Post-war social-psychological studies reveal that the German soldier believed in what he was doing, and fought for a cause as much as for comrades, whereas there is little evidence that the Allies fought for democracy or communism, despite Hollywood and Soviet propaganda. The German armies were destroyed only by the massive superiority of US firepower and by the massive manpower of more than 20 million Russians given over to slaughter. Perhaps it will come to something like that with the Islamic State. But, for now, the means arrayed against this dynamic revolutionary movement look feeble, and what the US government grandly dubs the ‘global ISIL coalition’ of 65 nations seems a very tenuous, if not fatuous, thing (with several of its members ever-ready to stick knives into one another’s back).