Donna G. Starr-Deelen holds a PhD in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford as well as a JD from the University of San Diego School of Law and an LLM in International and Comparative Law from Georgetown University Law Center. She is the author of Counter-terrorism from the Obama Administration to President Trump.

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Caught in the Fait Accompli War, the subtitle of my second book, cogently summarizes many of the national security dilemmas I examine in both the Obama administration and the first year of the Trump administration.  By this I refer to the policy choices made by the George W. Bush administration shortly after the September 11^th attacks, bearing in mind that a fait accompli is something decided before those affected hear about it, leaving them with no option but to accept it.  After consulting a small group of advisors including Vice President Cheney, President Bush decided the United States would pursue a “war on terror” that emphasized an armed conflict approach, instead of the law enforcement paradigm, to combat international terrorism.  His choices regarding the use of force, targeting, surveillance, and detention continue to shape and constrain the policy options available to both of his successors, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.  A brief example is the establishment of a detention center at Guantanamo in January 2002; the Bush White House originally claimed unilateral authority to detain people indefinitely due to increased executive branch powers during wartime.  Guantanamo remains open sixteen years later, despite its problematic history of completing terrorism adjudications (only 8 detainees have been convicted by GITMO military commissions) and the executive order President Obama signed in 2009 designed to close it.  President Trump has pledged to “load it up.”

Counter-terrorism from the Obama Administration to President Trump: Caught in the Fait Accompli War continues the research I began in Presidential Policies on Terrorism (Palgrave 2014).  The claim that “everything changed on 9/11” is a starting point for my inquiry into the political and legal decisions that underlie American counter-terrorism policies.  Should the horrific attack of September 11, 2001 result in the jettisoning of long-standing American positions regarding detention, surveillance, and the use of force against states and non-state actors who espouse violent extremism?  What happens to the rule of law and democratic norms when an influential state such as the USA “takes off the gloves” and vows to battle terrorism like waging a world war?  Does the US Constitution grant the president unfettered powers to combat terrorist groups abroad?  My research has been centered on these questions since I began my PhD, which I completed in 2013.

The different dimensions of the war on terror drive my research as I use my legal training to examine both legal and political aspects.  For instance, I explore domestic legal questions such as when the president has the power under the Constitution to use force against terrorists.  Moreover, has Congress authorized the use of force in continuance of the war on terror without any temporal or geographic constraints?  Secondly, I examine a myriad of international legal issues where the inquiry begins with the UN Charter, articles 2(4) and 51, along with the international norms guiding the lawful exercise of force.  International legal topics involved in the war on terror include the consequences of pursuing an armed conflict approach to international terrorism, the deployment of weaponized drones, and the legality of sending combat forces into states where the US is not formally at war.

Another dichotomy worthy of exploration is the distinction between presidential pronouncements in the war on terror and substantive executive branch actions.  I have studied presidential statements regarding terrorism from Ronald Reagan during terrorist attacks in the 1980’s to Donald Trump’s proposals regarding radical Islamic terrorism.  A particularly perplexing question is why one president may espouse a course of action radically different from his predecessor’s only to end up following a similar path, as, for example, when President Obama pledged in 2008 to chart a new course in the war on terror but continued the policy of deploying drones to kill suspected terrorists.  Candidate Trump promised to be smarter about pursuing ISIS than his predecessor but, thus far, his policies are a continuation of Obama’s, spiced up with an escalation in the use of force and an increase in bellicose rhetoric. 

My latest book Counter-terrorism from the Obama Administration to President Trump details the first year of the Trump administration and attempts to analyze Trump’s national security policies.  The analysis is augmented by the theories of both Harold Koh (The National Security Constitution) and Michael Glennon (National Security and Double Government).  After studying the enlargement of presidential power in the modern era, Koh argued that a pattern of executive initiative, congressional acquiescence, and judicial tolerance emerged.  Glennon contended that a permanent network of national security officials (the security directorate) exerts real power and controls the implementation of policy, heedless of which political party inhabits the White House.  My research builds on these theories, applies them to the Trump presidency, and cuts through the surface chaos to evaluate how the current administration is waging its war on terror.