ABSTRACT
On 16 October 2003, just over two years after the devastating attacks against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defence of the Bush Administration, penned a memo to four of his top aides.2 The subject of this missive was the United States’ progress in the ‘global war on terror’. Not surprisingly, given the sieve-like nature of Washingtonian politics, Rumsfeld’s memo soon found its way into the hands of the press. What was surprising, however, was the tone of Rumsfeld’s musings – candid and introspective, in contrast with the Secretary’s (and broader Administration’s) generally upbeat diagnosis of the fight against jihadist violence.3 Indeed, where only a month earlier Rumsfeld had assured United States Air Force personnel that the ‘war on terror’ was a ‘war we’re going to win’;4 he was now asking his key lieutenants: ‘Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror?’5
