[T]he Cold War was a “battle” between state actors. At its essence, it was the United States and its allies fighting the Soviet Union and its allies (and sort of China). Yes, there were guerillas and roving paramilitaries, but all funding led back to powerful state actors.

The war on terrorism is not a battle between states, but a battle between states and non-state actors. Yes, al Qaeda benefited from the Taliban’s sanctuary, but it was still – at its essence – a stateless international group. What we’re fighting today is even less centralized than what we were fighting in 2001. We are at “war” with nodes of decentralized pissed-off radicals scattered across national boundaries.

The reason this distinction matters is that fighting states requires an entirely different strategy than fighting non-state actors. In a battle of states, a willingness to use traditional military force is far more important (even if only as a deterrent). Yes, the Cold War was about winning the hearts and minds of the “Third World,” but there was a far greater traditional military aspect to it. Without a containment strategy based on military force or the threat of force, communist forces would have seized far more land than they did (e.g., western Germany, South Korea).

The big point here is that, except for the novel nuclear dimension, the Cold War involved big, traditional state armies seizing and vying for territory.

The war on terrorism (i.e., on Islamic fundamentalism) is nothing like that. Winning it depends entirely on winning Muslim hearts and minds – that is, on removing the conditions that give rise to Islamic terrorism and persuading people that your alternative is better. It’s not about seizing and occupying land, or destroying a hostile state’s military. You could kill every terrorist in the world and not win the war on terror. That’s because there aren’t a finite number of terrorists – they’re not like state-centric militaries that can be beaten down. So long as young angry Muslims hate America, terrorism will be a continuing problem.

That’s why invading Iraq was such a horrible idea. It was a Cold War solution to a post-Cold War problem. What I mean is that it was a traditional military action of invading and occupying territory to fight a foe that has no territory. That’s why Bush’s incompetence didn’t really matter – the idea was inherently flawed because it was a state-centric solution to a non-state-centric problem. Yes, there is some Rube Goldberg-esque abstract logic by which setting up a democracy through military force ultimately leads to democracy flowering throughout the Middle East that leads to no more terrorism. But against that abstract and unlikely dream, you have the concrete reality of bombs and guns and Abu Ghraib and Haditha and all the other inevitable consequences of colonial-style warfare in faraway, hostile places.

That’s what annoys me about Beinart’s “Remember the Willard” schtick. He – and everyone else who invokes Truman’s containment strategy – confuses disagreement about the means with disagreement about the end. Look, I think everyone takes terrorism seriously after 9/11. I certainly do. But I don’t think military force is a very good way to fight it. In fact, it’s a counterproductive way to fight it because it’s based on outdated Cold War assumptions. The terrorists aren’t seeking to seize our land or conquer Western Europe. They're seeking to win over the Muslim world for fundamentalism. Traditional military solutions (bombing and occupying countries) will usually help them either by alienating the population or by creating failed states.

My disagreement with using military force to fight terrorism doesn’t mean I lack “fighting faith” or am a wussy or that I’m failing to appreciate the lessons of Truman. I oppose it because it doesn’t work – not against this enemy. In fact, military force helps this enemy. This is a global insurgency and Rule #1 in the insurgent playbook is to inspire a disproportionate response.

And even if the terrorists/fundamentalists aspire to be state actors, they're not going to seize power the same way that the Communists did. In other words, they're not going to win the Middle East with overpowering armies. To win, they must persuade the street to go their way (in part, by having a credible "Other" to rally against).