The war on terror: Will fewer foreign troops, digital technology and artificial intelligence change the strategy of this war?

What’s changing in the fight against terrorism? Are the days of deploying large numbers of Western coalition troops on foreign soil over? Some may feel that this is due to the rush of Western troops to leave Afghanistan after 20 years.

The remaining tens of thousands of troops of the US-led coalition that have so far been deployed in Afghanistan are also leaving this month.

The troops of Britain and other Western countries now in Iraq no longer have to play any major direct combat role.

The military role of French troops in the African country of Mali is also now being signaled to be cut to a large extent.

            Twenty years after US President George W. Bush declared the so-called war on terror, are the days of deploying large numbers of troops to battlefields far away from the Western world coming to an end?

And maybe that’s still not entirely true. A large number of Western troops are still fighting jihadists in the Sahel.

But a revolutionary new thinking has now begun on how these missions will be carried out in the future.

Western countries see that large-scale long-term military deployments come at a high cost, both financially, in terms of loss of life and bloodshed, and politically at home.

For example, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan has cost more than a trillion dollars.

Then there’s the loss of life, thousands of deaths – and that’s on both sides of the enemy alliance.

It’s not just Western soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan, but also their enemy insurgents, followed by Afghan forces, and above all, Afghan civilians.

Afghanistan had the largest number of foreign troops in 2010 – more than 100,000.

Even after that, when the remaining tens of thousands of foreign troops are leaving after 20 years of deployment, the Taliban continues to seize more and more territory.

‘Achilles’ heel’

“In fact, the greater the number and the longer the army is used to suppress any insurgent activity – the more” “Achilles’ heel” “i.e.” “weak spot” “is created in them.”