Send in the guerrillas

That much is already clear in the case of IS. The United States’ first truly effective effort against IS since the group began its ferocious campaign across Iraq and Syria was primarily conducted not by an allied nation-state or coalition of militaries, but rather through a non-state actor, the Kurdish militias known as Peshmerga, and associated forces.

The fact that it’s been an irregular fighting force of volunteer soldiers with decades of experience in guerrilla warfare that has succeeded in fighting IS raises questions about the Obama administration’s signature plan to confront global threats primarily by training and equipping allied nations’ military and counterterrorism forces. This is a strategy the administration expanded and reemphasized in May, pledging to spend $5 billion for a new counterterrorism fund, in addition to the tens of billions already spent on foreign military assistance each year.

Instead of throwing dollars at corrupt and marginally effective armies from Nigeria to Pakistan, the administration would do better to spend a little more time and energy building relationships with pro-Western, non-state actors around the world, from the Hazaras in Afghanistan to certain elements of the Baloch ethnic group in Pakistan.