Last April, there was a controversy surrounding the purchase of Abrams tanks for the United States Army. The Army itself said it didn’t need more tanks, but Congress insisted, despite budget woes.

This debate looks rather odd when one considers the force the United States is trying to fight these days. There is no official army to duel. There is no one country to attack. There has never even been a real invasion, per se.

The enemy here, terrorism, is very different from that of previous wars. It is run not by a single group, but by a potpourri of paramilitary organizations, internet magazines like Inspire, and, most importantly, independent attackers. It is so decentralized, that the assassination of droves of its leaders has not stopped it. Indeed, no tank, drone, or CIA hit can hope to truly stop terrorism. This is a very different kind of war - a war of information, where an Abrams tank is largely irrelevant.

For the sake of this article, I will define war as “the use of violence to exert change on the balance of power.” Ordinarily, this means killing as many people as possible or sealing control of critical areas. For terrorism, however, the mechanics are somewhat different. The actual casualties are much lower in count, but their effects are far more significant per casualty, due to clever manipulation of information. By evoking fear, one gains attention, and as that fear turns to anger and retaliation, the use of clever rhetoric and propaganda can pull support toward extremist groups. Now, the West is the “bad guy,” and the extremists gain power. While this tactic has existed for an incredibly long time, it has now seen its most powerful form thanks to the Internet. Now, fear and anger can spread around the world at a blinding pace, and a clever propagandist can easily harness it to gain massive amounts of attention and power while also inspiring more terrorists to feed back into that cycle of violence, fear, anger, and, again, more power. The questions that define war are no longer, "Who controls what?" or "Who killed more people?" Now, war is defined by the question, "Whose story do you believe?"

The United States has done quite well at killing terrorists, but it hasn't done a good job convincing people that it is not the bad guy. It is hard to claim that one is fighting for justice while also firing Hellfire missiles from drones. Strangely enough, the best way to fight terrorism might be to stop trying to fight terrorism. Extremists can get away with killing civilians in car bombs because they have a believable story: the West hates Islam, and they are fighting for their right to their religion. Take away that "meddling," and the story changes. Now, the extremists are no longer heroes against a Goliath; they are now simply right-wingers killing innocent people. Who would be the bad guy then?

To combat terrorism, the U.S. needs to give a compelling story, where they are not the bad guy -- and that falls mostly on the American people. The general public needs to stop protesting the existence of mosques, push the repeal of the Patriot Act, and put an end to misguided, hateful myths about Islam.

Those extremists we are trying to fight have one ace up their sleeve: a rhetorical villain in the United States. Once that changes, they will wither away on their own, because killing innocent people for no reason tends to not be popular.

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