What if the US just nukes every country with terrorists in it? Well, you'll get the war you're looking for that's for sure. Unfortunately, you might actually b

What if the US just nukes every country with terrorists in it? Well, you'll get the war you're looking for that's for sure. Unfortunately, you might actually be fighting a war that looks more like the downfall of the Roman empire than the liberation you seem to think you'll achieve. This isn't really a winnable strategy, even if you win the actual conflict. For the vast majority of history winning wars didn't rely on winning the hearts and minds of anyone, it relied on the complete destruction and subjugation of the other faction. History shows that wars without a clear decisive outcome tend to drag on for generations. "Most wars" did exactly that. The fact that WWII did have such an clear outcome does not make it the norm, even with the idea of "total domination". Wars of ideas(opposed to those over resources and/or land) don't end until one of the ideas goes out of fashion. The cold war is a perfect example of this. That stalemate ended because the communists didn't think their ideas would work. It had little to do with how many nukes the west could muster. In the same light, radical Islam - I could argue Islam/religion itself - can only be "defeated" when the Islamics themselves decide that the particular path that they are on isn't worth the struggle. People turn to religion - any religion - when their needs are not being met. This is true even in the West - the Catholic church was the supreme authority during the dark ages, when Europe was suffering, and the Muslim world was enjoying a much less religious but more established existence a few miles away. Fulfill the needs of the person to a basic level and religion offers nothing. You cannot win a war of ideas until you kill the idea, not the person.