Gates Sees Terrorism Remaining Enemy No. 1

Gates Sees Terrorism Remaining Enemy No. 1

New Defence Strategy Shifts Focus From Conventional Warfare

By Josh White

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, July 31, 2008; Page A01

Michele Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security, said she was surprised to see Gates issuing such a strategy so close to a presidential election, calling it a "strategy destined to be overtaken by events" because one of the new administration's first tasks will be to write such a defence plan. She said the document appropriately emphasizes irregular warfare -- focused on terrorists and rogue regimes bent on using insurgency or weapons of mass destruction -- but might go too far.