Long wars and long telegrams: containing Al-Qaeda

Can history help the 'war on terror'? It is a clichE that 9/11 changed the world. But the idea that the war is exceptional lacks historical perspective. Assuming a radically new threat, the Bush administration proclaimed a theology rather than a coherent strategy. It articulated the 'war on terror' as a utopian and unbounded quest for absolute security. It did not effectively measure costs against risks or orchestrate ends, ways and means. This led the United States into exhausting wars of attrition. A more careful dialogue with the past can address this. Containment, America's core idea during the Cold War, supplies a logic that can inform a prudent strategy. Like Soviet communism with its fatal self-contradictions, Al-Qaeda and its terror network is ultimately self-destructive without major military operations. America and its allies can contain it with more limited measures in the long term as it destroys itself. The US should show restraint, doing nothing to hinder the growing Islamic revolt against Al-Qaeda. In other words, fight small and wait.