President Obama says fighting ISIS will be a 'generational struggle'

President Obama.
(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

On Monday, President Obama said the fight against the Islamic State is going to be a "generational struggle" that ultimately won't be "won or lost by the United States alone," but rather the "countries and communities that terrorists like [ISIS] target."

Obama made his remarks at the Pentagon following a briefing on the U.S. campaign against ISIS. "This broader challenge of countering violent extremism is not simply a military effort," he said. "Ideologies are not defeated by guns. They're defeated with better ideas — a more attractive and more compelling vision." The United States was on high alert over the 4th of July weekend amid warnings of possible attacks by ISIS, and Obama touched on the danger of terrorists who are able to operate under the radar. "The threat of lone wolves or small cells of terrorists is complex, it's harder to detect and harder to prevent," he said. "That means that we're going to have to pick up our game to prevent these attacks."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.