I would say this sounds like some guys reaching into the stratosphere to get support for implementing expensive ideas that are all self-circumscribed. And I'm the sort who likes math and has studied chaos theory. In other words, you don't fix an inability to see outside the box by staying inside the box.

There is no substitute for field experience and wide reading. I'd say forget about trying to duplicate Al Qaeda. Send a group of guys out into the field alone, without any support but $10-$20K to spend 1 year without any help at all. Have them set up a business and survive in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, etcetera. Have them required to spend at least 50% of their time in country, and don't allow them to employ anyone that isn't a local. (Yes, some may not make it back. That's the price for learning what you need to.) Now, the really good info will start coming in the 2nd and 3rd years, but even 6 months will do a lot.

There are so many places this can happen. It's cheap as dirt by comparison. In the process, some of them will turn out to be pretty good at getting inside Al Qaeda, and others like them. Hell, I'm 4 handshakes from bin Laden myself. That sort of thing will pay off for years.

Look, there's just no way to do any kind of classroom exercise that teaches a man what he'll learn in 1 week in a bad neighborhood where he has no backup and just has to make it happen.

Here's another simple method of getting in touch with the world. There are women all over the world looking for dates with Americans. (And men too.) Just conversing with them will teach you a fair amount about their world and how they think if you talk about politics. They can also give you a guaranteed "in" to families. It's a basic fact that the women's network all over the world knows pretty much everything. Get the women to talk to you and you'll find out a hell of a lot. (That's true in the USA too...)