The recent rise in global terrorism is alarming, but it also reaffirms the failure of our purely hard military approach to counter the phenomenon.

The Obama administration is revamping its effort to counter the Islamic State’s propaganda machine, acknowledging that the terrorist group has been far more effective in attracting new recruits, financing and global notoriety than the United States and its allies have been in thwarting it.

According to law enforcement officials, ISIS and other terrorist organizations are increasingly adept at using social media to recruit from abroad.  Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter face complex criticism.

In 2014, China stepped up its campaign to shape international norms governing the Internet, moving vigorously in its public diplomacy and behind the scenes to subjugate the online world to state power.

Mr. Bakhit, 36, is a Jordanian comic book author and entrepreneur who creates Middle Eastern stories that are an alternative to terrorist ideologies. His field research has included surveys of children in poor neighborhoods in and around the Jordanian capital of Amman and in Syrian refugee camps.

As the US government rolled out its military response to Islamic State over the summer, its diplomatic arm ramped up another war - confronting the extremist group on the digital battleground.