppling him.

Saddam has to be dealt with in time as well because at this point the regime is headed for a radicalized Sunni population that will slowly get uglier and more insane with time. But, you have to wait for the right time and give him enough rope to unite the world against him again. You can't force it at any time, you need to ignore him and wait for him to do something to get attention to himself again.

Doing Afghanistan right will provide the NATO with much needed lessons for Iraq which should be a second term priority for Bush. Without the same number of terrorists and same quality making it from Afghanistan to Iraq it will be harder for a jihadist insurgency to get off the ground.

The status quo in Iraq was that it was heading for becoming a much more competent and advanced version of what is today IS and the sanctions regime was collapsing so they were going to rearm. There were no good options for Iraq by 2001 only various terrible options because of events from really the Iran/Iraq war though the Gulf War to 2001 meant an increasing religiously insane and militant anti-American society that was only going to get worse with time because politically Saddam had wedded himself to continued confrontation with the U.S.

Even his head of the Republican Guards warned him repeatedly that his policies are going to lead Iraq to another more horrible war with the West. By the time Saddam bites it I can't see his sons being able to alter the trajectory that he put Iraqi on because the religious radicalism by that point would infest even the highest rungs of all the security organs.

Full on Declarations of War against Afghanistan and then later Iraq and raising taxes would provide the military with more tools and powers to detain and keep people like al-Baghdadi they didn't have OTL as well as forcing the public and Congress to fully commit to the wars along with a lot of back work to send agents to figure out how things work in the counties in question are vital. Think about it as a very early Human Terrain Project along with clear and unambiguous post war pacification plans.

I would have also restored conscription in the U.S. after 911 though used the conscripts to meet America's commitments to other nations. You want the U.S. public totally committed to a war you have to have a draft. I would have also pushed though a second Manhattan Project for alternative energy sources as part of the war.

Bush thought very small after 911 and was afraid to think big due to both bad advice from his advisers and fear of the public turning on him like they did his father when his father asked them to sacrifice with higher taxes. Bush was a much better President in his second term in that regard given he bucked the country on the Surge and on the bailouts, but the moment he had where he could have really changed the whole Western world for the better for decades to come along with getting the West mentally prepared for the war and helping to rebuild Western armed forces to meet future threats was blown.
 
Last edited:

BooNZ

Banned
About a year and a half of planning and real building up for war in Afghanistan along with a full on net to trap Monothism and Jihad, al-Qaeda and the Taliban before starting hostilities with large numbers of NATO troops blocking the exits is a huge one.

Pushing NATO counties to rearm and get their populations psychologically ready for a real war would be key. Getting NATO to commit to rearmament and changing the post-Cold War messaging to their population about issues of war and peace is vital. That in turn would mean come time to deal with Iraq lets just say I think Europe other then Russia would be on board and if Bush played his cards better with Putin and got him to play a much larger role in Afghanistan along with promises to give Russia part of the post Saddam contracting it might have changed his mindset on toppling him.

Saddam has to be dealt with in time as well because at this point the regime is headed for a radicalized Sunni population that will slowly get uglier and more insane with time. But, you have to wait for the right time and give him enough rope to unite the world against him again. You can't force it at any time, you need to ignore him and wait for him to do something to get attention to himself again.

Doing Afghanistan right will provide the NATO with much needed lessons for Iraq which should be a second term priority for Bush. Without the same number of terrorists and same quality making it from Afghanistan to Iraq it will be harder for a jihadist insurgency to get off the ground.

The status quo in Iraq was that it was heading for becoming a much more competent and advanced version of what is today IS and the sanctions regime was collapsing so they were going to rearm. There were no good options for Iraq by 2001 only various terrible options because of events from really the Iran/Iraq war though the Gulf War to 2001 meant an increasing religiously insane and militant anti-American society that was only going to get worse with time because politically Saddam had wedded himself to continued confrontation with the U.S.

Even his head of the Republican Guards warned him repeatedly that his policies are going to lead Iraq to another more horrible war with the West. By the time Saddam bites it I can't see his sons being able to alter the trajectory that he put Iraqi on because the religious radicalism by that point would infest even the highest rungs of all the security organs.

Full on Declarations of War against Afghanistan and then later Iraq and raising taxes would provide the military with more tools and powers to detain and keep people like al-Baghdadi they didn't have OTL as well as forcing the public and Congress to fully commit to the wars along with a lot of back work to send agents to figure out how things work in the counties in question are vital. Think about it as a very early Human Terrain Project along with clear and unambiguous post war pacification plans.

I would have also restored conscription in the U.S. after 911 though used the conscripts to meet America's commitments to other nations. You want the U.S. public totally committed to a war you have to have a draft. I would have also pushed though a second Manhattan Project for alternative energy sources as part of the war.

Bush thought very small after 911 and was afraid to think big due to both bad advice from his advisers and fear of the public turning on him like they did his father when his father asked them to sacrifice with higher taxes. Bush was a much better President in his second term in that regard given he bucked the country on the Surge and on the bailouts, but the moment he had where he could have really changed the whole Western world for the better for decades to come along with getting the West mentally prepared for the war and helping to rebuild Western armed forces to meet future threats was blown.

Planet earth, where are you...
 
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