The road to the future is filled with potholes. This metaphorical sentence speaks to a world war already in process. Despite denials from the present U.S. administration, the war is organized, promoted and managed by radical Islamists. Driven by an ideology, these religious fanatics want to undermine the West so that a global caliphate can be established. The war is in its twenty-fifth year, but the U.S. and its allies still do not understand the magnitude of the struggle.
On July 14th, a day celebrating French freedom, Bastille Day, at least eighty-four people were wantonly killed, including ten children, by a suspected terrorist who slammed his truck into unwary revelers watching the annual fireworks display. The symbolism was palpable. It is precisely the French liberty, equality and fraternity that the Islamists detest. Theirs is fraternity of barbarism.
If there were ever a moment for an appropriate response, this is it. Paris, Orlando, Istanbul, San Bernardino, Brussels, stand as stark reminders of the international reach of Islamic terror. And there isn’t an end in sight. Moreover, the murderer who killed innocents on the Promenade des Anglais had a history of aggressive views known to French authorities, just as the Orlando killer was investigated by the FBI before his murderous spree. It is not as if clues aren’t provided by savage extremists.
A strategy for dealing with this matter is available to us. It is the template for confronting an ideologically driven foe like Communism. For decades the U.S. fought on the battlefield when the global status quo was challenged. Whether successful or not, and in many instances we were not successful, the willingness to counter aggression mattered. More significantly, the U.S. fought a non-kinetic war in the culture and the political arena. Intelligence operatives penetrated communist cells, ridiculed Marxism-Leninism and caused confusion among leaders. Despite moments of conciliation and fatigue, the national opposition to Communism held. The U.S. had a powerful anti-communist method: fear, a fear that if pushed beyond a certain well understood limit, the U.S. would explode with the full fury of its military might.