Playing Defense Is Totally Fine

If you’ve turned on any - channel or opened or since most of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last month, you can see a clear narrative emerging: The terrorists are returning, and they will attack us. This chorus is coming not just from media commentators or the partisan critics of President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the country; Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley are now sounding , as are two top intelligence in the Biden administration. Depending on whom you listen to, the U.S. military’s departure will offer morale boosts or new havens to al-Qaeda and ISIS. By some accounts, al-Qaeda may end up even more powerful than it was on 9/11. Strikes from “”—if we can gather sufficient intelligence—and in the region are the only things that supposedly may save the United States from an attack. Not even the horror of the military’s disastrous final in Kabul, which raised about the drone program’s tactics and effectiveness, could dampen the drumbeat for constant military pressure to keep the threat at bay.