After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy

Parameters, Summer, 2004 by Robert B. Killebrew

Most important, Feldman comes closest of any author yet to describing the winning strategy for the so-called "war on terrorism," which can also be seen as an attack by stateless groups on the foundations and security of the nation-state system. Arrests, strikes by police or counterterrorist squads, even wars like Afghanistan and Iraq are essentially tactical operations in a conflict that can go on forever.

Feldman has a believable and well-researched vision of what it will take to moderate or eventually eliminate the conditions in which terrorism flourishes. It might not be too much of a stretch to say this book could be the "Mr. X" piece of the current struggle against radical Islam. Certainly recent policy initiatives by the US government--which has its hard- and soft-liners, just as did the Truman Administration at the start of the Cold War--seem remarkably similar to recommendations in After Jihad, and may signal the rise of more pragmatic and long-term policies than simply making war. After Jihad is a striking piece of work, and it is one that should be on any serious strategist's bookshelf.