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Letters & CommentsDonald Reed
Donald J. Reed specializes in strategic planning for United States Northern Command. His career spans twenty years as a United States Army military police officer, and more than six years as a civilian homeland defense plans officer. He helped to plan and execute the Department of Defense operational responses to both the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a member of Consequence Management Task Force East, as well as to Hurricane Katrina as a member of Joint Task Force Katrina. He holds a master’s degree in security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Security, where he is also a recipient of the Curtis H. “Butch” Straub Award for homeland security leadership and academic excellence.
Why Strategy Matters in the War on Terror
ABSTRACT:
In labeling its post-9/11 efforts the “war” on terror, the United States invoked a war metaphor that ties its success
or failure to the doctrinal rules of war.
This paper follows that metaphor and looks at the war on terror from the vantage point of the strategic issues
that must be addressed if the United States is to, first, avoid the strategic mistakes of Vietnam and,
second, transform its efforts from the industrial age to the information age.
It examines the issues along five lines of inquiry: definition, doctrine, policy, strategy, and transformation.
Its conclusion is that the United States must clearly define the strategy and terms of this war on terror
if it is to avoid being defined – as a nation – by the strategy and terms set by its enemies.
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SUGGESTED CITATION:
Reed, Donald J. “Why Strategy Matters in the War on Terror.” Homeland Security Affairs II, no. 3 (October 2006)http://www.hsaj.org/?article=2.3.10