Where do we go from here?

Any strategy for defeating terrorism needs a basic framework to get started. As Kurt Campbell and I discuss in our forthcoming book, "Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security," there are perhaps five key elements. First, overseas military operations to deprive al Qaeda and related organizations of sanctuaries. Second, overseas intelligence and law enforcement operations to do the same (generally in conjunction with other countries). Third, homeland security in the specific sense of protecting the country against any attacks that may be attempted by existing terrorists. Fourth, policies designed to pressure and constrain state sponsors of terrorism (with the overthrow of Saddam being one extreme example). And fifth, a longterm strategy to address the "hearts and minds" question and dampen the formation of the next generation of jihadists.

This essay focuses on the last of these five elements of strategy. Regarding the others, a great deal has generally already been said, or our overall national policy has been at least passable in quality. The overthrow of the Taliban was a sound decision. Multilateral intelligence and law enforcement operations have had some success in eliminating most of al Qaeda's top leadership. While much remains to be done in homeland security, we are basically on the right track in most aspects of the effort, and the current administration has, in my view, made substantial progress. And the Iraq war is sufficiently scrutinized elsewhere that I am going to dodge the issue here.

But on the last matter, America's progress in winning the longterm war on terror has been mediocre. While we have been killing terrorists abroad and reinforcing cockpit doors at home, we have not made progress in reducing the next generation of radical jihadists. In fact, indicators suggest that the broader radical jihadist diaspora may have grown in size. The battle of ideas, the struggle for hearts and minds, and the conflict between reformers and violent reactionaries within the Islamic world are not being won — especially in several key countries, notably Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iraq (things are thankfully somewhat better starting in India and going eastward, where half the world's Muslims live).

Given the seriousness of the problems at hand, and the newness of the types of responses that are required to address it, no single presidency could be expected to strike a decisive blow against global violent jihadism. However, the image of unilateralism and American arrogance that the Bush administration has often projected to the world has complicated our efforts to prevail in this titanic struggle. Moreover, despite good initiatives toward the Islamic world on matters such as trade, the Bush administration has not seized the historic moment to develop a broad-ranging policy for addressing the full breadth of the challenge. Most importantly of all, it has done little to help the Islamic world help strengthen and moderate itself.

The current generation of al Qaeda and related violent jihadists needs to be destroyed, to be sure. But we absolutely need a strategy to prevent the next generation from being formed.

No less a hawk than Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld '52 agrees. Though he bore responsibility for misguided policies at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere that hurt America's image and hindered the longterm war on terror, he was right about the need for a strategy to win that war. In his famous memo of October 2003, Rumsfeld suggested that the next generation of terrorists was being recruited and trained faster than the current generation was being arrested or killed. Without a more integrated and sweeping strategy, the United States would be destined to face a longterm threat of steady or even growing strength.

This observation seems even truer today than when Rumsfeld wrote his memo. Al Qaeda as a strong, vertical organization has been weakened. But it has also metastasized into many local groups, making up a broader radical jihadist movement and showing no signs of weakening. And extremist ideological groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir remain vigorous and active in dozens of countries advancing the ideologies that help inspire radical jihadist violence.

The Bush administration's 2006 National Security Strategy makes similar points about the need for a longterm strategy, arguing that "in the short run, the fight involves using military force and other instruments of national power to kill or capture the terrorists, deny them safe haven or control of any nation; prevent them from gaining access to WMD; and cut off their sources of support. In the long run, winning the war on terror means winning the battle of ideas, for it is ideas that can turn the disenchanted into murderers willing to kill innocent victims."

President Bush came up with a partial answer to this challenge in his second inaugural address, with its focus on democracy promotion. It was a good speech as far as it went. While hardly a panacea, and hardly a radical notion in the history of American foreign policy, it makes up part of what America's longterm counterterrorism policy should be. What is needed is not to discard Bush's framework, but to complement it with other policies.

A broader policy framework would feature elements of foreign assistance programs, better diplomacy and similar "soft" programs. Such programs are not an alternative to strong military and intelligence; they are a necessary complement. Defeating an enemy requires a comprehensive approach when the enemy is so entrenched in many countries and so capable of regenerating its ranks through the propagation of a popular, if brutal, ideology.

The core of the strategy Campbell and I develop in our book, however, focuses on helping Muslim societies strengthen their own developmental paths. The single most important element in this type of program should be a major global initiative to help improve education throughout the developing world — not just by the United States, but by the community of donors in general, and not just toward Islamic countries, but toward the developing countries as a group.

The key point here is to recognize that it is the overall economic, educational, civil and political strength of the world's Muslim countries that matters crucially for our longterm security. Short-term sentiments about the United States in these countries matter less than helping them ensure their own citizens have a promising future. When countries like India, or Malaysia, or even Indonesia get their acts together, offer their people a better future, and think more about improving their living standards and strengthening their societies than about hating or attacking others, we are on the way to a safer future.

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Many policies have a place within this overall philosophy. But we emphasize helping education as a key cornerstone of the effort. There are numerous ways to do this, but the central initiative point is that this is one of those areas of public policy where simply providing more resources makes a big difference — and is critical to any chance of success.

This type of approach, building on the logic of the millennium development goals of the United Nations, can avoid charges of American imperialism and the associated damage to U.S.-Islam relations they could cause, while nonetheless directly addressing the counterterrorism agenda. Taken together, our various proposals might cost the United States about $5 billion a year — a substantial figure, but roughly equal to one month's military expenditures in Iraq. Given the stakes, the price is hardly excessive.