I agree with the posts that say, 4GW is used as a catch all that makes it pretty much useless as a theory. A few years back I was researching a paper and ran across a white supremacist goon quoting a COL Ulius Louis Amoss and his theory of leaderless resistance. It was interesting, but off my topic. My understanding of his basic theory is that any network can be infiltrated and subsequently rolled up (e.g. French Paratrooper’s success in Algiers). Amoss’ answer to that dilemma was to do away with the network, believing that the ideology of the resistance could guide their attacks in place of a command structure. I didn’t (and still don’t) see how a resistance movement made up like that would ever defeat a functional central government. And after a few half hearted attempts of finding a copy of Amoss’ writings that weren’t tainted by the aforementioned racist thug, I gave up and moved on. But the number of acts of violence perpetrated against the US, by individuals claiming to be motivated by islam made me come back to it as a possible answer. If their desired end state was not political overthrow, but rather instilling fear in their enemy and achieving their own martyrdom, their actions might not seem hopeless. A thought, I'm not well versed enough in the theory to defend it to far, but was wondering if anyone else had come across it elsewhere?
Two other points:
I’m not sure I’m tracking on the backlash though, how is that defined? Because I don’t see it, but work has been busy so maybe I missed all the stories about angry American vigilantes in Peoria burning mosques. If a few firebrands write articles asking pointed questions or at worst exercise their right to be misinformed blowhards, welcome to the First Amendment folks. Unless of course you think that Islam should be afforded a special status and not be subjected to the same scrutiny that every other religion is placed under. In that case, welcome to dhimmitude.

Finally as adults we should be able to point out his obvious religious motivation with out tarring the entire religion for the actions of an individual or accusing those who dare broach the subject as narrow minded islamophobes. The only motive that matters is the motive of the man pulling the trigger and given the reports that Hassan initiated his shooting spree with shouts of “Allah u akbar”, I’m guessing he wasn’t upset about Brett Farve coming to Lambeau in a Purple jersey and sweeping the Packers. The question of what role his faith played in his actions, directly impacts how the government’s planners could properly employ elements of national power, strategic communications and other non-lethal assets to counter the ideology that wants to destroy our country and way of life.