Professional Military Education

Michael Gordon is the author of Degrade and Destroy: The Inside Story of the War Against the Islamic State. He is currently a National Security Correspondent with The Wall Street Journal. He has covered wars and conflicts for over 35 years with The Wall Street Journal and previously with The New York Times.  In this interview, we discus the last decade of conflict against the Islamic State in which the United States applied a “by, with and through” strategy. This strategy supported Iraqi Security Forces and Syrian Democratic Forces with U.S. advisors in the field as well as multiple intelligence and air assets. Topics covered include the following:  The conditions that allowed ISIS to capture territory in Iraq and Syria The capture of Mosul followed by the U.S. developing a strategy to respond The “By, With and Through” strategy that the U.S. employed based on a Special Forces concept to back local forces in the field of combat Where the term “Degrade and Destroy” came from and the strategic implications of