IS

Sure, IS grabbed a lot of land viciously and successfully, but then what? Sure they grabbed the oil fields, now what? Yes, we see they snatched U.S. military equipment given to Iraq government, and we see what they do with it, then what?

Brilliant.

It appears quite the martial success. The thing is, oil fields take engineers to manage or else they go straight to hell. They need upkeep, maintenance, management. Ideologic fierceness does not interpret directly to oilfield management.

Those vehicles need tires and continuous maintenance. Are they up to it?

What happens when the guns run out of bullets? Buy more from France? From Russia? From some place with the wherewithal to provide them? Some place like Iran? Iran couldn't build a nuclear reactor themselves without help from North Koreans. Saudi Arabia couldn't pull oil out of the ground without help from the West. Iran cannot even build a drone without back-engineering a downed American drone. And then proudly produce a goofball drone at that.

Russian consultants report Arabs MIG pilots are the worst. Utterly undisciplined. They just don't have the juice to fly Russian MIGs as Russian pilots train, too much praying required, there is a vast difference between Russian and Arab MIG pilots. Far more distance between maintaining, much more distance building their own planes.

All that stolen equipment requires constant upkeep, that is a huge part of owning it,  and jihadists just flat do not have the training and discipline and wherewithal to keep any of that up. Their so-called religion holds them back.

That is not saying they cannot do untold damage. Obviously they can, but they are like bulls in china shops tearing things apart. And it is possible to tack together a caliphate on tearing things apart, but then in the end there is a caliphate locked in the 6th century middle east and that's it, stuck there forever without outside assistance without any chance for evolution.

I awoke from a strange dream in the middle of explaining this to a group of Washington D.C. youngsters eager to become wrapped up in political affairs, we were moving through dangerous territory. Washington wannabes with no clear idea of their existential enemies. The eager avid young Washington political wannabes underestimated the viciousness of their foes, and their brutal cleverness, while overestimating the endurance-potential of their immediate military fierceness. Yes, they can cleverly build jury-rigged Kalashnikovs but they cannot  build turbine jet plane factories if their lives depended on them, and their lives will depend on them. They couldn't build and maintain rocket security systems if their lives depended and they will depend. They are good at one thing, slicing throats, and that's it. Beyond that they've got only their antique religion and imported psychopaths. That is the enemy. They are insufficiently clever to sustain themselves in an evolving world. Simply put, successful in the short run, they are doomed in the long run.