This book describes how the United States can integrate religious considerations into its foreign policy, moving towards a new leadership paradigm that effectively counters the challenge of Islamist extremism.How should the United States deal with the jihadist challenge and other religious imperatives that permeate today's geopolitical landscape? Religion, Terror, and Error: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Challenge of Spiritual Engagement argues that what is required is a longer-term strategy of cultural engagement, backed by a deeper understanding of how others view the world and what is important to them. The means by which that can be accomplished are the subject of this book.This work achieves three important goals. It shows how religious considerations can be incorporated into the practice of U.S. foreign policy; offers a successor to the rational-actor model of decision-making that has heretofore excluded "irrational" factors like religion; and suggests a new paradigm for U.S. leadership in anticipation of tomorrow's multipolar world. In describing how the United States should realign itself to deal more effectively with the causal factors that underlying religious extremism, this innovative treatise explains how existing capabilities can be redirected to respond to the challenge and identifies additional capabilities that will be needed to complete the task.

Epigraphs throughout the book to provide amplification of important insights

Foreword by General Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret)PrefaceAcknowledgmentsI. Observation1 Beyond the Rational Actor2 A Closer Look at Today's ChallengeII. Orientation3 The Muslim View of the West4 The Western View of Islam5 Bridging the Cultural DivideIII. Decision6 A New Framework for AnalysisIV. Action7 Realigning the Wheels of Government8 Addressing the Operational Implications of Church/State Separation9 Developing a Preventive Engagement Capability10 The American Muslim Community: An Asset-in-Waiting11 Military Chaplains: Bridging Church and State12 Capitalizing on the Transnational Capability of NGOs13 Dealing with the Ideas behind the GunsV. Moving Beyond 17114 The Ideas behind Our Own Guns15 Toward a New Paradigm16 Meeting the Challenge of Spiritual EngagementAppendix A: CC CPSU Letter on Afghanistan, May 10, 1988Appendix B: Department of State Structural AlternativesAppendix C: The Grand BargainAppendix D: Recapturing the Spirit of Jewish-Muslim DialogueNotesGlossaryIndex