al Qaida is too narrow a model. Islamism as a transnational network is more accurate picture of what we face.

HAMAS and various Islamist parties in Pakistan, Indonesia etc. do engage in ( albeit self-serving) “SysAdmin” social services, education and charitable works in order to build their popular base that will support their military activities and political program. These organizations are often quite compartmentalized with new members shunted off into particular specialties.

Later Taliban Afghanistan was often described as a “terrorist-sponsored state.” This is an example of al Qaeda using “coalitions of the willing” to build up a SysAdmin.

The Taliban were not merely thugs or ignorant students. They tried to establish legal rule-sets. They convented what we would call a conference of legal scholars from the international community to establish appropriate punishments for various crimes, and they chose solutions which maximized the stake-holders. (One debate was over whether stoning or burial-alive was the approppriate punishment for pedophilia. The solution was “both.”)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300089023?v=glance

A Barnettian SysAdmin includes the US Military as the core, but would be comprised mainly by a combination of locals, military allies, and Non-Governmental Organizations. In Afghanistan al Qaeda went a far way to achieving this goal themselves.

I think your focus on comparing al Qaeda’s structure to the Pentagon’s is flawed.

Reconstruction is being carried out by military units, and the Pentagon has civil affairs teams. Also, the US has poured in billions in aid, is providing assistance with establishing institutions, etc. al Qaeda can’t do this because of their makeup, and couldn’t do this if they wanted to.