Defense Tech has a good, link-filled primer article explaining a couple of serious strategy pieces that recently came out of the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point.

Even Prussophile paleo-conservative and Counterpunch writer William S. Lind had good things to say about it, which is damn near unheard of for anything that comes out of the US military. Lind says the pieces show a very solid grasp of 4th Generation Warfare, however, and he's right. As he notes:

"The bulk of the paper is summaries of translations of some of al Qaida's own key documents, materials that allow other analysts to see al Qaida as it sees itself. As the study notes, 'Any external assessment of al-Qa'ida's weaknesses will have inherent limitations. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point believes an internal assessment -- from actual members of the al-Qa'ida organization -- is the best method to accurately assess their own true vulnerabilities.' "

In looking at wars, one is tempted to fixate attention on strengths. War being most often a contest of dueling mistakes, however, a focus on weaknesses is often at least as productive - and necessary in order to really understand what's going on. "Stealing al-Qaeda's Playbook" is a PDF file, but "Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting Al-Qa'ida's Organizational Vulnerabilities" is available in full in HTML if you want to tackle the whole thing. Contents include:

• Executive Summary
• Foreword
• Part I
  • Introduction
  • Theoretical Framework: The Challenges of Organizing Terror
  • Syria Case Study: Back to the Future
  • Organizational Vulnerabilities and Recommendations to Exploit Them
• Part II
  • Introduction
  • Harmony Document List (with linked summaries)