OUR ENEMIES TAKE GLAMOUR SERIOUSLY: We need to as well. ICYMI, my column from January is still relevant.

Confronting Islamic State requires an exercise largely unfamiliar to the American military’s hardheaded pragmatists: thinking carefully about the elusive, seductive magic of glamour. Making that task all the more difficult, it also demands recognizing the allure of ideas and images that baffle, offend or horrify most Westerners. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, glamour is in the mind of the audience….

Making Islamic State look fearsome and successful — countering its glamour with horror — only serves to heighten the movement’s allure. To dissuade potential recruits, something more banal is required. What glamorous visions of jihadi glory obscure isn’t violence. It’s drudgery, subordination, infighting, hypocrisy and general messiness.

Read the rest here.