The Washington Post has featured three major front-page stories on what they call "The Permanent War" - meaning the war on terror or however one might like to label it, as the US moves from Obama 1 to either an Obama 2 or a Romney administration - and administrations after that. The first, by reporter Greg Miller, is headlined
"U.S. Set to Keep Kill Lists for Years: ‘Disposition Matrix’ Secretly Crafted: Blueprint Would Guide Hunt for Terrorists" (October 23, 2012);
Robert Chesney comments on it over at Lawfare. The second article is a feature profile by Karen de Young of White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan,
"A CIA Veteran Transforms US Counterterrorism Policy" (October 24);
Bobby and
Jack Goldsmith each comment on it at Lawfare. The last in the series appeared on October 25, by Craig Whitlock, "
Secret Ops Grow at U.S. Base: At Forefront of Drone Wars: $1.4 billion upgrade at Djibouti post planned." These are excellent, well-reported stories, and well worth reading to get a sense of the longer run trajectory of what might be called US "counterterrorism-on-offense."
The larger issue raised by these three stories taken together is "institutional settlement" in counterterrorism policy. The stories together are titled "The Permanent War," and they address war-making aspects of counterterrorism - the drone wars and targeted killing, forward bases for drones in increasingly far-flung places, and, though with much less discussion, military and intelligence advisors to local governments dealing with various non-state actor groups that have both domestic and transnational aspects. (The three WaPo stories mostly don't deal with other large aspects of counterterrorism, such as domestic counterterrorism issues, or with detention or trial.)
