Stuck Fighting the Last War
It’s 2011—not 2001—that defines the challenge facing the United States and its allies in combatting jihadism.
Seventeen years after 9/11, the outcome of the War on Terror that followed seems indisputable. Al-Qaeda operates in many more countries and has a larger number of followers than it did before 2001. Other threats have emerged, as well. The Islamic State overshadowed its former patron in al-Qaeda in 2014, when it controlled vast areas in multiple countries, and has left behind misery, devastation, and hatred that could fuel conflicts for another generation. The war against extremism is not working.
The problem lies in the persistent tendency to view the threat of jihadism through the post-2001 prism. The
