Your weekend reading on terrorism

Your humble blogger has been relatively sanguine about the attempted Times Square bombing effort.  That said, Bruce Hoffman’s National Interest essay — published before the attempt — is a sobering read that is worth a close look.  The paragraph that stood out for me:  We have failed to acknowledge that al-Qaeda has a strategy and, ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Your humble blogger has been relatively sanguine about the attempted Times Square bombing effort.  That said, Bruce Hoffman's National Interest essay -- published before the attempt -- is a sobering read that is worth a close look.  The paragraph that stood out for me: 

Your humble blogger has been relatively sanguine about the attempted Times Square bombing effort.  That said, Bruce Hoffman’s National Interest essay — published before the attempt — is a sobering read that is worth a close look.  The paragraph that stood out for me: 

We have failed to acknowledge that al-Qaeda has a strategy and, moreover, that it is one designed to overwhelm us. It is a strategy of attrition. And it is a strategy of attrition that focuses on strengthening its own capabilities and expanding its recruitment pool, particularly on our shores, while weakening our ability to fight. It seeks to flood already-stressed intelligence systems with “noise” and with low-level threats from “lone wolves” and other jihadi hangers-on (i.e., low-hanging fruit) that will consume the attention of law-enforcement and intelligence agencies in the hope that these distractions will allow more serious operations to slip by unnoticed.

Food for thought. 

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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