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Is ISIS the greatest threat America has ever faced?

By now, everybody has heard of ISIS. They’re on the news every week, taking responsibility for the newest terror attack somewhere in the world. It’s an organization founded upon hate and malice upon all humankind, save for those who follow the cherry-picked, home-brewed version of Islam they choose to follow.

When talking about the past enemies of the United States, two countries stand out as being the most evil and the most dangerous: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It begs the question: if the USA was able to survive both of these monumental threats, what is so scary about ISIS? Let’s find out.

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Nazi Germany

The Nazis are fundamental bad guys. Relatively short lived from their rise to power in 1925 to their forced dissolution in 1945, they far outlived their party in the media as the go-to choice for Hollywood’s villains. For good reason: the finger can be pointed directly to the Nazi party for one of the most egregious acts of genocide and the most devastating war in human history.

The Nazis, at their peak, had a military force of 6.5 million (compare to the United States peak of 12.2 million), far greater than ISIS’s most generous estimates of manpower. They also showed a willingness to commit war crimes on a massive scale. During the Holocaust, they killed between 6 and 11 million people. They were known to execute Allied POW’s en masse, particularly the Soviets, who they saw as sub-human.

The barbarity of the Nazi party cannot be understated. But was there someone worse?

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The Soviet Union

For the latter part of the 20th century, the Soviets were the big bad guys. Calling someone a commie is, to this day, fighting words in many parts of the US.

At the height of their power during the Cold War, the Soviets fielded an army of 4 million opposing the US military’s 3 million. The Soviets maintained this number until their collapse in 1991.

The Soviets, particularly under Josef Stalin, committed atrocities that are arguably worse than the Nazi party. Some estimates have the number killed in work camps as high as 20 million, as seen in this NYT article from 1989.

So how, when faced with these huge numbers, can ISIS be anything more than a fly on the USA’s back?

ISIS is a different kind of threat altogether. The Germans had rules. The Soviets had rules. ISIS does not. When the Koran forbids killing prisoners, they simply ignore that part and kill prisoners anyways.

ISIS isn’t a nation. They can’t be negotiated with. They likely do not have as much control as they’d like us to believe, meaning that many of their terror attacks in Europe were likely done without their involvement, and they simply claimed responsibility after the fact. They might continue after ISIS is reduced to dust and a handful of goats.

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They’re a bastion for broken, hate-filled human beings who need a way to impose their insecurities on the rest of the world.

There’s hope on the horizon, however. ISIS is being ground into history by the multinational coalition being led by the United States known as Operation Inherent Resolve. Since beginning on June 15, 2014, ISIS’s effective manpower has been reduced from almost 80,000 to just 18,000 as of 2017. Between American airstrikes and Iraqi and Kurdish military offensives, the end may be nigh for ISIS.

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