The Conflict

The September 11 attacks on U.S. targets by al-Qaeda agents brought about the first war between a state and a transnational terrorist network. Al-Qaeda erased the difference between the battlefield and the home front by striking from the inside on a wide array of civilian targets and by hiding its battle detachments—the cells—among civilians. The war against terrorism thus poses an enormous challenge: how to go to war and overcome an enemy that has no territory, no army, and no government—and an enemy that has almost no recognizable political and military demands. Past attempts at waging large-scale conventional warfare on militants have fallen short of solving conflicts in a military sense. Recent initiatives are reshaping the U.S. military to be able...