War as a grant of power
Bob Zadek frames the War on Terror as a domestic-liberty problem before a foreign-policy one. On his 2013 show he argues that politicians have discovered that once they invoke the word “war,” they give themselves a free pass to undo most constitutional safeguards, and that no politician who has declared a war — a war on poverty, drugs, immigration or terrorism — ever declares it won, because doing so would mean surrendering accumulated powers War – A Rationale For Extra-Constitutional Power? (2013). He describes the war measures declared around the time of 9/11 as inappropriate then and more so now, with no movement in Washington to declare the war won or downgraded.
Chris Preble, then Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy at the Cato Institute, is Zadek’s guest for that hour. Preble says no one really disputes the President’s legitimate authority to defend the United States in the case of imminent attack, but that the Constitution was fairly clear that Congress declares war, and that Congress has not done so since World War II War – A Rationale For Extra-Constitutional Power? (2013). He argues that drones and comparable technologies — or a special operations unit of the kind that took out Osama bin Laden — let the President carry out acts of violence under the guise of the ongoing War on Terror with very little congressional oversight.
Drones, evidence and transparency
Zadek distinguishes drone policy from a weapons choice: the issue is not the method but the fact that the American government feels justified under international law to kill somebody in a foreign country on the flimsiest of suspicions with no oversight War – A Rationale For Extra-Constitutional Power? (2013). Preble does not concede the flimsiness. He says the Obama administration and the Bush administration before it would say the evidence is quite strong, based on multiple sources and vetted by different folks, and that he believes that may be true. His stated concern is the lack of transparency: no oversight and very little discussion of what criteria or factors come into play. He notes a rising sense that such actions should be subjected to greater scrutiny, alongside what he calls still quite a bit of deference to the President given the state of fear.
War on a tactic
By 2019 the question had sharpened into one Zadek poses directly to Preble: how will we know when the war on terror has been won, and what event would let us declare victory? Preble’s answer is that there isn’t one, because terrorism is a tactic, and declaring war on a tactic means you can never be certain someone is not thinking about planning violence against civilians for a political purpose On Foreign Policy, will Trump heed the Restraining Constituency or John Bolton? (2019). The framing of the war as against an idea and a tactic rather than a group or organization, he says, makes it open-ended by its very nature. He calls it critical that the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed after 9/11 be revisited, sunsetted and repealed, and that a future president wanting such an authorization should have to come back to Congress and make the case explicitly. He compares the framing to declaring war on the use of submarines, or on trade sanctions as an instrument of policy — tactics and techniques, not objects of war in a traditional sense.
Zadek’s gloss on the same exchange is that declaring war on a concept is the perfect move for a dictator or for anyone in government who wants to aggrandize himself, because there will never be peace and the powers accumulated will remain with you so long as you are in office On Foreign Policy, will Trump heed the Restraining Constituency or John Bolton? (2019). He calls the war on terror the latest example of using empty, vacuous words to enlarge government power at the expense of citizens, and complains that “national security” has been cheapened by use as a basis for tariffs and border measures until it has no more meaning.
The cost in Afghanistan
Jonathan Bydlak, in a 2020 episode on rethinking Afghanistan, supplies the fiscal accounting. He says the best estimates are that in the last 18 to 19 years the United States spent nearly two and a half trillion dollars in Afghanistan specifically, and that the entire War on Terror has cost massive amounts Rethinking Afghanistan with Jonathan Bydlak (2020). That figure includes not just direct fighting costs but disability and healthcare for veterans — obligations that do not stop when the conflict ends — and the replacement of worn or destroyed equipment, which he counts as costs in military readiness that have made a strong national defense harder to sustain.
Bydlak also breaks the spending down geographically: of all the money spent overseas since 2001, roughly 47% went to Afghanistan and a little to Pakistan associated with that conflict, with Iraq the other principal theater Rethinking Afghanistan with Jonathan Bydlak (2020). He puts direct costs in Afghanistan at roughly two trillion dollars before adding the other obligations. His strategic argument is that the mission morphed into something completely different from what was originally intended — striking back at those who struck us on 9/11 — and that Afghanistan does not fit the interstate or great-power competition that our own National Defense Strategy names as the biggest concern. He favors drawing down and ultimately leaving.
Propaganda and the noble lie
A 2022 episode with economist Abigail Hall, on her book Manufacturing Militarism, addresses how the government shapes public opinion on foreign policy. The excerpt for that episode is a summary rather than a transcript: it states that Zadek interviews Hall about the book, that they discuss definitions of militarism and propaganda, the dangers of the “noble lie,” and how these practices undermine the foundations of a free society Manufacturing Militarism: A Fresh Look at Propaganda (2022). The excerpt records no specific claims, figures or quotations from either speaker beyond that description.
Across episodes: the same question, differently framed
The topic recurs across the 2013, 2019, 2020 and 2022 episodes, and the excerpts show a shift in emphasis rather than a developing argument. In 2013 Preble locates the problem in the President’s unilateral targeting power and the absence of transparency, with Congress faulted for declining to exercise authority it holds War – A Rationale For Extra-Constitutional Power? (2013). In 2019 the same guest presses the structural point further, naming the Authorization for Use of Military Force as the instrument to sunset and repeal, and grounding the open-endedness in the fact that terrorism is a tactic rather than an enemy On Foreign Policy, will Trump heed the Restraining Constituency or John Bolton? (2019). Bydlak in 2020 adds the fiscal and strategic ledger without disputing the constitutional analysis, and Hall in 2022 turns to the propaganda that sustains militarism. Zadek’s own framing — war on a noun as a permanent grant of power — is consistent across the 2013 and 2019 shows.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe the text or scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the statutes or memos said to authorize drone strikes, or any judicial decision on either. They do not state the outcome of the Afghanistan withdrawal, the fate of any repeal effort, or the contents of Hall’s book beyond its title and themes. No excerpt identifies the amendment or constitutional clause on which the war-powers argument turns, and the 2022 excerpt contains no speaker-level detail at all.