Doc points me to an interview with Joe Biden, with this interesting quote (read the entire interview if you have the time):
BIDEN: The neocons are right: this is the first time stateless actors with no territory to protect, no interest in protecting individuals, capable of using modern technology, let alone nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction … You don't need weapons of mass destruction.
So the combination of technology, sophistication, laptop computers in a
cave in Tora Bora. They can orchestrate that. We've never faced that
before.
TPM: Can I ask you a question? It seems that one of the shortcomings of the neoconservative worldview is their focus on states.
BIDEN: Exactly right. Bingo.
BIDEN: The fundamental flaw — forget flaw, the fundamental
difference between Joe Biden, John Kerry on the one hand, and the
neoconservatives on the other is that they genuinely believe — and
put it in the negative sense — they do not believe it is possible for
a sophisticated international criminal network that will rain terror
upon a country, that has the potential to kill 3,000 or more people in
a country, can exist without the sponsorship of a nation-state.
Joe is on the right track. Global guerrillas, a better name for what
we are facing than non-state actors or transnational criminals, are the
threat. Somebody should point him to my Global Guerrillas site, where I am providing a theoretical basis for policy formulation. [John Robb's Weblog]