After ten years of global conflict with al Qaeda, the time has come to reassess the threat and determine the parameters within which it operates. Questions regarding its continued validity as a threat, its capability to employ synchronized tactical actions, and its ability to act as a learning organization all must be addressed to better understand this enemy of the United Sates.The purpose of this book is to examine al Qaeda's ability to employ its tactical actions to achieve its strategic goals. This book hypothesizes that al Qaeda practiced operational art in the pursuit of its objectives. The methodology of this book analyzed two case studies that affirm the findings of this book. The first case reviewed the campaign against the United States that began in 1993 with the attack of the World Trade Center. The second case analyzed the campaign al Qaeda undertook in 2004 to discourage allies of the United States from participating in the war with Iraq. Both case studies were compared by elements of operational art: lines of effort, center of gravity analysis, and operational reach, to determine if al Qaeda practiced operational art to improve its ability to meet the strategic objective.This book also provides a way to predict al Qaeda's future actions by applying US Army doctrine on operational art as a tool for planners to see through the complexity of the enemy and their goals through a familiar and already understood framework.

The first book to draw a blueprint for defeating al-Qaeda on ideological rather than military grounds.

Following the 9/11 attacks, a war against al Qaeda by the U.S. and its liberal democratic allies was next to inevitable. But what kind of war would it be, how would it be fought, for how long, and what would it cost in lives and money? None of this was known at the time. What came to be known was that the old ways of war must change—but how? Now, with over a decade of political decision-making and warfighting to analyze, How 9/11 Changed Our Ways of War addresses that question. In particular it assesses how well those ways of war, adapted to fight terrorism, affect our military capacity to protect and sustain liberal democratic values. The book pursues three themes: what shaped the strategic choice to go to war; what force was used to wage the war; and what resources were needed to carry on the fight? In each case, military effectiveness required new and strict limits on the justification, use, and support of force. How to identify and observe these limits is a matter debated by the various contributors. Their debate raises questions about waging future wars—including how to defend against and control the use of drones, cyber warfare, and targeted assassinations. The contributors include historians, political scientists, and sociologists; both academics and practitioners.

At a critical moment in world history The Longest War provides the definitive account of the ongoing battle against terror. --Book Jacket.

An in-depth look at why America is losing the War on Terror and what we should do if we really want to defeat Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. "I first met al-Qaeda before there was an al-Qaeda, way back in the winter of 1984. It was an encounter that came within a split second of costing me my life." So begins Rob Schultheis's gripping account of his journey into the heart of one of the world's most dangerous places, on the trail of the world's most wanted man. A veteran war correspondent (he was one of a handful of Western journalists who covered the Russian war in Afghanistan from inside the country), Schultheis offers a first-hand look at how the seeds of al-Qaeda were planted by foreign jihadists in the 1980s, before most Americans knew what the word "jihad" meant. He then offers a radical assessment of why bin Laden remains at large, detailing the complicit role Pakistan has played in both offering him sanctuary and in helping al-Qaeda establish an almost impregnable stronghold in the Middle East. Finally, fresh from a recent visit to Afghanistan and armed with analysis of current satellite imagery, Schultheis makes his case for where exactly Osama bin Laden is hiding—and why the U.S. government is not acting on this information.

A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.