After years of debate over a replacement for the High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Humvee, it appears that the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) is finally moving toward a prototype and testing phase that could result in production orders from the U.S. Army and Marine Corps for more than 55,000 vehicles.

A final requirements document, issued in January, states that two variants will be built. The Combat Tactical Vehicle (CTV) will seat four and carry 3,500 lb., while the Combat Support Vehicle (CSV) will carry two troops and transport 5,100 lb. There will be two armor configurations: the basic protection package as well as an add-on kit; and one for multiple missions. A third variant that would have been a six-seat infantry carrier with a mid-weight payload has been scrapped.

Six bids for the JLTV were submitted at the end of March for the 27-month engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase contract. The Army is expected to issue three awards in June, each worth up to $65 million. Contractors will have 12 months to build and deliver 20 prototypes for government testing, which will last another 15 months. The decision to begin full-scale production is expected in the second quarter of fiscal 2015, with actual production to start in 2016.

In an era of declining defense budgets, it’s no surprise that the competition for one of the last remaining major vehicle modernization contracts is fierce. The JLTV program is expected to cost well over $10 billion, though some put that figure as high as $70 billion, depending on per-unit cost and the number of vehicles ordered.

A joint venture between the Army and Marine Corps, the JLTV is expected to provide better protection for passengers and better payload capacity than the Humvee, while retaining mobility and reducing overall weight. The Army intends to purchase at least 50,000, while the Marine Corps is expected to acquire 5,500 vehicles, though final numbers will depend on cost.

The Humvee was done in by the effectiveness of improvised explosive devices (IED) and roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though it has been the primary tactical vehicle for the Army and Marine Corps for 25 years, it was unable to withstand these threats.

At a March 27 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Lt. Gen. Robert P. Lennox, Army deputy chief of staff, explained that the vehicle can no longer be used off-base. “The Humvee . . . is incapable of going off the forward operating base,” he said. “It doesn’t provide protection for soldiers today.”

Read more at Defense Technology International.

I spent January listening to the first half of Barbara Tuchman’s Guns of August, in which she dissects the run-up to World War I. Tuchman describes conversations taking place across Europe in which generals and politicians alike are all, “We’re absolutely going to be home by Christmas. There is no possible way that couldn’t happen. The other side? Pushovers. Probably won’t even show up to fight. Also this is totally a great idea and we will get everything we want out of this war. EVERYTHING.”

We all know how well that worked out.

Reading the heated op-eds about the necessity of war with Iran and/or Syria, it strikes me that they’re nothing new. The strange overconfidence on display in the 1910s – that war would be quick, easy, and end favorably – was echoed in the run up to Iraq and is being rehashed today. This reminded me of the Rubicon Theory of War, a barely-noted article from last summer’s issue of International Security that offers valuable food for thought, particularly for those charged with thinking or writing about war. The authors address the overconfidence conundrum, namely, that people who should know better than to think war will be quick and easy often act like this is their first rodeo. The authors conclude:

When people believe they have crossed a psychological Rubicon and perceive war to be imminent, they switch from what psychologists call a “deliberative” to an “implemental” mind-set, triggering a number of psychological biases, most notably overconfidence. These biases can cause an increase in aggressive or risky military planning. Furthermore, if actors believe that war is imminent when it is not in fact certain to occur, the switch to implemental mind-sets can be a causal factor in the outbreak of war, by raising the perceived probability of military victory and encouraging hawkish and provocative policies.

Their research suggests humans are only rational actors until we make a decision - cross the Rubicon - at which point our mental apparatus will go through whatever logical leaps necessary to avoid questioning that decision. The authors frame this idea in terms of mind-sets – deliberative vs. implemental – to account for the full range of attendant biases, which they’ve laid out in a helpful table:

Essentially, when we’ve crossed the Rubicon, we are less likely to accept information that does not support our decision, and we’re more likely to believe we will be successful regardless of evidence to the contrary. This overconfidence leads to riskier war plans and a higher likelihood of going to war. As for the standard rational actor model, the authors suggest that rationality goes out the window once a decision is taken:

Early on in the decisionmaking process, a leader is more likely to be in a deliberative mind-set and may approximate a rational actor. Later during the crisis, the same leader is more likely to be in an implemental mind-set, and may display a range of biases that deviate from rationality.

This phenomenon affects the general public as well. Take Iraq:

For example, in 2003, regime change in Iraq might have been relatively straightforward, but postwar stabilization was likely to be difficult and protracted. Nevertheless, as the invasion drew near, Americans concluded that success in both of these objectives would be swift. … In the months leading up to the conflict, a majority expected “a long and costly involvement” in Iraq. But judgments switched immediately before the war, such that a majority now expected “a fairly quick and successful effort.”

Again, we know how well that turned out.

It should be noted that this decision needn’t be a conscious one, nor is it necessarily predicated upon a rational cost/benefit analysis. However, when one writes that the alternatives are narrowing, as Elliot Abrams did, and that some action must be taken, and then concludes that action must be military in nature, we can assume the die’s been cast:

If success were made of speeches and sanctions the Obama policy would be marvelous — and adequate. The problem is that Syria is at war, and one side or the other will win that war. It will be the Assad/Russia/Iran/Hezbollah side, or the popular uprising with its European, American, and Arab support. A deus ex machina ending is possible, wherein some Syrian Army generals push Assad out and agree to a transition away from Assad and Alawite rule. But such a step by the generals is far more likely if they conclude that Assad’s war is lost.

So we must make sure he loses. Directly or indirectly, the next step is to provide plenty of money and arms, training, and intelligence to the Free Syrian Army and other opponents of the Assads.

Abrams notes that there could be problems down the road, but dismisses them with a handwave: “All those questions will come with victory against the bad guys — but only with victory.” As though the path to victory will have no bearing on the eventual outcomes.  As though arming the opposition is a surefire way to win this war. As though there’s no way it won’t be over in days, not weeks or years.

An attack on Iran’s nuclear sites would also be challenging - which hasn’t hampered calls to go ahead and get on with it already. Polling suggests that Americans are in favor of military strikes if it meant preventing a nuclear Iran. Troublingly, the repetition of the expectation that strikes are imminent means we’re more likely to believe that it is true (psychological biases again), which sets up a feedback loop in which we perceive war as imminent – and thus cross the Rubicon.

Whether we should get into a war with/in Iran/Syria is outside the scope of this blog post. Rather, I want to make clear that there are unconscious psychological biases that come along with the acceptance of war that make it difficult to maintain objectivity and rationality – and that we must be on our guard against sloppy thinking. Once we’ve committed to the idea, we begin to assume things will go our way, and we avoid thinking about – and planning for – negative outcomes. If the actual decision about going to war is a determinant of our ideas about how that war will play out - and not, say, intelligence about an opponent’s military preparedness, or the potential negative consequences of war, or even the difficulty of executing the war – it’s crucial that we guard against overconfidence. And it’s not like we can’t fight against that inclination; it’s just that we often don’t.

At the end of every war, somebody says, “This. This is the end of war. Now, finally, it’s too expensive/too stupid/too wasteful/too destructive.” And indeed, it seems like the costs of war are rising and the benefits shrinking. But we seem incapable of the necessary in-the-moment questioning our cognitive processes to determine whether this war, just this one, will actually be easy, cheap, and rewarding, or if we just really want it to be.

It’s critical for leaders, intellectuals, the media, and the general public alike to understand consciously what mind set we are in and the attendant cognitive biases that brings. These sort of metacognitive tasks are admittedly difficult – our knowledge about how and what we think is limited, and gaining greater control over those processes is challenging (read Thinking, Fast and Slow for some great – and disturbing – examples of this). But it’s not impossible, and given the stakes, I’d argue that we are all responsible for knowing when we’ve cast our lots. Without the self-awareness and intellectual honesty to recognize when we’ve switched to an implemental mindset – and to then guard against the resultant surge of overconfidence – we’re doomed to the same debates and the same outcomes.

The XM25 Individual Semi-Automatic Airburst System (ISAAS) offers a new solution to one of the perennial challenges in combat: how do you hit what you can’t see? One of the defining features of the war in Afghanistan has been a hard-to-hit enemy that uses the terrain to provide cover for pot shots – or worse. Before the XM25, a pinned-down squad had to call in – and wait for – close air support or indirect fire, which requires additional fire integration and the hope that those assets aren’t otherwise engaged. Soon, however, soldiers will be able to hit targets hidden behind boulders or walls in the five seconds it takes to aim, fire, and deliver a high-explosive airburst (HEAB) round above a target.

After a year downrange, the XM25 has proven itself indispensable – so much so that the soldiers who had been testing the five prototypes requested to keep them after the forward operational assessment (FOA) was complete. The rifle went on nine operational missions during the FOA, and while there were few confirmed kills, the “Punisher,” as the XM25 is colloquially known, was effective at ending small arms fire engagements – no small feat. “The XM25 brought the difference to whether they would stay there 15 to 20 minutes shooting [and] taking pot shots or the actual fight ended after using the XM25,” said Sgt. 1^st Class Carlos Smith, Soldier Requirements Division, Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning, Ga., according to a February 2011 Army report.

The concept of the airburst round is at least a decade old, but it’s only in the past few years that the technology has advanced to allow proof of concept. Initially conceived of as a dual rifle and 20mm grenade launcher, the XM25 quickly became single-purpose to reduce the weapon’s weight and to allow for a more lethal 25mm round. In March 2011, ATK received a $65.8 million, 30-month Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract from the Army’s Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier division to further develop and manufacture the complete system. A November 2011 $24 million contract modification will allow ATK to produce an additional 36 prototypes and ammunition for further field tests.

It’s a remarkably simple system to learn to use; two days of training is enough to establish basic proficiency. Advanced target acquisition and fire control systems take the guesswork out of the process. The XM25’s laser rangefinder calculates the distance to the target out to 700m, then allows the soldier to adjust that figure by up to 10m to account for the depth of the shielding object. The gun takes into account environmental factors, then programs the round and arms the fuze. Once fired, a proprietary turn-counting system tracks the number of revolutions the round makes; it then explodes into shrapnel above or to the side of the target.

Read more at Defense Technology International.

In the debate over the underrepresentation of women in foreign policy and national security, we’re focused on the wrong point in the career trajectory. Rather than bemoaning the lack of women at the top, we should be asking whether women at the start of their careers are being offered the assignments, experiences, and opportunities that lead to later success.

There’s a gap in the types of tasks women and men are assigned early in their careers. Intentionally or not, women tend to given more administrative or support work rather than policy or research work; path dependence takes over from there. I recall a prominent scholar regularly asking his female research assistant (RA) to pick up his dry cleaning and take his car to the shop—things he didn’t ask of male RAs.

There’s also a mentorship gap. Young women have trouble finding men willing to act in that capacity because there are few mechanisms to develop the rapport that underlies a good, productive mentoring relationship.  Conversely, men may be concerned about how a mentoring relationship will be perceived and shy away as a result. But mentors are vital for opening doors and offering suggestions and feedback about career choices—efforts that are particularly valuable in the foreign policy world.

The parity problem starts much earlier – and must be addressed much earlier. Without efforts to develop a deeper bench of women with the experiences, training, and knowledge necessary to excel in the field, we’ll always be asking the same questions.

In February 2011, protests broke out in Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya, against the more than 40-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi. During the protests, security forces fired on civilian protesters, causing a broader uprising that led to the establishment of the National Transitional Council (NTC), an interim governing body in opposition to Gaddafi’s regime. As violence escalated and the regime began to issue statements indicating a willingness to massacre civilians in order to crush the rebellion, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution that permitted international intervention in Libya.

NATO member countries quickly established a “no-fly zone” to prevent Gaddafi’s military from bombing rebel-held cities; they also continued to embargo arms shipments to Libya as per a February United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution. Ill-trained, ill-equipped, and lacking a unified command structure, the opposition forces nevertheless seized Tripoli in late August. On October 20, 2011, Gaddafi was reportedly killed in Sirte as the city fell to the NTC forces. His son and presumed successor, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who had been a central figure throughout the civil war, remained in hiding until his capture by rebel fighters in mid-November; he awaits trial in Libya. Since August, the NTC has attempted to consolidate control of the country, though the issue of overseas frozen assets and the need to disarm and demobilize rebel fighters continue to present serious challenges.

The possibility of the use of rape as a tool of war in Libya was first brought to international attention in March whenIman al-Obeidi, a Libyan law student, burst into the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli and told the foreign journalists staying there that she had been held for two days and gang-raped by Gaddafi’s soldiers. Security forces dragged her from the hotel, and the government tried to downplay the incident by claiming she was mentally ill, but the damage to the regime had been done. Rumors of a coordinated campaign of mass rape trickled out, but the sourcing was thin and contentious. Central to the controversy was the work of Seham Sergewa, a Libyan psychologist who claimed to have sent out 70,000 questionnaires and received 60,000 responses, despite the lack of a functional postal system. Among these responses were 259 reports of rape; when asked about the possibility of following up with these individuals, however, Sergewa claimed to have lost contact with them. Further accounts by rebel fighters of finding Viagra and condoms, ostensibly used to help soldiers to rape, in burned-out loyalist vehicles went unsubstantiated as well.

While evidence of systematic rape remains scarce, it is clear that there were numerous incidents of rape, and it is equally clear that the threat of rape was used to instill fear in entire communities. “In Libya, when rape occurs, it seems to be a whole village or town which is seen to be dishonored,” said Arafat Jamal of the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR. In a report presented to the U.N. Security Council in November, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that “in Libya, rape is considered to be one of the most serious crimes, affecting not just the victim, but also the family and the community, and can trigger retaliation and honor-based violence.” In an interview conducted by international aid organization Physicians for Human Rights, one informant said, ‘“If Gaddafi destroys a building, it can be rebuilt. But when Gaddafi rapes a woman, the whole community is destroyed forever. He knows this, and so rape is his best weapon … I’d prefer to die if that happened to my wife.”

Read more at Women Under Siege. 

As wars become less about states and more about societies, women can play a greater role in shaping or ending conflicts. So why do we still think of war as inherently male?

After two and half years of extradition proceedings and a three-week trial, it took jurors a mere two days to declare Viktor Bout guilty of a litany ofterrorism-related charges, including conspiring to kill Americans by agreeing to sell weapons to foreign terrorist organizations.

Colloquially known as the “Merchant of Death”, Viktor Bout has been a larger-than-life figure for decades, even serving as the inspiration for the 2005 film Lord of War. Bout was arrested in Thailand in 2008 after a sting operation in which U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials posed as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and has been accused of human rights violations by the United Nations.

Bout’s personal history is littered with similar engagements in which he agreed to sell arms to terrorist groups, warlords, and dictators. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bout purchased a number of aircraft and opened several holding companies through which he was able to obscure his activities, both legal and illegal. He’s accused of – but has never been convicted of – having funneled weapons to some of the world’s worst conflicts with relative impunity, including Angola, Liberia, Afghanistan, and the Congo.

While it’s cause for celebration that Bout has been convicted and faces 25 years to life in prison, it should not go unremarked that he was arrested, extradited, tried, and convicted on terrorism charges – not arms trafficking charges. Bout’s history may be awash in blood, but the jurors in his New York case were instructed to disregard all of it, lest unproven and non-chargeable allegations of gun-running sway them. Instead, they were strictly to address whether he intended to provide material support to terrorists intent on harming Americans. Bout’s defense, in fact, centered not around his innocence – his lawyer acknowledged his 20 years history of arms trafficking – but around his inability to provide weapons – essentially, that Bout was lying when he claimed he could provide arms to the FARC.

In the end, Bout is symptomatic of a systemic failure to regulate the global trade in arms. In a world where 90% of conflict deaths are civilians and where human rights violations are endemic, responsible nations must recognize the importance of negotiating an Arms Trade Treaty in good faith, one that will end the culture of impunity surrounding the arms trafficking networks that gave rise to Viktor Bout. Absent an enforceable international treaty on the arms trade, states with an incentive to protect traffickers will continue to do so, as Russia endeavored to protect Bout from extradition and trial. The Viktor Bouts of the world provide the tools that fuel instability and decrease human security; it’s time we had a legal mechanism by which to address this problem.

Even as NATO concluded the seven-month campaign that helped oust Muammar Gaddhafi, the UN Security Council has formally recognized the threat posed by the late dictator’s unsecured arms depots and the resulting proliferation of weapons, particularly small arms and man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS.

In a Russian-drafted resolution adopted unanimously yesterday afternoon, the Security Council urged Libyan authorities and the international community to address the very real problem of post-conflict arms proliferation.

Through the unanimous adoption of resolution 2017 (2011), the Council called upon Libyan authorities to take all necessary steps to ensure the proper custody of portable surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADS (man-portable air defence systems), and all other arms and related materiel, as well as to meet Libya’s arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation obligations under international law, as well as to continue close coordination on the destruction of all stockpiles of chemical weapons with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

States in the region were called upon to take appropriate measures to prevent proliferation of those weapons as well.  Other Member States and international and regional organizations were called upon take appropriate action to assist the Libyan authorities and States in the region towards that goal.

Warnings about the threat posed by loose shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS have been circulating since early March. During the conflict, however, little action was taken to prevent their theft; with competent Libyan fighters at a premium and NATO engaged strictly in a sea- and air-based campaign, simple measures such as posting guards around stockpiles were not taken. As a result, in late summer, particularly after the fall of Tripoli, NGOs and journalists were able to document the missing missiles, though nobody could say definitively where the missiles had gone. Their findings shouldn’t have been surprising – arms proliferation during conflict is almost inevitable – but the lack of attention and action over the summer could have long-term consequences for Libya and for the world.

While the MANPADS may the most visible issue, as they pose a threat to civilian aircraft and are in high demand by terrorist groups, other small arms have the potential to wreak havoc throughout the region. Artillery shells, Grad rockets, and land mines could prove valuable to insurgent groups, as they could be made into improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Additionally, Gaddhafi is known to have retained chemical weapons, specifically a stash of mustard agent.

It’s encouraging that the Security Council countries agree on the importance of this issue, but the resolution stops short of addressing what the “necessary steps” are to prevent arms proliferation. Nor does it specify what “appropriate measures” regional neighbors are expected to take, leaving the door open to interpretation and potential abuse if countries choose to pursue interventionist policies under the guise of halting proliferation.

To be fair, with little knowledge of where these missiles may have ended up, the necessary next steps are not entirely clear. Libya’s National Transitional Council will need to centralize power over the brigades of fighters and document the weapons systems they control, which will be no easy task. Given a poor population in a state with porous borders and established black market arms networks familiar with the region, a buyback program may be the quickest and most efficient method of drawing loose arms out of Libya. Such a program would provide a source of cash for those in possession of these weapons without the hassle of finding a buyer, but it would be expensive and could prove hard to manage on a national scale. And depending on who has the weapons now, it could also be politically untenable to provide cash to insurgent or terrorist groups.

But regardless of methods, the international community must use this resolution to ramp up its efforts to contain the spread of weapons.

Much of the world has banned the weapons for their dangers to civilians, but the U.S. is among a handful of states resisting their abolition.

Last week, representatives from 130 governments gathered in Beirut for the second meeting of parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), a 2008 treaty signed by 90 countries in an attempt to abolish cluster munitions. After years of failed attempts to roll back these weapons, the CCM attempts a new approach to limiting cluster munitions, bombs that open mid-flight to release smaller bombs (known as submunitions) over a wide area. Mostly meant to be used against infantry or tanks, they provide a certain economy of force – one cluster bomb can destroy multiple targets — but present a substantial risk to civilians during and especially after conflict. Most submunitions are not precision-guided; historically, a high percentage fail to explode, meaning they can remain on or just beneath the ground for years, waiting for some unwitting civilian to disturb them. Most models do not have safety features, such as an automatic self-destruct capability, and so remain in war zones, urban and rural, long after the conflict has ended. There were some real success stories at the convention: nine states parties have completed the destruction of their cluster munitions stockpiles; the United Kingdom and Germany announced that they have each destroyed more than 60 percent, a rapid and substantial reduction for two of the world’s biggest stockpilers. However, the world’s primary users and stockpilers of cluster munitions, including the United States, remained notably absent from the CCM talks.

The CCM, also known as the Oslo Process, was first proposed as a way to move forward without the United Nations, which has been excruciatingly slow in addressing cluster munitions. Efforts to work cluster munitions into the UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) have foundered due to differing ideas about what types of cluster munitions should be included. Some states, such as Norway, have argued for a blanket ban, while the United States has pushed to have newer, more advanced munitions permitted. Despite almost a decade of debate and review meetings, the lines in this old argument have hardly shifted.

Read more at The Atlantic.

Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
John Wiley, 2011
288 pp. $25.95
ISBN: 978–1–11809–494–5

Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles. If you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.” In Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross argues that despite Osama bin Laden’s position atop America’s Most Wanted list for over a decade, the United States has never made a serious effort to understand his—and, by extension, al Qaeda’s—strategy. As a result, we have assumed the role of George Foreman in his famous match with Muhammad Ali; the harder we hit, the more we wear ourselves out as al Qaeda leans back against the ropes and waits.

Gartenstein-Ross provides a wide-ranging synopsis of America’s decade-long struggle against al Qaeda. Over the course of the book, he lays out the missteps the United States has made in its prosecution of the war on terror, beginning with the most fundamental mistake: U.S. inability or unwillingness to consider al Qaeda’s strategy when formulating its responses. According to the author, “[al Qaeda’s] strategy could be known through a nuanced look at bin Laden’s personal history and thought. Even at the time of 9/11, it was clear that bin Laden believed it was essential to undermine the economy of his superpower foe and to make the battlefield on which the American had to fight as broad as possible. U.S. strategic documents analyzing al Qaeda reveal a lack of awareness of these twin goals” (p. 35).

This lack of awareness of al Qaeda’s interest in weakening the American economy led to a decade of intense politicization of national security, which in turn created a culture in which any amount of spending could be justified in the name of fighting terror. Gartenstein-Ross documents the gross mismanagement of funds, duplication of effort across agencies, and minimal oversight of contractors. This resource inefficiency was most clearly on display in the Department of Homeland Security, where the combination of multi-billion-dollar budgets, tight deadlines, and intense pressure to do something without clear priorities led to massive cost overruns. As the author points out, this wasteful and inefficient spending was itself a boon to al Qaeda in its efforts to drive up the cost to the United States.

The other element of al Qaeda’s strategy involved broadening the battlefield. The United States eagerly embraced this approach without realizing that doing so played into al Qaeda’s hands. In 2002, President George W. Bush said that “the best way to keep America safe from terrorism is to go after terrorists where they plan and hide” (p. 13). This was exactly what bin Laden wanted; by inducing the United States to fight outside its borders, he understood that there would be long-term costs that would put further economic pressure on America. While the war in Afghanistan was a war of necessity, as al Qaeda safe havens would have continued to pose systemic risks to America, Gartenstein-Ross excoriates the Bush administration for the Iraq war, calling it “naïve best-case scenario thinking” that “would erode American power and provide al Qaeda with a remarkable opportunity to regroup” (pp. 101–102). By adding a new battlefield that was previously unconnected to terrorist activity, U.S. policymakers ratcheted up the costs while providing al Qaeda’s leadership time to regroup as the military pulled back in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Throughout Bin Laden’s Legacy, Gartenstein-Ross repeatedly returns to our failure to treat al Qaeda’s leaders as people capable of sophisticated strategic thought. Bin Laden believed that “economic power was the source of U.S. military might, and thus . . . saw weakening the economy as a critical aspect of victory” (p. 9). Through al Qaeda, he promulgated the idea of driving up costs as a way to bring America down; today, we face an enemy that knows we will respond to every attack by increasing our spending. Yet as Gartenstein-Ross argues, we have not treated jihadi terrorists as enemies worthy of understanding. Instead, we have focused on the tactic of terrorism without probing what al Qaeda hoped to gain through its use.

Urgent without being alarmist and eminently readable, Bin Laden’s Legacy is a testament to Gartenstein-Ross’s deep knowledge of his field and his capacity to cut through feeble arguments to lay out only the most salient evidence. His legal training combines neatly with his moderate, academic approach to produce arguments so logical that they seem obvious at first glace; only later does the reader realize this is a fresh read on the past 10 years of counterterrorism efforts.

If there is fault to be found, it is in the final chapter, in which the author lays out a roadmap for future efforts against AQ, its branches and franchises, and jihadi terrorism more broadly. The scope of the effort, however, is too great for a single chapter in a 300-page book. While individual recommendations such as finding a liquid fuel alternative to oil or implementing civil service reform may be necessary, Gartenstein-Ross fails to elucidate how America can achieve those goals. As the author points out, path dependence has the United States firmly in its grip; it will be hard to retool our approach at this late date, and there is insufficient practical guidance in Bin Laden’s Legacy to consider this a guidebook for future counterterrorism efforts.

Nevertheless, as improbable as it may once have seemed, al Qaeda’s goal of crippling the United States is achievable if we refuse to recognize our weaknesses and take a hard look at our unsustainable security structures and our untenable fiscal situation. Indeed, the biggest threat to our security and our way of life may very well be us. Al Qaeda cannot reasonably be blamed for the housing bubble bursting or the debt ceiling crisis, but the combined weight of our self-generated economic misfortunes and the long-term costs of our wars of choice leave us with little spare capacity to respond to the threats we still face from a nimble, adaptive enemy. Bin Laden’s Legacy lays bare al Qaeda’s strategy; the question now is whether we will be able to adapt to face it.