Careful steps, Mr. Trump

The Defense Department is preparing plans that would enable Donald Trump to ramp up the conflict with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as soon as he assumes office.

There is an obvious imperative and value in destroying the self- proclaimed caliphate, which has mastered online techniques that enable its highest- ranking tacticians to organize and manage terror operations with new effectiveness from afar.

There are other important factors, however, in their way. Sequencing America’s military priorities will be one of the toughest and most urgent challenges facing the whole defense and security apparatus. Right now, the incoming Trump team disagrees, perhaps strongly, with assessments elsewhere in government that military preparedness against Russian threats should be given top priority. Time spent sorting out America’s posture toward Moscow in the new administration should be used simultaneously to achieve decisive results on other important issues— like defeating the Islamic State.

Already, the Pentagon has ratcheted up a cyberwarfare campaign against the Islamic State. A related, but useful, conversation worth having is the possibility of Congress finally providing formal authority for our campaign against the Islamic State.

Two years into an ongoing campaign featuring tens of thousands of airstrikes, and the deployment of thousands of American personnel on the ground, Congress has abdicated its responsibility to adequately oversee the conflict.

Attempts by President Obama to obtain such authorization have, to date, been rebuffed. On the campaign trail, Trump claimed he would seek a declaration of war from Congress. “We probably should have done that in the first place,” he told Bill O’Reilly in May.

Though it is in the best interest of the United States, as well as the people of Syria and Iraq, for the Islamic State to be swiftly dispatched, this must be done responsibly, so as to avoid a state of perpetual war without a clear endgame.