To win this high-stakes contest, democratic societies must look beyond battlefield victory and focus on winning hearts and minds through the power of ideas and the promise of meaningfulness – just as the Islamic State has done. The notion that democracies can fend off such forces, with their well-resourced and media-savvy ideological apparatuses, with guns alone is a sure loser.
要赢得这场赌注巨大的竞争，民主社会必须着眼于战场胜利之外，关注通过思想的力量和意义的承诺赢得人心——伊斯兰国就是这么做的。认为民主用枪炮就可以抵挡这股力量，抵挡住它们资源雄厚、精于传播的意识形态攻势，这是大错特错的。这是一场意义的战争，只能通过刺激希望、行动和个体和社会凝聚力的思想取胜。