In a 2017 essay for "The Wall Street Journal", Nawaz stated that Jihadists of all types seek to create discord by "pitting Muslims against non-Muslims in the West and Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims in the East". He argues that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is out to provoke a Clash of Civilisations, and we can avoid this clash by calling out the underlying Islamist ideology and isolating Jihadists from ordinary Muslims. He also took exception to Pope Francis's characterisation of Paris attacks as the start of "World War 3", noting that we are not facing another World War but a Global Jihadist insurgency. According to him, an insurgency is different from a conventional war in that insurgents rely on some level of support from the communities they recruit from. And since it is an insurgency, the counter-insurgency strategy should have messaging and psychological warfare as its critical parts, with the aim of isolating insurgents from their target host communities. On a physical level, he supported the idea of an international coalition against ISIL, fronted by Sunni Arab forces and backed by international special forces.