A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism

Adam Garfinkle and his expert contributors—all intimately familiar with Middle Eastern social settings and political cultures—examine the diplomatic, educational, and religious aspects of the problem. They show how we can—and must—stigmatize the idea of murdering civilians for any political cause, identify and stop the flow of money and other resources to those who carry out terrorism, refute the distortions of U.S. motivations that are promulgated by Islamic propagandists, and work patiently at social, economic, and political reform in Muslim countries.

While agreeing that the military, "kinetic" side of the "war on terrorism" is a necessity, Garfinkle (formerly of the Hoover Institution and of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century) stresses that the "nonkinetic" aspects of it, such as public diplomacy, are equally necessary. He has asked the contributors of these 16 pieces to think of themselves as addressing policy makers in their advice on how to conduct these "nonkinetic" activities. The authors nearly uniformly reject the idea that U.S. policy is to blame for Arab and Muslim antipathy towards the United States, instead suggesting more culturally sensitive communications, cultural and scientific exchanges, promoting "pro-Western" indigenous forces, and other such strategies. A number of the essayists contribute individual country studies. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR