Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
Bruce Hoffman comes out with a brutal review in Foreign Affairs of Dr. Marc Sageman's new book: Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the 21st Century.

Basically he argues that Sageman radically underestimates al-Qaeda Central's organizational strength and reach, and thinks that Sageman's methods lead him incorrectly to focus entirely on spontaneous jihadists inspired by rather than controlled by al-Qaeda. Hoffman believes that the main terrorist threat remains al-Qaeda and its associated organizations, rather than Sageman's theory of a disassociated movement of individual and small groups.

I haven't read Sageman's book, but Hoffman has him dead to rights on the historical inaccuracies. Thoughts?
I have read Sageman's book and I can see where he may have fallen into a trap that can catch both social scientists and journalists. He wanted to rely on empirical evidence but to do that requires assuming that the evidence he can get his hands on--basically interrogations of captured terrorists--reflects the population of terrorists as a whole. That may or may not be true (I haven't read Bruce's review, so I don't know if he says that).

Journalists hit the same problem--they rely on people who will talk to them, which are often people with a gripe. Thus they may end up with a portrait that is more negative than reality.

That said, I have no idea what the solution is (unless we get the full AQ phone roster).