The military side of the war on terrorism, says Adam Garfinkle, is a necessary but not sufficient aspect of the solution. Weapons of mass destruction are activated by ideas of mass destruction, and these ideas arise from complex historical and social factors. A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism offers concrete steps for undermining the very notion that terrorism is a legitimate method of political struggle—and for changing the conditions that lead people to embrace it.
”Terrorism” is an abstraction. You can't win the war on ”terrorism” any better than you can win the war on ”winter”, or the war on ”cyan”. But, this is why the academia exist: like in Orwell's room 101 to make the mind tell your eye what color the ball is.