The US and its NATO allies have vowed to defeat Islamic State and ultimately destroy it. While at odds with global norms, such a proposed destruction campaign may be strategically necessary. It remains to be seen, however, if there will be any political resolve to undertake such a long and costly campaign against IS.

The United States, together with its principal NATO partners, has decided that the IS must be defeated. The barbarism evinced by IS militants towards their captives – irrespective of race, religion or nationality – certainly suggests that the IS cannot be accommodated.

Defeating it, however, will not come easiIy. Indeed, as Steven Metz argued recently, in his weekly column in World Politics Review, defeating ISIS will require that the organisation be destroyed; it will be “the beginning of a costly, bloody strategic cycle.”

…Bernard Fook Weng Loo is Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.