Shadow Wars
America's Secret Wars in 134+ Countries
On October 4, 2017, four US soldiers were killed in an ambush in Niger. Most Americans — including senior members of Congress — didn't know the US had troops in Niger. Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Armed Services Committee, admitted: “I didn't know there was 1,000 troops in Niger.” This is American warfare in the 21st century: fought in the shadows, in countries most citizens can't find on a map, under legal authorities most lawyers can't explain, funded by budgets that are literally classified. The Founders gave Congress the power to declare war. That power has been stolen.
134+
Countries with US SOF
70% of the world's nations
70,000+
Special Operators
Largest SOF in world history
$13.1B
SOCOM Budget (FY2023)
Plus classified supplements
22+
Countries Under 2001 AUMF
From 60 words written for Al-Qaeda
What Are Shadow Wars?
Shadow wars are military operations conducted with minimal public knowledge, congressional oversight, or media scrutiny. They include special operations raids, drone strikes, covert CIA paramilitary operations, “training and advisory” missions that involve combat, proxy warfare through local forces, and cyber operations. They are the default mode of American warfare in the 21st century.
The US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has grown from 37,000 personnel on 9/11 to over 70,000 today — the largest special operations force in world history. Special operators deployed to 134 countries in 2021, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University — roughly 70% of the nations on Earth. In any given week, US special forces are conducting operations on every continent except Antarctica.
The appeal of shadow wars is obvious: they're politically cheap. No large troop deployments that generate public opposition. No body bags on the nightly news (usually). No congressional votes that force politicians to take a position. No declarations of war that trigger legal obligations. The president can wage war in dozens of countries simultaneously and most Americans will never know.
That's exactly the problem. Democracy requires informed consent. The American public cannot consent to wars it doesn't know about, in countries it can't find on a map, against enemies it's never heard of, under legal authorities it doesn't understand. Shadow wars are, by design, wars without democratic accountability.
JSOC: The President's Secret Army
The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is the most elite and secretive military command in the US armed forces. Its existence was classified until the 1990s. Its budget is still classified. Its operations are almost never acknowledged publicly.
JSOC commands the military's most elite units: Delta Force (1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, Army), DEVGRU (SEAL Team Six, Navy), the 24th Special Tactics Squadron (Air Force), and the Intelligence Support Activity(ISA — a classified intelligence unit whose very name changes regularly to avoid detection).
Under the command of General Stanley McChrystal (2003–2008) and later Admiral William McRaven, JSOC was transformed from a hostage rescue force into a global manhunting machine. At its peak in Iraq, JSOC was conducting 300 raids per month — ten per night — a pace of killing and capturing that was industrial in scale. McChrystal described the model as a “network to fight a network.”
JSOC reports directly to the Secretary of Defense and the President, bypassing normal military chains of command. This gives the White House a private military force that can conduct lethal operations worldwide with extraordinary speed and minimal bureaucratic friction — and minimal congressional oversight.
As journalist Jeremy Scahill documented in Dirty Wars, JSOC operates under a “find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze” (F3EA) cycle that turns intelligence into killing at unprecedented speed. A target is identified, located, killed, the site is exploited for intelligence, and that intelligence generates new targets — an assembly line of death that operates 24/7/365 across multiple continents.
Where America Is Secretly Fighting
Africa
Countries
Somalia, Niger, Mali, Libya, Tunisia, Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mauritania
Operations: ~6,000 special operators across the continent. Camp Lemonnier (Djibouti): $600M base, 4,000+ personnel. Drone bases in Niger ($110M), Somalia, Kenya.
Key incidents: Tongo Tongo ambush (Niger, Oct 4, 2017): 4 Green Berets killed in a country most Americans didn't know had US troops. Took 48 hours for military to recover Sgt. La David Johnson's body. Investigation revealed mission had been unauthorized at the level conducted.
AFRICOM conducted 36 named operations in Africa in 2020 alone. Most received zero media coverage.
Middle East
Countries
Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia (training), UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait
Operations: Ongoing counterterrorism operations in Syria and Iraq. Support for Saudi-led coalition in Yemen (until 2022). Special operations raids. Drone strikes.
Key incidents: US forces remain in Syria with ~900 troops — no congressional authorization, no AUMF applicability, no clear legal basis. In Iraq, ~2,500 troops remain under "advise and assist" mission.
The 2001 AUMF, which authorized force against those responsible for 9/11, has been stretched to justify operations against groups that didn't exist in 2001, in countries that had nothing to do with 9/11.
Southeast Asia / Pacific
Countries
Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore
Operations: Operation Pacific Eagle (Philippines) — 300+ special operators assisting Philippine forces against Abu Sayyaf and ISIS-affiliated groups. Joint training across region.
Key incidents: Battle of Marawi (Philippines, 2017): US special forces and surveillance aircraft supported Philippine military in 5-month siege. US role minimally reported.
The "Pacific pivot" has expanded special operations presence across the Indo-Pacific, often under "training" and "advisory" authorities that avoid congressional oversight.
Central/South America
Countries
Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico (limited)
Operations: Counter-narcotics operations. Training and advisory missions. Intelligence sharing. Joint Task Force Bravo (Honduras): 500+ US personnel.
Key incidents: DEA agents directly participated in firefights in Honduras. US-trained special forces units in Colombia and Honduras linked to human rights abuses.
Much of this activity occurs under Title 10 (military) and Title 50 (intelligence) authorities that have minimal reporting requirements.
Somalia: America's Longest Shadow War
The US has been conducting strikes in Somalia continuously since 2007 — making it one of America's longest-running military campaigns. Most Americans have no idea.
Under the 2001 AUMF (written for the perpetrators of 9/11), the US wages war against Al-Shabaab — a group that didn't formally exist until 2006 and has no capability to attack the US homeland. The legal justification: Al-Shabaab has ties to Al-Qaeda. By this logic, the 60 words of the 2001 AUMF authorize force against any group, anywhere, that has any association with any group that has any association with Al-Qaeda — potentially forever.
By the numbers: The US conducted approximately 280+ airstrikes in Somalia between 2007 and 2024. Under Trump, who revoked Obama-era civilian protection rules and designated parts of Somalia as “areas of active hostilities,” strikes tripled. Biden initially paused strikes, then resumed them. At least 1,200–1,750 people have been killed.
In May 2022, Biden reauthorized a persistent US military presence in Somalia after Trump had ordered troops withdrawn. Approximately 500 US special operators now rotate through the country. None of this was debated or voted on by Congress. No war was declared. The American public was barely informed.
Terror Tuesdays: The President's Kill List
In 2012, the New York Times revealed that President Obama personally maintained a “kill list” — a roster of suspected terrorists designated for assassination by drone strike or special operations raid. Every Tuesday, in the Oval Office, the president reviewed the list with his national security team, studying the “baseball cards” (intelligence profiles) of each target and deciding who would live and who would die.
Bush authorizes CIA to kill or capture Al-Qaeda leaders. First "kill list" is informal — a deck of playing cards.
First drone strike outside Afghanistan: CIA Predator kills 6 people in Yemen, including a US citizen (Kamal Derwish). No judicial review.
Obama inherits the kill list and formalizes it. Develops the "disposition matrix" — a database of suspects with recommended actions (capture, kill, monitor).
ACLU sues to challenge the government's authority to kill US citizens without trial. Court dismisses the case, ruling the father of target Anwar al-Awlaki lacks standing.
September 30: CIA drone strike kills US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. No indictment, no trial, no due process. Two weeks later: a second strike kills his 16-year-old US citizen son, Abdulrahman. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggests the boy should have "had a more responsible father."
NY Times reveals Obama personally reviews the kill list every "Terror Tuesday" in the Oval Office. The president of the United States is choosing who lives and who dies based on intelligence briefings, with no judicial oversight.
DOJ "White Paper" leaked: claims the president can order the killing of a US citizen if an "informed, high-level official" determines the target poses an "imminent threat" — but redefines "imminent" to not require evidence of a specific planned attack.
Trump revokes Obama-era Presidential Policy Guidance requiring high-level approval for strikes. Authority delegated to field commanders. Drone strikes triple in Somalia.
January 3: US drone strike kills Iranian General Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad airport. No congressional notification. Brought the US to the brink of war with Iran.
August 29: US drone strike in Kabul kills Zemari Ahmadi, a humanitarian aid worker, and 9 family members including 7 children. Pentagon initially claims it was a "righteous strike" against ISIS-K. Investigation reveals the target was loading water containers, not explosives. No one punished.
Signature Strikes: Killing the Unknown
Beyond the “personality strikes” that target named individuals, the US conducts “signature strikes” — attacks on people whose identity is unknown but whose behavior matches patterns associated with terrorism. A group of military-age men loading a truck. People exercising in a formation. Vehicles traveling in convoy near a border.
The most chilling aspect: under Obama-era counting rules, any military-age male killed in a strike zone was classified as a combatant unless posthumously proven otherwise. This means every man between roughly 15 and 65 killed in a signature strike was automatically counted as a militant — even though the government didn't know who he was when it killed him. The dead cannot prove their innocence.
This accounting trick dramatically understates civilian casualties. When the government reports that a strike killed “12 militants and 0 civilians,” what it often means is: “We killed 12 people we can't identify, and since they were military-age males in a strike zone, we're calling them militants.”
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Airwars, and other independent monitors consistently find civilian casualty figures many times higher than official US numbers. A 2017 Columbia Law School study found the US government's civilian casualty count was likely underestimated by a factor of 4 to 12.
The Legal Framework: How Secret Wars Are “Authorized”
2001 AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force)
September 14, 2001Scope: 60 words. Intended to authorize force against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Has been stretched to justify operations in 22+ countries against groups that didn't exist on 9/11.
Used for: Used to justify operations against ISIS (founded 2013), Al-Shabaab (Somalia), AQAP (Yemen), ISIS-K (Afghanistan), and dozens of other groups with tenuous or no connection to 9/11.
Section 1202 Authority
2018 NDAAScope: Creates a legal framework for the US to support proxy forces and paramilitaries worldwide with minimal congressional notification.
Used for: Classified. The exact operations conducted under Section 1202 are not publicly known. Reporting requirements to Congress are minimal — 15-day notification, classified briefing.
Article II Commander-in-Chief Authority
ConstitutionalScope: Essentially unlimited as interpreted by modern presidents. Used to justify everything from Libya bombing to Syria strikes to Iranian general assassinations.
Used for: Every president since Truman has used Article II authority to conduct military operations without congressional authorization. The War Powers Resolution (1973) was supposed to check this — it has been ignored by every president since.
Title 50 Covert Action Authority
National Security Act of 1947, amendedScope: CIA operations are classified by definition. Oversight is limited to the "Gang of Eight" — the top 4 leaders of each chamber and the chairs/ranking members of the intelligence committees.
Used for: CIA paramilitary operations, drone strikes (pre-2013), arming insurgent groups, regime change operations. By definition, the US government denies these activities exist.
💡 Did You Know: The Tongo Tongo Ambush
On October 4, 2017, a 12-man US Army Special Forces team (ODA 3212) was ambushed by an estimated 50+ ISIS-affiliated fighters near the village of Tongo Tongo in southwestern Niger. Four American soldiers were killed: Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson, Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, and Sgt. La David Johnson.
The ambush exposed what the American public didn't know: the US had approximately 800 troops in Niger, operating from a $110 million drone base (Air Base 201 near Agadez). Even members of the Senate Armed Services Committee were shocked.
The Pentagon investigation revealed systemic failures: the mission had exceeded its authorized scope, the team had inadequate training and equipment for the threat environment, intelligence was flawed, and the chain of command had approved a mission profile beyond what was sanctioned. It took 48 hours to recover Sgt. La David Johnson's body — French and Nigerien forces eventually found him.
No senior officer was held accountable. The incident briefly made headlines, then disappeared. US operations in Africa continued and expanded. The pattern held: Americans fight and die in secret wars, the public finds out by accident, there's brief outrage, then nothing changes.
The Disposition Matrix: Industrialized Killing
The “disposition matrix,” revealed by the Washington Post in 2012, is a database maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) that contains the names of suspected terrorists and the recommended method of “disposition” — capture, kill, or continued surveillance. It is, in essence, a permanent kill list designed to extend beyond any single presidential administration.
The matrix integrates intelligence from the CIA, NSA, JSOC, FBI, and foreign partner agencies. For each target, it includes biographical information, intelligence assessments, network analysis, and the recommended course of action. For “kill” recommendations, it includes the preferred method (drone strike, special operations raid, or partner force operation) and the assessed civilian casualty risk.
The disposition matrix was designed to be self-perpetuating. When a target is killed, the intelligence gathered from the strike (phone records, documents, digital media) is fed back into the system to generate new targets. Each killing produces new intelligence that identifies new targets that are added to the matrix — an ever-expanding cycle of targeted killing with no natural endpoint.
As one senior Obama administration official told the Post: “We can't possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us... but we've built an infrastructure to keep killing them for the foreseeable future.” The phrase “for the foreseeable future” is the quiet part said loud — this system is designed to operate forever.
The Black Budget: Money You Can't Track
$13.1B
SOCOM official budget (FY2023)
$71.7B
National Intelligence Program (FY2023)
$26.6B
Military Intelligence Program (FY2023)
$886B
Total DOD budget (FY2024)
Classified
JSOC operational budget
Classified
CIA paramilitary budget
SOCOM's official budget of $13.1 billion (FY2023) does not include the cost of operations funded through other accounts — Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), CIA paramilitary funds, classified intelligence programs, and host-nation support. The true cost of America's shadow wars is unknowable by design.
The “black budget” — the combined classified budgets of all 18 intelligence agencies — was approximately $98 billion in FY2023. This money is appropriated by Congress but its allocation is known only to a handful of committee members. The public — whose taxes fund these operations — has no idea how the money is spent, or on what.
The Libertarian Case: Secret Wars Are the Death of Democracy
The Founders understood, with painful clarity born of experience, that the power to wage war is the most dangerous power a government can possess. That is why they gave it to Congress — the branch closest to the people, the branch that must face voters, the branch designed for deliberation and debate. James Madison wrote: “The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.”
Today, the President of the United States can order the killing of any person on Earth — including American citizens — without a trial, without a warrant, without congressional authorization, and without public knowledge. Special operations forces wage war in 134+ countries under classified orders. The CIA conducts paramilitary operations that are officially denied. Drone strikes eliminate people whose identities are unknown based on behavioral patterns observed from 10,000 feet.
This is not what the Founders envisioned. It is the precise opposite. Secret wars concentrate the most lethal power in the hands of the executive — exactly what the Constitution was designed to prevent. A government that can kill in secret, with no accountability, is not a democracy. It is a tyranny with better PR.
The 2001 AUMF — 60 words drafted in the panic after 9/11 — has become the legal basis for a permanent global war. Congress has abdicated its most solemn responsibility. Presidents of both parties have eagerly seized the power Congress surrendered. And the American people, kept in the dark about where their troops are fighting and dying, cannot exercise the informed consent that democracy requires.
The solution is straightforward: repeal the 2001 AUMF. Require congressional authorization for any military deployment longer than 30 days. Declassify SOCOM operations. Subject the “kill list” to judicial review. And remember what the Founders knew: that a government trusted with the power to wage secret wars will wage them forever, against ever-expanding lists of enemies, until the republic itself is consumed.
Sources
- • Jeremy Scahill, Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield (2013)
- • Nick Turse, Tomorrow's Battlefield: US Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa (2015)
- • Brown University Costs of War Project, “US Counterterrorism Operations 2018–2020”
- • New York Times, “Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will” (May 29, 2012)
- • Washington Post, “Plan for Hunting Terrorists Signals US Intends to Keep Adding Names to Kill Lists” (Oct 23, 2012)
- • DOD Africa Command (AFRICOM) posture statements and testimony
- • Congressional Research Service, “US Special Operations Forces” (2023)
- • Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drone strike databases
- • Pentagon investigation into Tongo Tongo ambush (2018)
- • Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on SOCOM (2020–2024)
- • Stephanie Savell, “The Costs of United States Post-9/11 'Security Assistance'” (Brown University, 2023)