Watching Melbourne schoolchildren protesting against Israel, supported by parents and teachers, it’s clear the West did not win the global war on terror – because we saw it only as a physical contest.

Al-Qa’ida leader Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US, would have been proud because Islamist terrorism now is mainstreamed into Western society, including right here in Australia.

This phenomenon has been successful because it is coinciding with the denigration of everything that made the West strong since the Enlightenment. The fact is the October 7 attack on Israel was one of the most successful psychological operations against the West at the height of its weakness.

I witnessed Islamic State in Syria and northern Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the New People’s Army in The Philippines and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, as well as other rebel movements such as the Mai-Mai in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One thing they all have in common is that their mission reaches beyond a physical dimension.

They have a cognitive network that is borderless. And when combined with a well-supplied sanctuary supported by a big brother, then they are hard to defeat. This is made even harder when they are allowed to swim in what Mao Zedong called the warm waters of the population.

In Australia and across the West, we have large pools of disgruntled, impressionable, narcissistic communities nurtured on identity politics, envy and hate, a generation reared on fear except the fear of losing the soul of the West. This is being legitimatised by leading global organisations such as the UN.

I recall when in northern Iraq describing to a UN security meeting in Erbil that ISIS was coming across from the east into Sinjar and they needed to be prepared. The response was “we don’t call them ISIS”. I then was proudly informed that UN secretary-general Ban Kimoon had sent a strongly worded letter to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi. The Kurds couldn't believe it.

The fact is, the war on Islamist terrorism never ended with the demise of ISIS.

Instead, the Islamist global insurgency manoeuvred into the next phase of its plan. A climate was created for hundreds of thousands of young, fit, Western-hating, fighting-aged males to cross freely into Europe and other Western countries during the civil war in Syria. All the insurgency had to do was wait patiently for the right moment, using the sanctuaries secured in generous Western countries to drive its campaign into the heart of all facets of our Judaeo- Christian society.

The plan has been evolutionary, with moments of revolution- ary fever, as we are now witnessing.

In the history of guerrilla warfare, insurgents are rarely defeated when they have sanctuary. Now that sanctuary is here.

Saudi-born Shaykh Youssef al- Ayyiri, who was killed in mid-2003, was one of al-Qa’ida’s key strategists and best communicators.

He said: “The entire world has become a battlefield and not in theory.” It is a fight beyond time and geography. Don’t be foolish to believe this is only about the Palestinian territories and Israel.

Terrorism is the tactic used by the insurgent to push forth their strategy. Its initial impact is physical, yet its lasting influence is psychological. The strategy is coopting as many centres of power and influence as possible within civil society. This is how I organised the Dozo groups on the border of Ivory Coast and Mali against al-Qa’ida affiliates.

The Islamist insurgency’s strategy also involves deploying our own principles against us. The success of this strategy is now evident.

The sight of many Western women celebrating or offering excuses for a movement that rapes, mutilates and kills women is an example.

Before our mind’s eye, the people and institutions we looked to for guidance and leadership turned the terrorists into the victims and the victims into the terrorists.

The strategy has been so successful that not even many of our politicians can make a distinction between the evil acts of the terrorists and the desperate plight of the people in the Palestinian territories.

Right now the West’s enemies are co-ordinating a network of state and non-state actors, criminals, terrorists and international cartels while inspiring sympathisers at home to launch a perpetual multipolar conflict in which Australia is also a target.

Their cunning will be in not triggering a world war. The aim is to break the US-led Western resolve by targeting our centres of gravity, belief in ourselves, driving splinters of hot dissent among Western populations who are now less sure of themselves and more divided – populations losing faith in everything that has made us strong since the Enlightenment.

The Iranian-funded and co-ordinated attack on Israel and its multifaceted, hybrid nature is fourth-generational guerrilla warfare deployed against the West.

This is the world we must now be prepared to face.

Jason Thomas is the director of Frontier Assessments.