Katherine Zimmerman
Publisher American Enterprise Institute
Overview: America’s counterterrorism strategy risks becom- ing irrelevant to the new reality. It misconcep-tualizes the enemy as a set of discrete groups and individuals to defeat and kill. It wrongly emphasizes a kinetic approach to addressing the threats these groups pose to American interests and the homeland. It underestimates the importance of the Salafi-jihadimovement that persists beyond the defeat of specific threat groups. It does not account for the global move-ment’s reprioritization of its efforts since the outbreak of conflict in the post–Arab Spring environment and its reorganization on the ground.
