In Winning the Un-War: A New Strategy for the War on Terrorism, Charles Pena explores the many missteps in the Bush administration's "global war on terror." Trying to eradicate terrorism is a quixotic quest that does not focus on those responsible for 9/11. Instead, the national security strategy should consist of three central elements: establishing homeland security against further attacks; dismantling the al Qaeda terrorist network; and enacting a foreign policy that does not attract new al Qaeda terrorists.

This approach requires restructuring U.S. forces and ending Cold War era commitments that distract from the current, pressing threat. It also requires ameliorating the negative consequences of an interventionist U.S. foreign policy, which creates incentives and opportunities for terrorists to target the United States.

If we misdiagnose al Qaeda's motivations or focus military efforts on the wrong targets, then we run the risk that the war against the al Qaeda terrorist threat (and the radical Islamic ideology it represents) will become a broader war against the Islamic world that could last generations and cost countless lives.

Location: New America Foundation
1630 Connecticut Ave., NW, 7th Floor
Washington, DC

Featuring: Charles Pena
Author, Winning the Un-War: A New Strategy for the War on Terrorism; Senior Fellow, Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy; and Terrorism Analyst, MSNBC


Comments by: Peter Bergen
Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation; Terrorism Analyst, CNN; and Author, The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's Leader

and

Christopher Preble
Executive Director, Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy and
Director of Foreign Policy Studies, The Cato Institute

Moderated by: Jerry Irvine
Director of Communications, New America Foundation