Killing in the Shadows, and Other Special Operations

摘要

The world changed after 9/11, and so did U.S. national security policy. Doubters from Berlin to Baghdad are now believers that the U.S. will not go back to business as usual, at least in the short run. President Bush declared a 'war' on terrorism, but it is clear that he did not mean conventional warfare like anything we have sustained before. The call to arms for a 'war on terrorism' is partly a bumper sticker for efforts cutting across all the national instruments of power to address a dire threat (and thus not strictly 'war' at all.) In another sense, however, the administration is closely following Clausewitz' dictum that the first priority must be to understand the kind of war one is facing; it is one tailor made for Special Operations, not as a silver bullet, but as a major, increasingly important tool.