Can the United States "Defeat" Al Qaeda?
Abstract
America wins its wars by defeating its enemies. The defeat of an enemy has a context related to the American way of conducting and concluding wars. Historically, American wars have been wars fought against nation-states and the U.S. wins such wars by destroying the adversary's military power and its will to continue fighting. The war is concluded upon a cessation of hostilities followed by a negotiated peace. The war with Al Qaeda is an irregular war, a new form of warfare where the enemy is a non-state actor with global reach. As such, the war is absent the factors playing to America's military strengths and its capacity for defeating an enemy. Most notably, the U.S. conducts combat operations against an identifiable state-organized enemy force by applying decisive military power. The enemy in the War on Terror has no demarcated military forces and employs tactics consistent with irregular warfare. President Obama has made the "defeat" of Al Qaeda a central component of his national security strategy. Given this new brand of war, is the defeat of Al Qaeda even possible?
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA522093
Entities
People
- Steven R. Watt
Organizations
- United States Army War College