The populist alternatives, carpet bombing ISIS or launching a ground invasion, also do not recognize the multifaceted threat posed by ISIS. In fact, these solutions may do harm than good and have the potential to broaden and deepen community support for militant groups. While ISIS is a different adversary, these lessons from from the Cold War can be useful for thinking about how to best counter the threat posed by ISIS.

Jenna Jordan is an assistant professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a former research fellow at the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism. She has published on terrorism and leadership targeting. You can follow her on Twitter @JennaEJordan. Lawrence Rubin is an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of Islam in the Balance: Ideational Threats in Arab Politics (Stanford University Press, 2014) and Terrorist Rehabilitation and Counter-Radicalisation: New Approaches to Counter-terrorism (Routledge 2011). He is also the Associate Editor of the journal Terrorism and Political Violence. You can follow him on Twitter @lprubin73.

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