The Real Risks of Allowing Terrorist Safe Havens

For nearly two decades, the fundamental premise of America's counterterrorism strategy has been to prevent extremist groups from establishing territorial safe havens — spaces in which they train and plot, free from interference. With a prospective U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on the horizon, General David Petraeus warned recently that a precipitate pullout could allow al-Qaeda or the Islamic State to rebuild "a terrorist platform." A growing number of experts have argued, however, that a preoccupation with safe havens is really an unhealthy obsession that produces unnecessary — and unending — military crusades.

So, do safe havens matter or not? The truth is that denying such sanctuaries is critical to effective counterterrorism, so long as some key caveats and distinctions are kept in mind.