Bin Laden's Legacy - by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (Hardcover)

About the Book

Clearly written and powerfully argued by a prominent counterterrorism expert, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what al Qaeda is really after and how the United States can thwart its goals--or help unwittingly to achieve them.

Book Synopsis

Why al Qaeda is winning its war against the West--and America has been playing right into its hands

In the decade since 9/11, the United States has grown weaker: It has been bogged down by costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has spent billions of dollars on security to protect air travel and other transport, as well as the homeland more generally. Much of this money has been channeled into efforts that are inefficient by design and highly bureaucratic, a lack of coordination between and among the government and an array of contractors making it difficult to evaluate the return on the enormous investment that we have made in national security. Meanwhile, public morale has been sapped by measures ranging from color-coded terror alerts to full-body hand searches.

Now counterterrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross details the strategic missteps the U.S. has made in the fight against al Qaeda, a group that U.S. planners never really took the time to understand. For this reason, America's responses to the terrorist threat have often unwittingly helped al Qaeda achieve its goals. Gartenstein-Ross's book explains what the country must do now to stem the bleeding.

• Explains in detail al Qaeda's strategy to sap and undermine the American economy, and shows how the United States played into the terrorist group's hands by expanding the battlefield and setting up an expensive homeland security bureaucracy that has difficulty dealing with a nimble, adaptive foe
• Outlines how al Qaeda's economic plans have evolved toward an ultimate "strategy of a thousand cuts," which involves smaller yet more frequent attacks against Western societies
• Shows how the domestic politicization of terrorism has weakened the United States, skewing its priorities and causing it to misallocate counterterrorism resources
• Offers a practical plan for building domestic resiliency against terrorist attacks, and escaping the mistakes that have undermined America's war against its jihadist foes

Clearly written and powerfully argued by a prominent counterterrorism expert, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what al Qaeda is really after and how the United States can thwart its goals--or help unwittingly to achieve them.

From the Back Cover

Advance Praise for "BIN LADEN'S LEGACY"

"Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has written an analytically sharp, fluidly written account of al Qaeda and its affiliates in the post-bin Laden era. It makes for sobering and essential reading."
--Peter Bergen, author of "The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al Qaeda"

"Bin Laden's Legacy is an important and timely work, especially in the aftermath of bin Laden's killing. It is one of the few books to probe systematically the movement's strategy and its effect on the U.S. and its allies. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is to be commended for his insightful analysis, and his sound policy recommendations will be of interest to scholars and policymakers alike."
--Bruce Hoffman, Director, Center for Peace and Security Studies, Georgetown University

"By an astute and penetrating analysis of al Qaeda's strategy, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross unveils the potentially devastating flaws in U.S. strategy. His recommendations must be seriously considered by policymakers and all Americans concerned with their nation's security."
--Steven Metz, U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute; author of "Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy"

"This book is an important contribution to the post-bin Laden debate about how to fight terrorism smarter and cheaper at a time of constraints on America's power and purse."
--Clark Kent Ervin, former Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security

"Gartenstein-Ross's provocative arguments should push policymakers to carefully examine their assumptions about the struggle with al Qaeda. Whether you agree with his thesis, Gartenstein-Ross provides a useful counterweight to the mainstream security narrative in Washington."
--Congressman Hank Johnson (D.-Georgia), House Armed Services Committee

"Gartenstein-Ross has written an informative, contrarian, and crisply written study of al Qaeda and the U.S. response, exploring not only Iraq and Afghanistan but also important but neglected issues such as the economic dimensions of al Qaeda's strategy and the politics of U.S. counterterrorism."
--Daniel Byman, Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

"A deeply researched and riveting account of the evolutionary strategy of al Qaeda and why the death of bin Laden is simply 'the end of the beginning.' Gartenstein-Ross's extraordinary work provides valuable insight on the adaptive capacity and international complexities of this non-state sponsored transnational threat, which has been able to engage in a war with the world's remaining superpower. Truly a must-read!"
--Erroll G. Southers, Adjunct Professor, University of Southern California and Associate Director, Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events

Review Quotes

* "A remarkable and laudable work.... In a narrative that somehow manages to be both concise and comprehensive, the author lays out the multiple battlefields and competing strategies of both al Qaeda and the United States.... Gartenstein-Ross brings his rational voice to an irrational world, proposing a set of operating principles to a security-policy machine that has inoculated itself against the very concept." (Foreign Policy)

"Gartenstein-Ross' evaluation of al-Qaeda's strategy, means, and intentions is without equal, as is his analysis of America's missteps during the War on Terror.) (Small Wars Journal)

"Urgent without being alarmist and eminently readable, Bin Laden's Legacy is a testament to Gartenstein-Ross's deep knowledge of his field and his capacity to cut through feeble arguments to lay out only the most salient evidence. His legal training combines neatly with his moderate, academic approach to produce arguments so logical that they seem obvious at first glance; only later does the reader realize this is a fresh read on the past 10 years of counterterrorism efforts. (NDU Press Blog)

About the Author

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has been described as "a rising star in the counterterrorism community" by the International Herald Tribune. He is often featured as a speaker at conferences sponsored by prestigious academic institutions, policy institutes, and the U.S. military, and has been called upon as a consultant to deal with problems ranging from hostage negotiations and border security to story development for major media companies. Gartenstein-Ross frequently leads training for the U.S. military and domestic law enforcement and has designed an educational curriculum dealing with terrorism for the U.S. Department of State. His writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, the Atlantic, Reader's Digest, and the Review of Faith and International Affairs, among other publications. He is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.