ABSTRACT
Apart from the moralism-which is always needed-there are few “new” ideas in the new strategy. Th at paucity suggests that we have learned less than we should about our enemies and how to beat them during so many years of fi ghting Al Qaeda. Counterterrorism specialists will recognize many ideas of the last administration, pulled forward for continued good service but without imaginative turns or enhancements. (Even the idea of “4 Ds” was used by the preceding White House strategy.) Th ose who believe we have been poor players in the fi eld of “public diplomacy” will not even fi nd that phrase in the latest National Strategy for Counterterrorism. Th ere are too many exhortations to improve our image abroad, yet almost no ideas on how to do that. Th e reader with expectations that a “national strategy” against terrorists will surely set out approaches to “political warfare” will not fi nd those words either.
