Sorry Bob, I may have missed your point - hotel room still not available - so still no sleep and so my thoughts are as fragged as they were earlier!

I think that the state - non-state deter thing was my point. Yet, I thought that you were writing a paper on how to deter non-state-actors. Your last comment seems to suggest to me that deter is a reasonable COA against a state - because they make a cost-benefit decision and hopefully we have stacked the odds in our favour.

Whereas a NSA has a different worldview and therefore unresponsive - either because they are deluded or immune (e.g. different value set). And even if they are responsive - we have to demonstrate the lesson frequently because of the myriad of NSAs - which leads to my attritional point.

So what’s the secret?

And if I might modify your elephant metaphor - what we are doing is swinging at the balls, sometimes we hit them, but mostly we don't – when we miss we sometimes kick the elephant – which is big and strong. I mean there's no real evidence that places AQ at the centre of Muslim interest - whereas being male, my balls are most definitely at the centre of my interest – especially if someone is trying to kick them.