"Break" Means "Kill," Right?

How to break al Qaeda, while it’s still under warrantee. Or something.

Joe Katzman explains, with his usual thoroughness.

We want Al-Qaeda broken. We want to see terrorist plots foiled. To get that, we need good intelligence. After all, the primacy of intelligence gathering is one of the things that defines 4th Generation Warfare (4GW). One of our key enemies is a stateless entity, and unless we know where to strike all our military power won’t do us much good. A worrying thought in an era that is shifting more and more toward a mindset Ralph Peters calls “apocalyptic terrorism.”

Which leads us to the question: can we really infiltrate Al-Qaeda and its allies? I mean, they’re all fanatics, willing to die and such. Isn’t that a hopeless task? Aren’t we better off using technical intelligence? Won’t future plots be too compartmentalized, like 9/11 was?

No. No. And no. Yes, we can do it. Though you wouldn’t know it by our performance to date.

There’s more. Much more. And believe me, it’s fascinating.