Bin Laden is a Mad Man

When Osama bin Laden released his latest video back in early September, White House security adviser Fran Townsend dismissed the al Qaeda leader as “a man on the run in a cave who is virtually impotent other than his ability to get these messages out.”  A new West Point study of the organization’s capabilities would seem to agree:

Its successful attacks on America, first on the embassies in Africa and then on 9/11, gave al-Qa’ida’s message an immediate global audience, but the American military response to these attacks have so seriously degraded its organizational capacities that management of that message has been virtually all that al-Qa’ida Central has subsequently been able to muster.

In other words, the organizational structure is broken, but the message is thriving. And bin Laden’s savvy ability to manage the al Qaeda “brand,” as the authors of the report call it, may actually be the real danger.  

 …al-Qa’ida’s real strength has never been as a guerrilla fighting force; rather its strength comes from its ability to transform the local concerns of Islamist activists into what this report describes as “a unifying vision of apocalyptic inter-civilizational conflict”. Because these capabilities and their proponents are still in place, al-Qa`ida continues to achieve success.

Effective counterterrorism must better address these capabilities. The tools and prescriptions needed to do so will fall largely outside the realm of the military options that have done so well against the first faction. Eroding al-Qa’ida’s brand appeal—reducing its share of the ideological marketplace —will require innovative and multi-lateral approaches with the US hand rarely seen or suspected.

Al Qaeda can’t take on the full might of the U.S. military. But its ability to effectively fight a brand war with the country that created Madison Avenue might be just as remarkable. Do you think bin Laden watches Mad Men?