Immersed in a war against terrorism, the United States is in crisis because it has been unable to reach a consensus about the true nature of the threat it faces. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the contrasting ways in which the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have described the central military challenge confronting the United States.
The Bush administration characterized the challenge in its 2006 document National Strategy for Combating Terrorism: “America is at war with a transnational terrorist movement fueled by a radical ideology.” Its recommended strategy to combat this movement entailed “destroying the larger al-Qaida network and also confronting the radical ideology that inspired others to join or support the terrorist movement.”
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