In a brilliant essay in the journal The American Interest, Barry Posen of MIT writes,

"Today the most imminent U.S. security problem has to do not with conquest or intimidation but safety...The main discrete threat is al-Qaeda, but if the foregoing analysis is right, there are deeper forces feeding that organization than its interpretation of religious texts. These forces could give rise to other violent organizations. In other words, al-Qaeda is not the problem, but a particularly threatening example of a condition of global disorder and disaffection capable of giving rise to numerous such groups, Islamist and otherwise."

Posen asks what the United States can do to address the conditions that gave rise to al Qaida. This is a vitally important issue. The implication, of course, is that the Bush strategy misdiagnosed the problem by focusing on the absence of liberal democracy.

But there is another question which fewer strategists are grappling with: If in fact, it is systemic conditions which gave rise to al Qaida and if, in fact, the United States cannot ameliorate them, who will arise to replace al Qaida once that organization is destroyed? Are there proto-insurgencies or nascent radical organizations out there now which will rise in power with al Qaida gone? How can we identify them? How can we stop them?

Strategy is not simply dealing with extant threats, but preventing the rise of new ones. Here's hoping that someone is grappling with this issue now.