What the War on Terror leaves behind: an introduction

This article serves as the introduction to a Special Issue of the European Journal of International Security titled “What the War on Terror Leaves Behind”. In it, we seek to contextualise and summarise the diverse contributions of this collection which is animated by four overarching questions: (i) More than twenty years after the attacks of 11 September 2001, is the War on Terror now, finally, over?, (ii) What, if any, legacies remain from the post-9/11 way of thinking and doing counter-terrorism?, (iii) What is the significance of the War on Terror’s legacies or absence thereof?, and, (iv) How do the War on Terror’s impacts and effects sit within other historical contexts and (dis)continuities? The article begins with a brief overview of some of the conceptual and political ambiguities of the War on Terror itself, before situating the issue in relation to issues of continuity and change anticipated by the four above questions. A second section then explores the urgency of these questions for academic debate, and in the “real world” of international security as experienced by states, communities, and other subjects. A third section then summarises the argument and contributions of the articles in the issue – highlighting the lack of agreement on key issues within these debates.