Almost four years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the nation remains uncertain about the strategy it should adopt to win the war on terrorism. American intelligence agencies have successfully captured or killed two-thirds of the leadership of al Qaeda, but Osama bin Laden still remains free and his organization still operates. While the government has succeeded so far in preventing a second attack on the United States, controversy surrounds the conduct of the Iraq war, the interrogation of al Qaeda operatives, renewal of the Patriot Act, and intelligence and security reform. John Yoo argues that these efforts have succeeded in degrading al Qaeda’s resources and blunting its efforts to strike again at the United States, and discusses how we can draw on the insights of network theory and law and economic theories of governance to develop innovative legal and policy strategies to finish the fight against al Qaeda and the new terrorism.

John Yoo is a visiting scholar at AEI and a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where he has taught since 1993. From 2001–03, Mr. Yoo served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security, and the separation of powers. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee from 1995-96, where he advised on constitutional issues and judicial nominations. Mr. Yoo was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal and, after graduating from law school, clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit. He joined the Boalt faculty in 1993, and then clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Yoo has published articles on foreign affairs, national security, and constitutional law in a number of the nation's leading law journals. He is the author of War, Peace, and the Constitution, which will be published in 2005 by the University of Chicago Press.