Expanding on the desired ends or conditions as it relates to strategy, I found this article of interest.

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016...seone_today_nl

America Can’t Do Much About ISIS

That leaves patience, containment, and humanitarian aid as the least-bad policies while waiting for this awful war to play itself out.

After an explanation of why wars like this drag on for years and why ISIL won't be defeated by some proxy conquering Raqqa and pulling down their flag, though we still have many conventional thinkers in the military to include SOF who continue to buy into the curse of Clausewitz, his center of gravity, while ignoring his true wisdom about understanding the nature of war you're about to engage in. The authors focus on how to answer GEN Petraeus's famous question, "Tell me how this ends?"

In practical terms, the answer to Petraeus’s famous question is thus relatively insensitive to U.S. policy. If this war plays out the way so many others have, its end will come not through an allied offensive to conquer a capital city but through the mutual exhaustion of multiple actors with multiple, often wealthy outside benefactors. This will eventually happen—but it will likely take many years yet. U.S. efforts won’t change these fundamentals much absent a major stabilization and nation-building effort that few Americans now support, or some diplomatic breakthrough that assuages Iranian, Russian, and Saudi long-run security concerns. And that leaves Americans with patience and containment as the least-bad policy while waiting for this awful war to play itself out.
One of the explanations on why this conflict will likely continue for years, even if the actors change their names (ISIL becomes ?) is the about of external support the various combatants are receiving, and the failure of West to address the humanitarian crisis that is destabilizing the region (beyond the conflict zones) and Europe. Same as it ever was, or have strategic factors in the 21st Century resulted in new conditions that strategy must adjust to? A little or a lot of both I suspect. Maybe the nature and character of these conflicts haven't changed, but we changed as a nation and are no longer capable of developing effective strategy based on our current ideology, which includes the false dichotomy between war and peace, which results in a failure to recognize the risk of not acting short of traditional war, or trying to solve a problem using traditional war where it is an inappropriate response.

The latest National Military Strategy and subsequent articles indicate that military strategy remains threat centric. The military discusses 4 potential state actors plus VEOs as the plus one. Is it incorrect for the military to be threat centric? If you don't anticipate who you may have to fight and understand their capabilities and doctrine, how to do you project future force requirements?

http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Docume...y_Strategy.pdf

On the other hand, Haynes in his book, "Toward a New Maritime Strategy," argues the value of having a strategy that is focused on our national interests. I don't think he stated or implied that threats were irrelevant, but rather if you understood your interests, then you can place threats in the correct context. What U.S. interests does ISIL or the Islamic State threaten?

I think there are several starting with destabilizing the region beyond the current conflict zones, which could put a good part of the global oil supplies at risk with significant impact on the global economy, which will impact the U.S. If the U.S. continues to fail to lead in a meaningful way, it will undermine the U.S.'s ability to protect the largely U.S. led international order that has provided for our security and prosperity for several decades now. Arguably it has provided the same for our allies and partners. ISIL presents a persistent threat to the homeland and U.S. lives globally, probably not a large scale, but with 24hr news, even small attacks take on strategic significance beyond the personal tragedies suffered. Finally, and perhaps this is tied to maintaining the international order (not rigidly maintaining, but adapting it according to set rules), are promoting the values we stand for a nation. Do we have a responsibility to protect? If we don't what are the consequences from a strategy perspective (humanitarian crisis with significant second order effects) and on our character or identity as a nation?