One day before several gunmen and suicide bombers caused chaos in Paris, killing a confirmed 129 people and injuring hundreds more, U.S. President Barack Obama had declared that the Islamic State was “contained”.

“I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” President Obama said in an interview with ABC News on Thursday, local time. “ What is true is that from the start our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them.”

However, Obama conceded that the U.S. has “not yet been able to completely decapitate [ISIL’s] command and control structures” – a statement that was left ringing hours later, when the militant group came forward to take responsibility for the deadliest attack in Paris since World War II.

“This is just the beginning of the storm,” a statement by the extremist organisation proclaimed.

“Let France and all nations following its path know that they will continue to be at the top of the target list for the Islamic State and that the scent of death will not leave their nostrils as long as they partake part in the crusader campaign…and boast about their war against Islam in France, and their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets.”

The message – cold, direct and reminiscent of the divisive to-intervene-or-not discourse that came off the back of Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ – pushed the latest wins by the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS forces out of sight. News about the most recent drone strike suspected to have killed Jihadi John was quickly swallowed up by the surge of anger and horror against the Paris attacks, and in some measure the Beirut blasts.

As the world is left reeling from yet another tragedy, a familiar, nagging question once again emerges: is the existing campaign against ISIL enough, or is intervention in Syria and Iraq simply causing more problems?

Are we winning the war?

For France, the deadly attacks on its home soil just 10 months after Charlie Hebdo meant it was time to take the fight up a notch.

On Sunday evening local time, French fighter jets dropped 20 bombs on ISIS’s base in Raqqa, Syria. The French Defence Ministry confirmed that the strikes targeted and destroyed a command post, jihadist recruitment centre, arms and munitions depot, and terrorist training camp.

The retaliation confirmed French President Francois Hollande’s strong warning to the militant group in the aftermath of the attacks:

“Faced with war, the country has to take appropriate decisions. An act of war was committed by a terrorist army – Daesh…France will have no mercy against the barbarians of Daesh. France will use all lawful means and all means that are convenient on all grounds, internally and externally, in conjunction with our allies who themselves are targeted by this terrorist threat.”

President Hollande’s statement echoed Obama’s message in September 2014, when he said the U.S. would not hesitate to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIL. This was followed by an air campaign spearheaded by the U.S. against ISIL forces – an ongoing plan later renamed Operation Inherent Resolve and expanded to include humanitarian efforts, and arming and supporting local ground forces.

More than a year on and over 8,000 airstrikes have been conducted in Iraq and Syria to date. On average, four out of five strikes on ISIL are launched by the U.S., which has spent an average daily cost of US$11 million (approx. AU$15 million) on its campaign. Twelve out of the 62 partner nations, including Australia and France, make up for the remaining strikes.

However, the Islamic State is “fundamentally no weaker” than it was a year ago despite the bombings, which is believed to have killed about 15,000 ISIL militants, the Associated Press citing American intelligence agencies noted earlier this year.

"The pressure on Raqqa is significant ... but looking at the overall picture, ISIS is mostly in the same place," said Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism analyst at Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think-tank.

The AP report also revealed that it could take more than a decade to drive ISIL forces from its safe havens, particularly since the U.S. is unwilling to commit troops to fight on the ground, where IS soldiers are replaced faster than they can be killed, and whose knowledge of the lay of the land gives them a distinct advantage.

The lack of ground troops is further exacerbated by the restraint the U.S. is exercising in its air campaigns, for fear that it might kill civilians while targeting militants, especially since the extremist group is known to hold prisoners in buildings to deter air strikes.

These challenges of limited containment have prompted some world leaders to argue that airstrikes alone will not be effective in overcoming the Islamic State. In a controversial speech in October, Tony Abbott called for more specialised forces and teams on the ground in Syria and Iraq.

“The United States and its allies, including Britain and Australia, have launched airstrikes against this would-be terrorist empire. We’ve helped to contain its advance in Iraq but we haven’t defeated it because it can’t be defeated without more effective local forces on the ground,” Abbott said at the Margaret Thatcher gala dinner in London.

Meanwhile, any efforts to train Syrian rebels to fight ISIL have produced dismal results, while local security forces have not mobilised in a way that the U.S. had hoped for – an issue Obama is well aware of.

“I know that there are some in Republican quarters who have suggested that I’ve overlearned the mistake of Iraq, and that, in fact, just because the 2003 invasion did not go well doesn’t argue that we shouldn’t go back in,” Obama said in an interview with The Atlantic.

“And one lesson that I think is important to draw from what happened is that if the Iraqis themselves are not willing or capable to arrive at the political accommodations necessary to govern, if they are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them.”

When looking at estimates of the number of active ISIL fighters, which range from 30,000 (by the CIA) to as many as 100,000 (based on figures by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights), the 15,000 confirmed ISIL kills pale slightly in comparison.

The surge in radicalised foreign fighters, and the many around the world who seek to affiliate themselves with the terrorist group, from Man Haron Monis to Farhad Jabar, puts further pressure on the issue of whether the U.S-led campaign to contain, rather than destroy, is effective.

Ramp up efforts or withdraw?

“As long as you keep bombing you will not live in peace.”

This statement from an undated video released by ISIS on Sunday, which showed militants with guns threatening to attack France if it continued intervening in Iraq and Syria, brings back home the challenges of the fight against the Islamic State.

On one hand, the narrative spun by IS of being ‘targeted’ only strengthens as the West continues playing the offensive. As author of “The ISIS Apocalypse” and exert on radical Islam at the Brookings Institution tells the Wall Street Journal:

“If this [the Paris attack] was indeed directed by ISIS Central, it represents a major change from an earlier focus on state-building: They have made a decision that they will punish anyone who stands in the way of the expansion of their state.”

John Blaxland, senior fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU, also noted in an opinion piece for The Drum that an over-reaction must be avoided.

“Twelve years after the US led intervention in Iraq…hasn't stopped hawkish calls for massive military intervention. That would be to court disaster and make a mockery of concerns about rebalancing great power dynamics in East Asia.

“Daesh has been goading the West to act against their own Muslim communities, hoping they will feel so ostracised that they will become ever more fertile grounds for the generation of more daeshists. But they also want the West to overreact by sending back ground combat forces to fight them in Iraq and Syria. They hope for a scene akin to the quagmire the US-led coalition encountered in the Sunni heartland of Iraq in the mid-2000s and yearn for a bloody conflagration as a precursor for the clash of civilisations they hope will trigger a resurgent caliphate.”

Yet, the West giving up on its campaign will probably not stop ISIL either, as the group seeks to create a worldwide caliphate. However the Paris attacks, believed to have been one of the first major attacks carried out on direct orders from ISIL, will invariably force a rethink in the West’s strategy.

“Without a doubt, this is a whole new threat to humanity, and it is really hard to imagine how it could be contained,” Hassan Hassan, a fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, tells the WSJ. “I don’t think it could be restrained without effectively defeating it in Syria and Iraq.”

What’s next on the chessboard will be thoroughly discussed during the G20 gathering in Turkey this week. Although President Hollande has cancelled his trip to remain in France, key players including Obama, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and David Cameron are expected to develop a response to the attacks, as well as the impact of the refugee crisis on European security.

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