Early analysis of a rapidly unfolding operation, like the arrest/unravelling of the UK airplane liquid bomb plot, can easily be distorted by hype and erroneous information. Despite this potential minefield, here's my initial take on the event.
Here's the bad news. From all indications, it appears that the operation showed significant signs of open source warfare in both substance and structure. For example, the operation was characterized by: a self-organizing UK cell energized by al Qaeda's plausible promise, gathering of expertise/funding from al Qaeda in Pakistan, and innovative applications of technique/technology. Also, it appears that the operation wasn't directed at purely symbolic targets (using planes as guided missiles) but against the transportation infrastructure itself (like the successful attack on Madrid and last years attack on London). This slow shift reflects a growing realization, echoed by an increasing number of sources, that system disruption is more valuable in this war than the destruction of symbols.
Here's the good news. Al Qaeda's leadership provided too much centralized command and control of this operation after it connected with the UK cell. A great example of this, in microcosm, is a report that the suspects received a coded message from Pakistan that said, "attack now" just before the arrests. Operational control at this level is likely the cause of the factors that led to its failure. Here's why:- it increased the plans exposure due to extensive traffic/communication to/from/with cells in Pakistan (particularly coded traffic). This needlessly exposed the operation to state monitoring of cross border traffic and Pakistan's ISI (which has proven to be much better at counter-terrorism than western agencies).
- it increased the size of the operation to ensure that it approached the scale of 9/11 (to counter the diminishing returns of terrorism). The result is that the greater the scale of the plot and the longer the length of the time line necessary to plan it, the greater potential of the plot's exposure.
- it likely dictated the method and the target of the operation. The operation was focused on body counts, airplanes, and simultaneous detonation. It's very likely that a indigenous UK cell could have produced more innovation in method and target selection. In effect, any similarity to previous attacks increases the potential of detection.
Unfortunately, given the strong trend lines towards further escalation of this epochal conflict, we can expect al Qaeda to recover from this failure quite quickly. The motivations necessary to activate groups are still running high and the tools/methods of this type of warfare are still readily available and applicable. However, as long as al Qaeda continues to exercise even a small modicum of centralized command and control: the spacing of attacks will be long, the targets will be within known groups, and the size of the plots will be large. The result is they will be relatively easier to detect than more sophisticated, innovative, and decentralized operations. Our problem really starts when they evolve to the next level and fully embrace open source warfare's decentralized approach (much as the problem we now face with Hezbollah, although their evolution reflects the different contextual requirements of their position on the spectrum of open source warfare).