Unpacking the U.S.-ISIL Conflict

The topic of ISIL and what to do about them has captivated people all over the world.  It has been a source of fear, debate, concern and aggression.  It is important to understand your enemy in order to effectively harm them, and in my opinion, one of the main reasons the Western European Democracies are having a difficult understanding ISIL is because their beliefs are constructivist while those of the U.S. and its allies are a based on realism.

Since World War I, the U.S. has been fighting to insure that it remains the dominant world power thus allowing us to protect our interests.  Protection of our interests is the reason we fought the German’s in World War’s I and II, entered into a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, attempted to stop communism from spreading into Vietnam, placed sanctions on Iran, and have started an airstrike against ISIL.  The U.S. is reluctant to allow ISIL to gain more relative power.  We see this as a direct threat to our interests and security, rightfully so.  As ISIL gains more power, we watch our interests and those of our allies in the region lose power.  As realists, watching ISIL gain relative power is taken as a direct threat to our well being.

Realists are very state-centric.  As a government, realists like to deal with states and governments that are given legitimate authority from its citizens, as opposed to organizations with no legitimate power.  ISIL’s only real legitimate authority comes from its members itself.  Nobody who is conquered by ISIL wants to be ruled by them.  In this sense, they have no real legitimate authority, which is troublesome to realists.  This fundamental difference between realists and constructivists has caused a lot of violence and frustration when trying to deal with ISIL.  They are a group, just as gangs, organizations, corporations and charities.  They are influential, but have no real authority.  Constructivists believe that the main actors in international relations are NGO’s and other groups, as opposed to states.  Groups like Al Queada, ISIL and Boko Haram have certainly made the case for this, through their high level of influence and low level of legitimate authority.  In order to deal with them, we have to recognize ISIL as a threat, which gives them some sort of legitimacy.

ISIL’s fundamental struggle stems from its own identity.  Their individual identity is so strong they behead westerners and persecute people of other religions simply because they believe everybody should be aligned with them.  Their identity and their cause is so derived from their history.   As a result, their history dictates their goals and future plans.  These are all things that we Americans struggle with.  We obviously care about our history and to an extent it informs how we behave.  However, we don’t still have a grudge with the British and the French dating back to colonial days, and we have distanced ourselves from slavery, all actions that show some disconnect between our history and our current policies.  ISIL shows no such quality, which is one of the reason it has been so difficult for western countries to control them.  Most realists would care about their history, but not let it influence their decisions and actions to the extent displayed by ISIL.

The only area where ISIL and western countries find common ground is in their dedication to ideals and values.  We, as a democracy, are very passionate about our values and our democratic system.  ISIL, as a group, is very idealistic and acts based on their own values, despite how much we disagree with them.  This passion for our ideals is one of the only things that we can find common ground on.  Values are a very powerful driver of behavior, and have led to fighting throughout history.  Victory in war could potentially boil down to which side is more successful at spreading their own values.  ISIL becomes more influential as they spread their ideals around the world, but the democratic and humane vales that we have as a western society could temper their influence.

Aside from ISIL’s barbaric violations of human rights, western democracies are having difficulty with them because of certain qualities that are engrained into our identity.  In this case, realism clashes directly with constructivism, and that clash is part of what has prompted such a strong international response.