As word of #We_Are_Coming_O_Rome spread across the Italian media, Rome residents took the opportunity to respond to the Islamic State. And they did so in an especially Roman way.  With warnings about the traffic.

IS has turned public executions into multifaceted tools of social control, recruitment and unconventional warfare, as well as performances of legitimacy and strength.

Japan’s latest hostage crisis has exposed shortcomings in Japan’s public diplomacy and raises questions about the advice Prime Minister Shinzo Abe received in publicly announcing $200 million in humanitarian aid to help those displaced by conflict with the Islamic State group.

President Barack Obama asked Congress Tuesday to authorize military action against Islamic State extremists, saying the U.S. can defeat them without being “dragged into another ground war in the Middle East.”

How can democracies fight this ideology? People may die, but ideologies are forever. I suggest that we begin to think of the Islamic State as having soft power but with its own evil spin.

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.

Dropping bombs isn't the only way to advance American interests abroad. (...) Certainly, the Islamic State poses an enormous threat to regional stability. But is the focus on military efforts the right one?