As the fifth full year of America's global war on terrorism continues, statistics concerning terrorist attacks show a disturbing trend: from a twenty-one-year high in 2003, attacks tripled in 2004 and then doubled in 2005. And as the incidence of terrorist attacks increased, so has the number of terrorists. While the primary leaders of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda in Iraq remain at large, a 2006 Department of Defense study reportedly identified thirty new al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups that have been created since September 11, 2001. We may not have metrics that measure our success in the war on terrorism, but these realities certainly illuminate our failures.In Thinking Like a Terrorist, former FBI counterterrorism agent Mike German contends that the overarching problem is a fundamental failure to understand the terrorists-namely, what they want and how they intend to get it. When our counterterrorism policies are driven by misunderstanding and misperception, we shouldn't be surprised at the results. Today's terrorists have a real plan-a blueprint that has brought them victory in the past-that they are executing to perfection; moreover, their plan is published and available to anyone who bothers to read it. Once the terrorists' plan is understood, we can develop and implement more effective counterterrorism strategies.A former undercover agent who infiltrated neo-Nazi terrorist groups in the United States, German explains the terrorist's point of view and discusses ways to counter the terrorism threat. Based on his unusual experience in the field, Thinking Like a Terrorist provides unique insights into why terrorism is such a persistent and difficult problem and why the U.S. approach to counterterrorism isn't working.

German, a former undercover agent and counterterrorism instructor at the FBI National Academy and current senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, distills lessons from his counter-terror police work against white supremacists and further study on the issues of terrorism in order to analyze the proper response to terrorist attacks. He argues that, on the whole, terrorism should be treated as a crime of political violence (rather than irrational hatred) and that the "Global War on Terror" has been significantly misguided and has made the problem significantly worse. In the course of making this argument, he describes the Ku Klux Klan as a case study in confronting extremist terrorists and the Irish Republican Army as a case study in dealing with legitimately motivated terrorists. He also argues that there is no need to weaken constitutional or civil rights in order to confront the threat of terrorism. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

As the fifth full year of America's global war on terrorism continues, statistics concerning terrorist attacks show a disturbing trend: from a twenty-one-year high in 2003, attacks tripled in 2004 and then doubled in 2005. And as the incidence of terrorist attacks increased, so has the number of terrorists. While the primary leaders of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda in Iraq remain at large, a 2006 Department of Defense study reportedly identified thirty new al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups that have been created since September 11, 2001. We may not have metrics that measure our success in the war on terrorism, but these realities certainly illuminate our failures.