Islamist militants based in Pakistan have played a major role in terrorism around the world and pose a significant threat to regional and international security. Although the Pakistan-militant connection has received widespread attention only in recent years, it is not a new phenomenon. Pakistan has, since its inception in the wake of World War II, used Islamist militants to wage jihad in order to compensate for severe political and material weakness. This use of militancy has become so important that it is now a central component of Pakistani grand strategy; supporting jihad is one of the principal means by which the Pakistani state seeks to produce security for itself. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the strategy has not been wholly disastrous. It has achieved important domestic and international successes, enabling Pakistan to confront stronger adversaries and shape its strategic environment without the costs and risks of direct combat, and to help promote internal cohesion to compensate for its weak domestic political foundations. Recently, however, these successes of Pakistan's militant strategy have given way to serious problems. The militant organizations that Pakistan nurtured over the decades are increasingly exceeding its control; continued support for jihad diverts scarce resources from pressing domestic projects, impeding the country's internal development; and the militant campaign's repeated provocations have led India to adopt a more aggressive conventional military posture. As Paul Kapur shows in Jihad as Grand Strategy, these developments significantly undermine Pakistani interests, threatening to leave it less politically cohesive and externally secure than it was before. Thus, despite its past benefits, the strategy has outlived its utility, and Pakistan will have to abandon it in order to avoid catastrophe. This will require not simply a change of policy, but a thoroughgoing reconceptualization of the Pakistani state.

This collection of essays examines the strategic dimensions of contemporary terrorist threats. It evaluates the changing nature of modern terrorism in the light of the events of September 11 2001. The collection argues that terrorism now promises to enter the terrain of global "grand strategy".

"To better meet the threat posed by the al-Qaʹida network, it is critical to understand the strategic thinking of the al-Qaʹida transnational movement. This volumes provides background on al-Qaʹida's Salafi-jihadi theology, which serves as a foundation for al-Qaʹida's strategic thought; the authors discuss the intellectual history behind al-Qaʹida's strategy, the debate among jihadis over targeting fellow Muslims, and the critical importance of the Islamic caliphate in jihadi grand strategy. The authors summarize and assess 12 texts by Salafi-jihadi ideologues and strategists, using them as a basis to identify a main trend in contemporary jihadi philosophy; the authors also note several key signposts that could affect this trend. Drawing on case studies of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and especially the example of Abu Musʻab al-Zarqawi, the authors examine the role of al-Qaʻida theater emirs and conclude that they may exert more influence in crafting and executing the organization's operational strategy than jihadi strategic writers or even al-Qaʻida's senior leadership. Finally, the authors analyze al-Qaʻida's propaganda and media efforts: They find that such efforts are at least as important to al-Qaʻida's overall strategy as its armed tactical operations, but also that jihadi propaganda and media efforts generally have been unsuccessful at mobilizing the broader Muslim world in support for al-Qaʻida. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for U.S. counterterrorism strategy and for future research.""--P. [4] of cover.

The real threat to the United States is not terrorism. The real threat is Islamism, whose sophisticated forces have collaborated with the American Left not only to undermine U.S. national security but also to shred the fabric of American constitutional democracy - freedom and individual liberty. In The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy offers a harrowing account of how the global Islamist movement, s jihad involves far more than terrorist attacks, and how it has found the ideal partner in President Barack Obama, whose Islamist sympathies run deep. For years, McCarthy warned of America, s blindness to the Islamist threat, but in The Grand Jihad McCarthy exposes a new, more insidious peril: the government, s active appeasement of the Islamist ideology. With the help of witting and unwitting accomplices in and out of government, Islamism doesn, t merely fuel terrorism but spawns America-hating Islamic enclaves in our very midst, gradually foisting Islam, s repressive law, sharia, on American life. The revolutionary doctrine has made common cause with an ascendant Left that also seeks radical transformation of our constitutional order. The prognosis for liberty could not be more dire.

Subject: America entered the Global War on Terrorism with little understanding of the enemy it faced. AI-Qaeda plays a leading role in the larger movement of global jihad, a splinter faction of militant Islamism intent on establishing its vision of strict Islamic rule in the Muslim world through armed action. Global jihadis have spent more than 40 years refining their philosophy, gaining experience, building their organization, and developing plans to reestablish what they see as the only true Islamic state on earth. The September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks set this plan in motion. In the years leading up to and following the 9/11 attacks, global jihadis have written copiously on their military strategy for creating an Islamic state. This paper draws on those writings to examine and explain the mechanisms by which they plan to neutralize the superpower guardian of world order, claim land and peoples for Islamic emirates out of the resulting chaos, and bring these emirates together to become a true Islamic state. Their writings also expose weaknesses in their strategy, and this paper explores some of those potential vulnerabilities as well.

In 'The End of Grand Strategy', Simon Reich and Peter Dombrowski challenge this common view. They eschew prescription in favour of describing and explaining what America's military actually does. They argue that each presidental administration inevitably resorts to each of the six variant of grand strategy that they implement simultaneously as a result of a series of fundamental recent changes - what they term 'calibrated strategies.' Reich and Dombrowski support their controversial argument by examining six major maritime operations, stretching from America's shores to every region of the globe. Each of these operations reflects one major variant of strategy. They conclude that grand strategy, as we know it, is dead.