The war against Al Qaeda and its allies may well become the defining conflict of our age. Certainly it is cited as evidence of a transformation of war that is sweeping away older modes of warfare. This paper seeks to explain the reasons for the failure of the military campaign so far, but looks at this debate from the perspective of the British rather than the American experience of the war on terror.

This paper was presented as part of Rethinking the Postcolonial in the Age of the War on Terror joint symposium, by the MnM Centre in conjunction with the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Diasporas and Reconciliation Studies, at the University of South Australia, on 16 and 17 September 2010. The aim of the symposium was to explore the postcolonial condition in the era of the 'war on terror' and to rethink postcolonialism in order to reformulate or reinforce its critical insights.

Author: Warren Chin, Defence Studies Department, King's College London, Joint Services Command and Staff College. The views expressed in this paper are the author‟s own and do not reflect the official position of MOD or the British Government.