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The Nazi example is particularly instructive when compared to the case of ISIS. Although Nazi sympathizers continue to exist, and still sometimes demonstrate alarming political strength, the conquest of Nazi Germany on the battlefield routed its ideology as well.Ī headline from Janu( New York Times archive) The German leader’s narrative of Aryan ascendance was most clearly negated by Germany’s war defeat. troops were at a “terrific disadvantage” against a “madly indoctrinated” enemy.Īs it turned out, a muddled military force was rather up to the task of undermining Hitler’s ideology. “This is a war of ideas, as well as weapons,” he said, and U.S. military’s chaplain program, lamented that American troops were “muddled” about the war’s objectives. In 1943, Rabbi Barnett Brickner, a prominent figure in the U.S. “It is not even enough for the British, with American aid, to carry out their war aims, which are to crush Hitlerism,” she said in a speech, “because the downfall or defeat of Hitler would not yet solve the political and economic and social problems that lie at the root of the present war.” In 1941, Vera Dean, the research director of the Foreign Policy Association, called for an “ideological offensive” against the Nazis. The Korean War was a war of ideas so was Vietnam.Īnd in every era, the same alarm bell has sounded. References soared as the United States entered World War II, and became a fixture of American political discourse during the Cold War. The phrase appeared during the Civil War, in the context of slavery, and returned during World War I. In the United States, the notion of a “war of ideas” dates almost as far back as the Revolutionary War, according to Google Ngrams, which searches the text of English-language books that have been digitized.
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It persists despite the fact that the Islamic State’s ideological sympathizers make up less than 1 percent of the world’s population, even using the most hysterically alarmist estimates, and the fact that active, voluntary participants in its caliphate project certainly make up less than a tenth of a percent. The myth that America’s narrative is losing to ISIS’s persists despite the fact that millions of people are fleeing ISIS territories, while mere thousands have traveled to join the group. IHS Jane’s mapped the extremist group’s losses in 2015.Iran Feels Cornered by the Biden Administration Kim Ghattas Russia will retain its capacity to operate out of its airfield in Hmeymin and naval base in Tartus, and has signaled that it will continue striking Syrian rebels. Although Russian fighter jets have mostly targeted other rebel groups, they have also backed the Syrian regime’s offensives against ISIS. It remains largely unclear what effect Russia’s withdrawal of its armed forces in Syria, which began Tuesday, will have on the Islamic State. airstrikes, claims it is now within 20 miles of Raqqa.Īnd with pro-Assad forces now advancing on the ancient city of Palmyra and making gains in east Aleppo, ISIS is only facing more pressure. Those same Syrians later formed a coalition that, with help from Russian and U.S. Tal Abyad had long served as a gateway for supplies and recruits from Turkey to the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Raqqa.
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According to IHS Jane’s, after Kurds and a small number of moderate Arab rebels ousted the Islamic State from the northern Syria border town of Tal Abyad, the extremists have struggled to balance their budget.
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The Islamic State surrendered more than half of that territory - 14 percent - last year and 2016 has already proven crippling. Less than two years later, the self-proclaimed caliphate has lost 22 percent of that territory, according to a report published this week by IHS Jane’s 360, a defense analysis think tank. At the end of 2014, the Islamic State controlled one-third of Iraq and one-third of Syria - a land mass roughly equal to the area of Great Britain - where the extremist group ruled over upward of 9 million people.