July 27, 2007

Authors Argue That Counterterrorism Efforts Must Be Handled Delicately

By DAVID GLENN

COPS AND BOMBERS: "It takes networks to fight networks." That phrase has become a truism among counterterrorism officials since the September 11, 2001, attacks. If spy agencies, law-enforcement offices, and military units can become as supple, fluid, and nonhierarchical as Al Qaeda — so the argument goes — they will better detect and dismantle terrorist networks.

But that "counter-netwar" model is actually bunk, says Michael C. Kenney, an assistant professor of

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