Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump

by Karen J. Greenberg

How policies forged after September 11 were weaponized under Trump and turned on American democracy itself

In the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, the American government implemented a wave of overt policies to fight the nation’s enemies. Unseen and undetected by the public, however, another set of tools was brought to bear on the domestic front. In this riveting book, one of today’s leading experts on the US security state shows how these “subtle tools” imperiled the very foundations of democracy, from the separation of powers and transparency in government to adherence to the Constitution.

Taking readers from Ground Zero to the Capitol insurrection, Karen Greenberg describes the subtle tools that were forged under George W. Bush in the name of imprecise language, bureaucratic confusion, secrecy, and the bypassing of procedural and legal norms. While the power and legacy of these tools lasted into the Obama years, reliance on them increased exponentially in the Trump era, both in the fight against terrorism abroad and in battles closer to home. Greenberg discusses how the Trump administration weaponized these tools to separate families at the border, suppress Black Lives Matter protests, and attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Revealing the deeper consequences of the war on terror, Subtle Tools paints a troubling portrait of an increasingly undemocratic America where disinformation, xenophobia, and disdain for the law became the new norm, and where the subtle tools of national security threatened democracy itself.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 21, 2021

Reviews

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and concise study of law and policy during the Global War on Terrorism, although I only half agree with the thesis. Greenberg, a law professor, argues that the GWOT witnessed the introduction not just of crucial laws like the establishment of the DHS or the Patriot Act or the AUMFs, but also the formation of "subtle tools:" imprecision in language, bureaucratic vagueness or leakage, secrecy, and the hoarding of unaccountable power in the executive branch. These tools were developed mainly by the unitary executive folks in the Bush administration, but Congress largely supported them (or just didn't think critically about what they were doing) in the year or so after 9/11. These tools, when used by many policymakers over several admins, became embedded in policy, politics, and thinking about terrorism and other security problems. Finally, while they were rolled back a little by Obama, Trump weaponized these tools less for the war against terrorism and more against his domestic enemies: protestors, migrants, and finally, the democratic process itself.

Here are some examples of how KG says the subtle tools work: the AUMF authorized the use of force against AQ and related groups, and the 2002 AUMF authorized force against "aggression," not just terrorism. Over time, this vagueness has been used to strike groups that didn't exist on 9/11, to expand the GWOT over huge spaces, and to justify attacks on state actors like Qassem Soleimani, who, while he used terroristic tactics, was actually a high-ranking member of the Iranian state. These AUMFs also didn't define victory, permitting a temporal sprawl to the GWOT in a textbook example of bad strategic thinking. The point here isn't necessarily that these uses of force should not have happened, but that we continued to lean on a law that was drawn up in haste, with little forethought, to justify military interventions far afield of stopping the people who committed 9/11.

Another example: probably the strongest example of a subtle tool is the use of imprecise language to blur boundaries and permit questionable behavior. It started with ruling certain combatants as neither criminals in the ordinary sense nor soldiers but "unlawful combatants," which justified stripping many of their rights and detaining them indefinitely. Again, Obama tried to roll this back, but Trump ran with it, labelling undocumented immigrants, political opponents, and many others as terrorists and justifying horrible policies against them (the chapter on the border crisis and family separation, in which the "securitization" of migrants led to families being ripped apart, is a shocking example of this). Secrecy was another key subtle tool: the Bush administration asserted that Congress had very little power to know or regulate what it was doing, and the Obama and Trump admins more or less rolled with that.

Again, Obama made efforts at reform but didn't fundamentally change the game. KG is fair to Obama in ways that other writers are not because she is a subtle scholar. However, the Obama admin had to balance their genuine revulsion of the Bush admin's behavior and their fear of handing off a powerful executive to a Republican maniac with the very real ongoing threat of terrorism, especially in the age of the Islamic State. KG shows how in 2016 they tried to rescind a lot of these power, knowing that there was a possibility they would be handing them to Trump.

Trump, of course, is where the subtle tools were most abused, but they are also where I find myself disagreeing with the argument. Yes, the expansion of executive power, the erosion of accountability, the blurring of language, etc all created a context more conducive to electing someone like DJT, and they gave him powers that no erratic demagogue should ever have. He used those powers to terrifying and destructive ends. But did he really need the subtle tools to do all of this? To put it another way: in a historical sense, was the GWOT a necessary historical precondition for Trump? I think it was to an extent, especially in the demonization of Muslims, the rising fear of outsiders, the transformation of immigration into a security threat (even though almost no terrorists have gone through the southern border), etc. However, a person like Trump was going to find reasons to do the terrible things he wanted to do no matter what, and he was going to find lackey bulldogs like Bill Barr to justify and execute those actions even if there had never been a GWOT. I think the middle ground answer, as KG would probably agree, is that the rise of the subtle tools facilitated his actions in dangerous ways, in ways that made him harder to stop or restrain.

My other beef here is that while the GWOT witnessed a significant expansion of executive power, that was a trend line dating back a long ways in U.S. history, probably to the creation of the national security state after WWII. You can see the subtle tools at work in all kinds of Cold War policies and scandals. In short, there's a deeper historical context here that KG doesn't really discuss; doing so would have strengthened the book and shown the GWOT as part of a deeper continuity in U.S. political and legal history.

This book deals clearly and concisely with complex material, explaining cases, events, and policies extremely well. It moves quickly and hammers home its main arguments clearly. I think it will be my go-to book now for understanding the evolution of law and policy from 9/11 to 2021, even though I don't necessarily agree with its historical framing. In a way, this book is a calmer and more judicious version of Spencer Ackerman's Reign of Terror, which has many good points but also paints with a broad brush and is often overheated.

[Craig Amason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greenberg has written a provocative book that primarily focuses on how threats to the U.S., either real, perceived, or exaggerated, have been used to expand the authority of the federal government over the last twenty years. Most of her examples are taken from the executive branch, but the legislative and judicial branches are also on her radar. It seems that the center of her thesis is the way in which government officials employ language to break from governmental practice and precedent, thereby justifying laws, orders, and policies that infringe on the freedoms of Americans. One of the main illustrations of how this rhetorical manipulation works is the introduction and interpretation of words like terrorists and Homeland Security into policies and legislation.

No political party or persuasion escapes the author's scrutiny; however, and not surprisingly, Donald Trump emerges as the worst offender when it comes to vague and confusing rhetoric, disinformation, overreach, and abuse of power. His worst record involves his dealings with immigrants, Muslims, and violent leftist protestors such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Of course, Trump's obsession with election tampering and his refusal to admit defeat in his second bid for the White House, along with the ensuing riot and storming of the U.S. Capitol, are also discussed in detail. But, true to her thesis, Greenberg notes how the definition of terrorist is adapted to the January 6th incident, which opens the door for problems with interpretation of and response to the violent uprising.

This is another one of those books that will boil the blood of just about everyone. Left-leaning readers will be irritated that Greenberg even dared to include Democrats in her indictment, while right-leaning readers will accuse her of being unfair and way too harsh on Republicans. I think she makes some excellent points, some of which I must admit changed my way of thinking about the words our federal government officials use, how they react to existential threats to the country, and how willing we are as a people to give up our freedoms in exchange for what we think will keep us safe.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

She shows how the successive use & mis-use of imprecisely constructed legislation, mostly laws created as a response to 9/11 & our new preoccupation with international terrorism have come to be increasingly abused by succeeding administrations to the detriment of the civil liberties for all of us. This is a well researched & written book but I didn't find that it told us much that was new.

[Justin Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10 - a really good and interesting read. As someone with little knowledge on mainly the activities on Trump and no knowledge of the sort of tricks and subtle tools used it’s certainly alarming to see how much he’s been able to get away with. Would have liked to have seen some counter arguments which would have been nice