Abstract
This article examines the goals of the US government in constructing international coalitions for the War on Terror. Building on conceptual and theoretical approaches in International Relations and analyzing the profiles of the military coalitions formed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we adopt a constructivist argument that these coalitions sought to comply with the principle of multilateralism and to confer greater legitimacy for the US engagement. The support of other members of these coalitions was not significant from an operational standpoint. This is due to the unparalleled size of the US military and to the additional costs generated by such operations. Such costs come from the need to build a structure that enables effective collaboration between armed forces which have differences such as types of equipment and rules of engagement, in addition to linguistic and cultural barriers.
War on Terror; United States; Coalitions; Legitimacy
