Russia and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have little in common. Russia is undeniably a powerful country and has been for centuries, and Russians have contributed a vast wealth of cultural treasures to the rest of the world. ISIS, however, is not even a country, and seeks to impose a twisted version of Islam’s golden age and somehow appropriate its cultural glory even while destroying every historical artifact it can find. Despite these differences, the two pursue military strategies that, while vastly different, share a common core assumption: political power can be acquired not only by imposing order where there is chaos, but also by creating that chaos in the first place.