What actions taken by the US/G7/NATO/etc. were the most effective at preventing terror? While we have a bunch of security theater and trillions spent and thousands of lives lost, not to mention things like Abu Ghraib, we also haven’t had much in the way of terrorist attacks since 9/11. There have been smaller incidents of course, mainly perpetrated by radicalized Americans, but not much in the way of foreign terrorism. What was done correctly? Note that I am not looking at domestic terrorism for the purposes of this question. I don’t have the stats, but I understand it’s been on the rise since 2016.
Getting banks on board to help track the funding for terrorism probably did far more for the fight than any military or security innovations.
I’ve long wondered if there was an element of the long con, so to speak, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by the US. By invading and occupying Islamic nations, the terrorists fought them there rather than in the US during that period.
I don’t know if that’s the case, but it sure seems like there were a lot of terroristic incidents where the US troops were, and not so many elsewhere.
As far as military innovations go… I think there were some procurement changes that made it easier to buy and use commercial equipment, rather than having to gin up a MILSPEC and solicit bids, etc… That, and a shift in the general time frame of the wars to contract out stuff like food service, laundry, etc… rather than have military personnel do it, under the theory that an all volunteer military shouldn’t be having their soldiers (sailors, marines, airmen) do non-soldiering stuff like that.
Those would seem to be fairly unglamorous but important innovations that took place during the war.