There’s only one problem here.
We’re not fighting terrorists.
The RAND study would be relevant if we were up against the Red Brigades, or the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Even the IRA.
But what we are up against is much worse. It’s much more than just terrorism. We are up against a Global Insurgency. They use terrorism, but they are not terrorists proper.
This insurgency is made up of jihadists of different stripes. Most of it is led by al Qaeda, but there are other elements. Three, in fact:
1) Wahhabist – led by al Qaeda as outlined by Lt. Col (Dr) David Kilcullen in the link above
2) The Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is one of their proxies
3) The Deobandists. Active in Pakistan and Asia, mostly
4) The Khomeinists. Hezbollah is one of their proxies, and the Alawite regime in Syria is increasingly a proxy too.
