So once again SIS/ISIL is on my mind.  13 years ago the US was devising a strategy to take on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.  One of the key parts of this strategy, beyond the quick and brutal end to those who wanted to immediately do harm to the US and its citizens, was an investment in young Muslims to prevent the next generation from taking up the radical views that led to the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. That was 13 years ago.  Those children that were 10-15 are now 23-28.  Those children are now the backbone for ISIS/ISIL.  What did do wrong?  What was ineffective in changing their minds?  What can we do differently now to help steer the next generation away from these radical, violent desires?  Until we figure this out, this will be a very long war indeed.  In fact one, without an end short of complete annihilation which even if a true National Goal is unobtainable.

  We focus significant energy in trying to understand why people convert to radical Islam and join that movement in the Middle East or carry out that agenda in the West.  What about trying to understand the Muslims that don't believe in this radial, violent agenda and then trying to spread that?  Why do the Muslim Nations not realize that it is in their best interests to do this through freedom and education?  If they don't understand this, then why does the US feel the need to continue to ally ourselves with them?

What does ISIS/ISIL and World War Z have in common?

 So in Max Brooks’ book World War Z, which bears nothing in common with movie beyond the title and zombies in general, he posits an enemy that does not behave by any of the accepted rules.  In most modern warfare, there is a premise that after a certain amount of attrition, the enemy ceases to be a threat.  We can degrade an enemies, Command and Control or Logistics support and they will stop being belligerent.  Maybe more importantly, the enemy can be scared into giving up. In World War Z, the enemy doesn’t behave like this.  The zombies have no Command and Control.  They have no logistics lines.  They are each individual fighting forces that need to be killed in order for them to stop being a threat.  The US Military takes a while to figure this out and suffers some horrific loses along the way.  I wonder if ISIS/ISIL is not similar to the Zombie threat from World War Z.  They claim to be a nation state, a caliphate, but they are not in the traditional sense.  The US is attacking them like a nation state, but they are not retreating.  They are not collapsing.  It is as if they don’t realize they are out gunned.  Maybe it is that they don’t care.  Each individual ISIS/ISIL member doesn’t need direct Command and Control to know what to do.  They don’t need Logistic lines to do what they need to do.  They are not scared of the US and its allies.  DO we need to treat ISIS/ISIL like the zombies in World War Z?  Do we need to kill them to the last man?  Many may argue the answer is “Yes”, but I would contend that is not the US’ way.  The stated goal is to defeat them, not to wipe them from the face of the earth.  So if they do not react the anticipated way a Nation State should react to the threat the US and its allies pose, how do we defeat them?  Is ISIS/ISIL is really nothing more than an overgrow terrorist network and threat, then they need to be dealt with accordingly.  Now the $1,000,000 question is what is that?  As it can be argued we have failed to effectively deal with a large terrorist threat for the last 13 years.  I think that I can confidently say a few things.  First, until the local population wants them out, there is little that the US can do.  Sure we need to ensure that those opposed to ISIS/ISIL have the means to resist.  Having been in that part of the world more than once, getting the arms needed to defeat ISIS/ISIL are readily available to the local population.  If the US introduces more arms into the region, much of them will end up in ISIS/ISIL’s hands as they already have.  Second, fighting a conventional war with a proxy force will not work.  It didn’t work in Viet Nam, Afghanistan, or Iraq.  There is no reason to believe that enough has changed for it to work now.  Third, the more legitimacy that we give ISIS/ISIL by calling them a Nation State or a direct, credible threat to the US, the more strength we give them.  Marginalizing them on the world stage is the only way to weaken them in the eyes of their supporters.  Remember in World War Z, the zombies were once part of our supportive, loyal population, but a virus infected them and they turned on us.  Why is the ISIS/ISISL situation different?