This book examines the communicative aspects and implications of
US counter-terrorist policies towards al-Qaeda.
Recent US counter-terrorist strategy has been largely based upon
projecting certain perceptions of America as an actor to those
drawn to al-Qaeda, and this book investigates in what ways, and to
what extent, US officials believed that the signals sent by what
America did and said could influence the behaviour of the terrorist
and would-be terrorist. The study then draws on a growing
understanding of that audience to analyse how those drawn to
al-Qaeda were and, indeed, still are likely to be influenced by the
perceptions of America that Washington's policies generated. The
study's central argument is that, given al-Qaeda's unconventional
strategy and the particularities of the world-view characterising
those drawn to the group, America's counter-terrorist signalling
proved largely counter-productive to America's objective of
undermining al-Qaeda's strategic narrative, instead serving in many
ways to validate it.
Firstly, this book seeks to reveal the significant and largely
unexplored role that signalling has played in US counter-terrorist
policy towards al-Qaeda. Second, it tries to capture the
objectives, strategy, tactics, ideology, and other defining
features of the world-view characterising those drawn to al-Qaeda.
Third, it strives to combine those two lines of inquiry by applying
the al-Qaeda world-view to a critical analysis of the signals sent
by US policies. Finally, the book aims to offer broad policy
implications that demonstrate how an informed understanding of the
world-view of those drawn to al-Qaeda can be employed to revise and
refine American counter-terrorist signalling.
This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign
policy and public diplomacy, counter-terrorism, strategy and
international security.
Joshua Alexander Geltzer has a PhD in War Studies from Kings
College London, and is currently a juris doctoral student at Yale
Law School.
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