Vermithrax]Honestly, Russia is a far bigger threat to the world than the jihadis. While the Muslims have religious fervor in their corner, which makes them crazy, they lack the financing to pose a major threat to anyone. Russia on the other hand is giving the US and NATO the middle finger left and right and they actually have the money and manpower to pose a serious threat to anyone.
The jihadis do shit like 911 and kill a few thousand people and all the sheep start baaaa'ing and making a big deal about it. Russia decides they're going to take part of a NATO country and make it a part of Russia and nobody does anything about it because they're scared of kicking off WWIII. If you're powerful enough to take a portion of a NATO country and the US doesn't respond with military action, that says a lot.
Russia can be bargained with, embargoed, and is part of the global economy, therefor they have vulnerabilities. Even though they've been asshats the past couple years, I would completely disagree that they're more of a threat than ISIS. The Russians are logical and can be reasoned with. They may possess nuclear armaments, but they won't use them because of assured mutual destruction.
ISIS on the other hand, would not hesitate to use a nuke if they got their hands on one, which they are constantly trying to do, and we're constantly trying to stop. They can't be reasoned with, and all logic and self preservation tactics are useless on them. Their religious zeal gives them the mentality of "No downside" for anything they might do (read up on how they treat captured civilian non muslims. It will make you sick). As to not being financially capable or able to do the damage Russia can do, they have control of oil reserves, drug money, private donors, and a steady influx of zealots.
From newsweek:
The ISIS economy and its fighters predominantly rely on the production and sale of seized energy assets—Iraq has the fifth-largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. ISIS also depends on the steady income it extracts from private donors, the heavy taxation and extortion it levies on its captive population, the seizure of bank accounts and private assets in the lands it occupies, ransoms from kidnappings and the plundering of antiquities excavated from ancient palaces and archaeological sites.
“You could say ISIS is destructive on an unprecedented scale, because it is not just destroying human lives today,” says Abdulamir al-Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist specializing in Mesopotamia at the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. “We’re talking about the destruction of humankind back to the beginning of humankind.”
These guys are as moraless as Nazis (Without the cold calculating logic of human test subjects. Apparently Allah is not all about learning) and even more dangerous on a large scale. Do some research on how they treat the people in the regions they take over. They murder any male who is not of their religion, because it is the will of God, and ship off all the women and children to be sex slaves, because it is Allah's will they be shown their wrongs by being repetitively raped, often until death, which may take weeks or even months.
There are a lot more Muslims in the middle east than there were German soldiers in WWII, and while Germany had a select few sick bastards that engaged in mass genocide, the majority of ISIS soldiers are sick fucks twisted by a warped religion, and they are decimating that area of the world. If they aren't stopped and are allowed to spread, oil exports from the middle east will slow or be routed to unfriendly countries, impacting everything from financial inflation to foreign policy, none of it for the good. Not to mention the crimes against humanity, loss of life, history, religous sects, allies, income, leverage, etc.
In the end, Russia scares me a lot less. They may be bigger badder stronger, but they also have a sense of self preservation that ISIS does not. Yeah, they're fighting over what is essentially lost territory from their financial collapse, and yeah Putin's doing exactly what most American's think our bitch ass president should do, and stand up for his country first, and not pander to everyone else, including muslims radicals on bent knee, mouth open for cock to be inserted, but I don't think that constitutes worry about ambitions for global domination via warfare (little tangent there).
Each and everyone devout ISIS member would impale themselves on a spear if they knew it would kill infidels for Allah (that's not just the western world, that's everyone on this planet who is not a strict devout Muslim) and I find that sort of conviction much more frightening than potential destruction by a relatively logical culture whose leader is standing firm, looking out for #1, and taking no shit from anyone (which used to be our MO before we had an ISIS Manchurian candidate elected. Yeah, I know that's a stretch, but I fucking hate that pussy).
