The Hoffman – Sageman Dustup Goes Mainstream

You no longer need a subscription to Foreign Affairs (or an Athens password) to read about the feud between Bruce Hoffman and Marc Sageman regarding the nature of the jihadist threat. First there was Hoffman’s takedown in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, in which he accused Sageman of “a fundamental misreading of the Al Qaeda threat.” Sageman’s rebuttal, in which he accuses Hoffman of a “gross misrepresentation”, is on the way. But thanks to the NYT Week in Review, we’re all treated to a little preview of what Sageman will have to say.  Along with some trans-Atlantic commentary on the feud and a summary of why this matters beyond the realm of the ivory tower. 

On one side is Bruce Hoffman, a cerebral 53-year-old Georgetown University historian and author of the highly respected 1998 book “Inside Terrorism.” He argues that Al Qaeda is alive, well, resurgent and more dangerous than it has been in several years. In his corner, he said, is a battalion of mainstream academics and a National Intelligence Estimate issued last summer warning that Al Qaeda had reconstituted in Pakistan.

 On the other side is Marc Sageman, an iconoclastic 55-year-old Polish-born psychiatrist, sociologist, former C.I.A. case officer and scholar-in-residence with the New York Police Department. His new book, “Leaderless Jihad,” argues that the main threat no longer comes from the organization called Al Qaeda, but from the bottom up — from radicalized individuals and groups who meet and plot in their neighborhoods and on the Internet. In his camp, he said, are agents and analysts in highly classified positions at the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

If Dr. Hoffman gets inside organizations — focusing on command structures — Dr. Sageman gets inside heads, analyzing the terrorist mind-set. But this is more important than just a battle of ideas. It is the latest twist in the contest for influence and resources in Washington that has been a central feature of the struggle against terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.

Officials from the White House to the C.I.A. acknowledge the importance of the debate of the two men as the government assesses the nature of the threat. Looking forward, it is certain to be used to win bureaucratic turf wars over what programs will be emphasized in the next administration.

If there is no looming main Qaeda threat — just “bunches of guys,” as Dr. Sageman calls them — then it would be easier for a new president to think he could save money or redirect efforts within the huge counterterrorism machine, which costs the United States billions of dollars and has created armies of independent security consultants and counterterrorism experts in the last seven years.

Preventing attacks planned by small bands of zealots in the garages and basements just off Main Street or the alleys behind Islamic madrasas is more a job for the local police and the F.B.I., working with undercover informants and with authorities abroad. “If it’s a ‘leaderless jihad,’ then I can find something else to do because the threat is over,” said Peter Bergen, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, who puts himself in Dr. Hoffman’s camp. “Leaderless things don’t produce big outcomes.”

On the other hand, if the main task can be seen as thwarting plots or smiting Al Qaeda’s leaders abroad, then attention and resources should continue to flow to the C.I.A., the State Department, the military and terror-financing sleuths.

For those people who think this needn’t be, and in reality is not, an either-or situation (I’m one of them), we’re in good company:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, a former director of central intelligence, sees merit in both sides, too; he said in Singapore last week that Al Qaeda is training European, and possibly American, recruits. But, he added, “You also have the development of violent, extremist networks.”

Still, the NYT suggests that it is the Europeans who truly recognize the messiness of reality. 

Terrorism-weary prosecuting judges and police investigators in Europe listen to the debate on the other side of the Atlantic and tend to find it empty. They say it is hard to know where radicalization starts — among groups of friends, in an imam’s sermon in Europe or at home on the Internet — and when operational training by Al Qaeda is a factor. They prefer a blended approach.

France, Spain and Italy, for example, pour resources and manpower into investigations at home — from studying radicalization and wiretapping suspicious individuals to infiltrating mosques and community centers. These countries also track movements of suspicious individuals abroad and networks with both local and foreign connections. Terrorist-related cases fall under the authority of special investigative superjudges who have access to all classified intelligence, and can use much of the information in trials.

The Europeans say that for them, the argument is not theoretical. Somewhere in Europe, just about every week, a terrorist plot is uncovered and arrests are made.

“The danger of this ‘either-or’ argument could lead us to the mistakes of the past,” said Baltasar Garzón, Spain’s leading antiterror investigatory magistrate. “In the ’90s, we saw atomized cells as everything, and then Al Qaeda came along. And now we look at Al Qaeda and say it’s no longer the threat. We’re making the same mistake again.”

 This would not be the first time the Europeans were a step ahead of the U.S. when it came to terrorism issues. And they are certainly getting a lot more on-the-ground practice when it comes to counter-terrorism these days.  However, the ability to see the threat as multi-dimensional is not absent among the former U.S. intelligence and current U.S. security practitioners I’ve spoken to. To a person, they are worried about AQC regrouping in Pakistan, about the threat posed by those jihadists currently fighting in Iraq once they return home or are forced to leave because that front closes, and about the growth of diffuse networks peopled by actors who have been radicalized from the ground up.  They understand the connectivity involved within the global jihad. Where their focus lies is often determined by the responsibilities of their agency, not their overall perception of the threat. 

They also recognize that the task goes beyond protecting the U.S. homeland or U.S. personnel overseas to protecting U.S. interests.  And that means engaging not only with al-Qaeda Central at one end and the diffuse network of homegrown radicals at the other, but with all of the actors and groups in between who have either been genuinely influenced by al-Qaeda or are opportunistically riding the jihadist current since 9/11.