An article by Nunn School faculty Jenna Jordan, Margaret E. Kosal & Lawrence Rubin. In the last few years, the Islamic State, or IS, has become a central focus of public debates
about US national security. A May 2016 poll by the Pew Research Center reported that 80
percent of Americans think IS poses the greatest international threat to the United States.
As IS has vastly expanded its activities beyond its borders, debates about how to best defeat
the group typically assume that military power will play the primary role in its defeat.
