That the - we're already starting to pull down some of our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has to do with the struggle that's taking place within that faith between violent extremists - a small number of them, relatively - who are capable of going out and killing a great many people, as they're doing, and the overwhelming majority of that religion that does not believe in violent extremism or terrorism. And it does not have to do with deployment of U.S. It's not going to be settled with a signing ceremony on the USS Missouri. And the truth is that just as the Cold War lasted a long time, this war is something that is not going to go away. I think what we're trying to do is to just simply tell the truth. troops are going to be deployed in significant numbers overseas, fighting in a combat situation for an indefinite amount of time? SEC. Secretary, when you and Admiral Giambastiani use the phrase, as the president did, "the long war", are you preparing - trying to prepare the American public for the idea that U.S. on February 1, 2006, Secretary Rumsfeld defined what he meant by "the long war." Central Command, "the Pentagon body responsible for the Middle East and surrounding regions, already begun planning for what one top commander term 'the long war': the battle that will come once Iraq and Afghanistan are finally pacified.Īccording to Major General Douglas Lute, who was then CENTCOM Director of Operations "responsible for near-term planning, the long war amounts to an offensive from the Horn of Africa to the borders of Afghanistan to ensure that al-Qaeda and its affiliated terror organisations do not find a safe haven once they are forced out of their current bases." Rumsfeld describes "the long war" (2006)ĭuring a press briefing with Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. In August 2005, when the "obstinacy of the Iraqi insurgency and the sudden surge in violence in Afghanistan it appear that the US military in the region spending all of its time fighting a war on two fronts," Peter Spiegel reported in the Financial Times that "senior officers" within U.S. The "long war" within the arc of instability (2005) 4 The Long, Protracted, Not-Going-To-Be-Over-Soon, War.3.3 Newt Gingrich on the "Long War Against the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam".James Woolsey, Jr.: "The Long War of the 21st Century"
1 The "long war" within the arc of instability (2005).He said there is a tendency to underestimate the threats that terrorists pose to global security, and said liberty is at stake." "Rumsfeld, who laid out broad strategies for what the military and the Bush administration are now calling the 'long war,' likened al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin while urging Americans not to give in on the battle of wills that could stretch for years. Rumsfeld said that the United States is "engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world," they wrote. military will address major security challenges 20 years into the future," Josh White and Ann Scott Tyson wrote in the February 3, 2006, Washington Post. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, speaking on February 2, 2006, before the National Press Club, delivered a speech "which aides said was titled 'The Long War'." Rumsfeld's speech came "on the eve of the Pentagon's release of its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which sets out plans for how the U.S. The Long War is the most recent Bush administration official rebranding of its perpetual Global War on Terror (pGWOT), which was briefly rebranded as the global struggle against violent extremism (G-SAVE) in May 2005 and quickly reversed to the global war on terror by President George W.