Oh, he seems to understand it well enough. Iraq '03 and Libya '11 have been excellent examples of 21st Century Power. (I'm omitting Serbia '99, as it was, formally speaking, 20th century, but that example was very spectacular, too.)
one of the really annoying things one starts seeing in the American press when being away from the country for a while is the tremendous inability to see the same patterns at home as abroad. It's quite amusing and also quite disturbing.
As for Libya well to be honest it is no longer in America's interest to ensure stability in the middle east. In fact given the long reach of unhappy middle eastern people its our job to make sure they express that unhappiness right at home. The Libyan people are doing that right now.
Wait, what? Al Qaeda was [surviving] "largely through the tacit support of the surrounding population" [of Iraq]? Saddam was not a major terror sponsor. But the net effect of this little experiment in nation-building is at the very least 100k dead civilians, and the build-up of insurgencies movements throughout the region, who have by now good weaponry and plenty of veterans. Oh, and fantastic PR for the western world, too.
If those insurgents are largely focused on local state control that is a net win for the United States in my opinion.