Combating Terrorism. The 9/11 Commission Recommendations and the National Strategies

摘要

These comments today are informed, in part, by a two-part scenario exercise recently developed and conducted at the RAND Corporation. The first part of the exercise attempted to simulate a debate among Jihadist leaders about their future strategic goals and attack operations. The objective was to have people think like the Jihadists. In the second part of the exercise, participants assessed how the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism prepares the country to contend with possible next moves of the Jihadist movement. Exercise participants included RAND staff from a variety of different disciplines as well as outside experts, including senior congressional staff and former counterterrorism officials from the Clinton and Bush administrations. These exercises were not designed to be predictive. They provided a process to systematically explore possible futures, identify gaps in planning, and highlight insufficiently examined issues. Even though the data set of exercises is limited in size and qualitative in approach, the findings were insightful and bear on the subject of today's hearing.