The Next Attack

The authors of the bestseller The Age of Sacred Terror show how the United States is losing the war on terror and what we need to do if we're serious about winning it.

We are losing. Four years and two wars after September 11, 2001, the United States is no closer to victory in the "war on terror." In fact, we are unwittingly clearing the way for the next attack.

In this provocative new book, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon show how the terrorist threat is evolving, with a broadening array of tactics, an army of new fighters and, most ominously, a widening base of support in the global Muslim community. The jihadist movement has been galvanized by the example of 9/11 and the missteps of the U.S. government, which has consistently failed to understand the nature of the new terror. Left on this trajectory, much worse faces us in the near future.

It doesn't have to be this way. The Next Attack makes the case that America has the capacity to stem the tide of Islamic terrorism, but Benjamin and Simon caution that this will require a far-reaching and creative new strategy, one that recognizes that the struggle has been over-militarized and that a campaign for reform must be more than rhetoric and less than bayonets. And they point out how America's increasing tendency to frame the conflict in religious terms has undermined our ability to advance our interests.
Is America is truly equipped to do what is necessary to combat Islamist terrorism, or are we too blinded by our own ideology? The answer to that question will determine how secure we will truly be, in the years and decades to come.

DANIEL BENJAMIN is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He previously served as director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff and as special assistant and foreign-policy speechwriter for President Clinton. He is a former Berlin bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and foreign correspondent for Time. He is a graduate of Harvard and Oxford universities.

STEVEN SIMON teaches at Georgetown University, having previously been assistant director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He served on the National Security Council staff for five years following a career at the U.S. Department of State in Middle Eastern security affairs. He holds degrees from Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton and was an international affairs fellow at Oxford.