The word ‘existential’ aptly entered the English lexicon in 1941, when borders, governments, peoples and democracy itself were all having their existence challenged by the events of World War Two. It wasn’t too long before this new
The word ‘existential’ aptly entered the English lexicon in 1941, when borders, governments, peoples and democracy itself were all having their existence challenged by the events of World War Two. It wasn’t too long before this new word was married with “threat” and a cliché was born. Nowadays this phrase is routinely deployed by politicians, columnists and additional concerned parties to propagate, among other things, the case for military action.
At its most basic definition, an “existential threat” is manifested when something directly challenges the very existence of something else. (Note that something cannot be an existential threat in a vacuum – it must threaten something elses existence.) Despite this fairly straightforward definition, however, the phrase is often used sloppily or just plain incorrectly to benefit from the powerful implications which are evoked through its use.
One current thorn in the side of many countries which is no exception to the misuse of the term “existential threat” is ISIS. This is not to say that ISIS is not an existential threat – far from it – but it must be framed correctly as such.
What Does ISIS Existentially Threaten?
The most graphic demonstration of how ISIS is an existential threat didn’t come through one of their many terrorist attacks or mass beheadings. While it was a characteristically slick propaganda video, it showed a bulldozer breaking through a sand berm which not so long ago represented the physical Iraqi-Syrian border. It wasn’t as dramatic as the seizure of a city, but it was the clearest example of the existential threat ISIS poses to the very idea of Iraq and Syria.
ISIS does not want to control either of these countries – it wants to take them apart and build a caliphate from the rubble. As one ISIS fighter shouted following the destruction of a section of the border, “we’ve broken Sykes-Picot!” It is no coincidence that ISIS stopped using this name at roughly the same time of this video; they had broken the border between these two countries and so they became simply “Islamic State;” in their eyes, there was no Iraq or Syria to speak of.
Despite ISIS’ questionable history of bord