As we noted the invasion of Afghanistan, while it denied Al-Qaeda access to resources like training camps, did not result in the capture of the group’s leader, Bin Laden, or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.  While Al-Qaeda has not repeated its attack of 9/11 on the continental United States, it and associated groups, have been active in other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Morocco.

It is my contention that terrorism cannot be defeated by the use of conventional armed forces, although special forces, like the SAS, can have an important role to play.  The nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and B-52s increasingly represent a baroque arsenal which is irrelevant to most anti-terrorism operations.  The ability of a submarine to launch a convention cruise missile, or the use of a small commando carrier to launch a small special forces assault on a camp, and to place a single Harrier strike on a special forces designated target, may be the real contribution required from conventional forces.  The real “war against terror” was never going to be fought in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Syria, using Abrams tanks and M16s, it is an intelligence war, fought with computers, software, satellites, analysts and the agents of the secret agencies of the state. 

The defense against terrorism depends on six primary factors:

1. Identification of the source of the threat; the groups and individuals;
2. The ability to collect information which can be processed to produce intelligence;
3. The ability to analyze and assess the intelligence gathered;
4. The political will to successfully exploit the intelligence assessments produced;
5. The resources, and the leadership and management skills to respond swiftly and decisively to actual and possible threats;
6. The ability to exclude potential terrorists from entering the territory of the State and denying them access to possible targets (places and individuals, such as the head of state), and
7. The education of the general population to the nature of the threats that it faces and an explanation for the behavior of the terrorist group concerned.

There are a number of interdependencies in these factors.  Analysis of intelligence may reveal new threats.  The education of the general population is linked to the political will to oppose terrorism, and it would be impossible for any intelligence officer, or special operations operative, to undertake his or her work without the full support of the political power.

There is one other factor that cannot be ignored, the fact that in order to counter international terrorist networks full international cooperation is essential, as no one country on its own, even the United States, can today single-handedly acquire, and analyze, all the intelligence data that it requires in order to counter these emergent threats.