Assignment

Fighting terrorism or guerrilla movements is not easy, as the US learned in Vietnam, and as the Soviet Union learned in Afghanistan (there are many other examples we could bring up as well). Conventional warfare (I'm thinking WW II or Korea) was easier to understand (though not always easy to carry out). Terrorism takes places in the shadows and in small bloody incidents against an enemy that hits and hides. So how do we defeat the terrorists? Is this just a military question? Or is it more a diplomatic one?

In many ways it does seem like we are in the midst of a never ending conflict. There was the famous Hundred Years' War in European history, though it lasted longer than that (1337 to 1453). So are we looking at a conflict that could last over a hundred years or more?