The Washington Post published a story by Scott Wilson and Al Kamen entitled “'Global War On Terror' Is Given New Name: Bush's Phrase Is Out, Pentagon Says” on March 25, 2009:
The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase "global war on terror," a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.
In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' "
The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration officials before it is delivered.
Not so, said Kenneth Baer, an OMB spokesman.
"There was no memo, no guidance," Baer said yesterday. "This is the opinion of a career civil servant."
Coincidentally or not, senior administration officials had been publicly using the phrase "overseas contingency operations" in a war context for roughly a month before the e-mail was sent.
This is not the first time that there has been a “re-tooling” of the term for the war – or contingency operation – or whatever. In November 2004, David Kilcullen coined the term “Countering Global Insurgency” in a paper published in the Small Wars Journal, where he stated:
Since the United States declared a global ‘War on Terrorism’ following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some analysts have argued that terrorism is merely a tactic, thus a war on terrorism makes little sense. Francis Fukuyama’s comment, ‘the war on terror is a misnomer…terrorism is only a means to an end; in this regard, a war on terrorism makes no more sense than a war on submarines’ is typical.
Another name that has been used to describe the “war” was the “Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, or G-SAVE. The New York Times published a story by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker entitled “U.S. Officials Retool Slogan for Terror War” on July 25, 2005:
The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, senior administration and military officials said Monday.
In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution." He said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."
Perhaps the most interesting phrase that has been mentioned was by the Pentagon Press Secretary, Mr. Geoff Morrell, during his DoD News Briefing on March 25, 2009, when asked about dropping the term GWOT:
Mr. Morrell: …I think they've explained that perhaps somebody within OMB may have been a little overexuberant and done so. But I can just tell you, I'm the one who speaks publicly about these matters. And I have never been told which words to use or not to use. So I don't think there's anything to the story…
Q: What's your preferred nomenclature?
Mr. Morrell: I don't really have one. I mean, I don't think a whole lot about it. I think that we are involved in global operations to protect the homeland and the American people. And a large part of that is going after terrorists, seeking them out, wherever they are, wherever they're plotting, wherever they are training to launch attacks against us….
Q: (Off mike) -- GWOT, global war on terror, lumps together an entire -- you know, the entire Muslim faith and an entire region. Do you see that as a concern?
Mr. Morrell: Well, I don't think there's anything in that term that identifies any particular faith or ethnicity. I mean, there are terrorists of all faiths, of all colors, of all races and ethnicities. And so perhaps a better -- another way to refer to it would be, you know, a campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm.
There you have it! The new term - “A campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm.”