Free Republic

Unconquerable Nation Instead of surrendering our liberties in the name of security, we must embrace liberty as the source and sustenance of our security. CHAPTER ONE How We Prevail: Secret Service agents gunned down the first team of assassins before they got to the President, but it was a close call. A second team of gunmen managed to get into the House of Representatives, where they wounded five congressmen. A terrorist bomb caused damage but no casualties at the Senate. Troops took up positions at the Capitol and the White House, both of which had been set ablaze. By sundown,...

CHAPTER FOUR A Sharper Sword: Strategic Principles for Defeating Today’s Enemy American actions after September 11, 2001, were a response to a catastrophic attack without precedent in the annals of terrorism. Immediate action was required to prevent further attacks. There was no time for lengthy planning. Action and strategy evolved concurrently, which is not unusual in war. It was no different in World War II, when well into the fighting, the allies were still formulating their grand strategy. America’s strategy in response to 9/11 was initially sketched out in a series of speeches by President Bush and was later elaborated...

Knowing Our Enemy Action films rarely inquire into the mindsets or motives of villains. The villains are simply presented as bad guys, foils for superheroes. Cyclops is always a monster. Dragons breathe fire. Witches are wicked. One need not ask why. We are likewise inclined to see terrorists as fiends, wild-eyed expressions of evil, diabolical but two-dimensional, somehow alien—in a word, inhuman. Government officials routinely denounce terrorists as mindless fanatics, savage barbarians, or, more recently, “evildoers” —words that dismiss any intellectual content. The angry rhetoric may resonate with apprehensive homeland audiences, but it impedes efforts to understand the enemy. We...

Unconquerable Nation Instead of surrendering our liberties in the name of security, we must embrace liberty as the source and sustenance of our security. CHAPTER ONE How We Prevail: Secret Service agents gunned down the first team of assassins before they got to the President, but it was a close call. A second team of gunmen managed to get into the House of Representatives, where they wounded five congressmen. A terrorist bomb caused damage but no casualties at the Senate. Troops took up positions at the Capitol and the White House, both of which had been set ablaze. By sundown,...

In mid-2006, nearly five years after 9/11, how is America doing in the global war on terror? The question itself reflects the typically American desire to keep score, to measure progress. Fighting in World War II provided visible mileposts—the invasion of North Africa, the march through Italy, the return to the Philippines, the landing at Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the fall of Berlin, VE Day, VJ Day. It was a bloodier contest, but one in which we knew where we were going. The Cold War that followed lasted decades, and the current contest could easily do the same. The...

A member of the U.S. Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War, Brian Jenkins is often described as the dean of America’s terrorism researchers. This article is drawn from his new book, Unconquerable Nation: Knowing Our Enemy, Strengthening Ourselves. Jenkins is a senior advisor to the president of the RAND Corporation. ______________________________________________ We Americans and our allies have made undeniable progress in reducing al Qaeda’s operational capabilities since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but we have neither dented the determination of the jihadists nor blunted the appeal of al Qaeda’s ideology. Its leaders, although in hiding, communicate frequently. Their message continues...