After the War on Terror: RUSI report

This evaded my radar, although I am a RUSI member, follow: http://www.rusi.org/news/ref:N4B0D475267397/ The entire report is on the link and no I've not read it yet.

Quote:

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How will the global struggle against terrorism evolve in the next decade? A new study published by the Royal United Services Institute brings together experts from across the world of counter-terrorism to provide answers, and to reflect on the successes and failures of the War on Terror.

After the War on Terror: Regional and Multilateral Perspectives on Counter-Terrorism Strategy provides critical insights on strategy and regional analyses of global terrorist threats.

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Contents:

1. Legitimacy, Credibility and Relevance: The Tools of Terrorists and ‘Counter-Terrorists’ by Richard Barrett
2. Measuring Success and Failure in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: US Government Metrics of the Global War on Terror by Alex P Schmid and Rashmi Singh
3. Countering Terrorism: The OSCE as a Regional Model by Raphael F Perl
4. Somalia and the Horn of Africa by Max Taylor
5. Jihadist Terrorism in North Africa and the Maghreb by Lianne Kennedy Boudali
6. Islamist Terrorism in the Caucasus and Central Asia by Ekaterina Stepanova
7. Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban: Dangerous Alliances in Afghanistan and Pakistan
by Abdel Bari Atwan

[rant]

I cringe every time I hear people talk about the "War on Terror" or the "War on Terrorism". I understand that politicians have to speak in convenient sound bites and there will always be some who know no better than to parrot the rhetoric, but one expects more from an institution that describes its mission as "independent thinking".

Terrorism is a tactic, not an actor. It's a tactic that's been adopted at many times and in many places by many actors, state and non-state. It will surely be adopted again in the future, likely by movements we've not yet heard of. You don't fight a war against a tactic; you fight a war against one or more actors.

In this case we are fighting a war against a loosely organized coalition of largely non-state actors, straddling the interface between the political and the religious, that has chosen to adopt terrorism as one of its primary tactics. We are not fighting against terrorism.

How are we supposed to win a war if we're afraid to accurately identify who we're fighting against?

[/rant]