Winning the Campaign Against the Islamic State: Key Strategic and Tactical Challenges by Anthony Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies
The United States does not have good or quick options in dealing with the Islamic State, in part because it faces serious challenges in Iraq and Syria that cannot be separated from any efforts to weaken and destroy the Islamic State. This, however, is not a reason to stand and wait for better options that do not exist. The situation will not get better because the United States continues to dither.
The United States is already acting in important ways, and if this action is taken more decisively, in an integrated form, and over enough time to be effective it may well be capable of both imploding the Islamic State and serving U.S. interests in both Iraq and Syria.
This strategy is laid out in detail in a briefing entitled Winning the Islamic State Campaign: Key Strategic and Tactical Challenges that is available on the CSIS web site at http://csis.org/files/publication/140829_Iraq_Campaign_brief.pdf….
Comments
This is the most negative piece of strategic double-talk I have ever tried to wade through. Each time the author makes a statement, it is immediately followed by a qualifier which negates the whole issue. Why bother? The only value I see here is to be able to write the most restrictive rules-of-engagement historically ever applied to a military force.