How big should the U.S. military be to fight the Islamic State? It was determined, in the past, by the idea of a “two-front strategy,” or the idea that the U.S. military should be able to simultaneously fight two wars in different battle theaters. But terrorism is not conventional war. The tactics of the Islamic State can be more like a flash-mob than standard battlefront formations. It’s unclear whether a return to the two-front standard would sharply shift the nation’s military staffing, let alone priorities.
