What makes a threat, say ISIS, get to the level of existential threat, let's say to France?

ex·is·ten·tial
ˌeɡzəˈsten(t)SH(ə)l/
adjective
of or relating to existence.

So, anything that could make France not exist. A large amount of atomic explosive material, for instance.

But once it stops to exist it is past the point of being threatened right? So, how long before it stops existing is it under an existential threat?

From the time a threat exists until the time the threat no longer exists?

Isis would have to Blitzkrieg France to be considered an “existential threat”.

Stupid Media bullshit. If anything Friday was a minor annoyance. Nobody gives a shit about 9/11 anymore too. Move the fuck on.

I would define an existential threat in one of 3 ways:

1. Nearly every French citizen is killed.
2. The territory of France is rendered uninhabitable in some way (poisoned with chemicals, irradiated, submerged under the ocean, etc.).
3. (Most realistic threat) France betrays it’s ideals/principles and ceases to be the France it was and becomes a different France with different values/beliefs.

3 is a bit fuzzy, but if for example France were to amend it’s constitution and radically alter itself from being a free and open nation, to one that was universally hostile to all Muslims by law/culture, then one could argue that “France” no longer exists and has been replaced with a very different nation.

Article by Paul Krugman saying that the one whose existence is threatened is ISIS. It also shows what a mess the Middle East is, with everyone having different enemies.

I found grimly amusing the French air attacks as retribution for what ISIS did. Since France has been fighting them all along, it opens up the question of why France did not do before what it just did now. Were they holding back?

How many millions of French people did not get killed? More than enough for the French culture to survive. Not to sound cold here, but face it, there were only hundreds of casualties. A few hundred deaths might wipe out a smaller culture like an Aborigine tribe, but it’s not nearly enough to even be a serious threat to a culture as deeply rooted as France.

If these “fundamentalists” had the means to do enough damage to literally wipe France off the map, they would’ve done so already. However, Japan still existed after Nagasaki and Hiroshima, so it would take a few more resources than they have to go that route. If they did get some WMD capability, it’d likely be chemical or biological rather than explosive simply because of the size of the boom they’d need.

In short, there is nothing that they can do to destroy France…. except, as @gorillapaws points out, make them destroy themselves.

Ironically, it’s the anti-Islamists who are the true threat to France. There is a strong argument to be made that ISIS/ISIL/Daesh (or whatever they call themselves these days) has already defeated the US. And those who refute that the loudest are proof that the terrorists have won. Our nation was founded on certain values that we’ve discarded in our quest to have an illusion of safety. Look at the fourth amendment real quick and tell me how much of that we gutted ourselves by passing the Patriot Act.

Now, if you want to talk “existential threat posed by ISIS”, then look at Iraq. See, most terrorists (ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the rest) are Salafi, which is an extremist sub-sect of Sunni Islam. However, Iraq is about 60% Shia, and the remainder are Kurds or less fanatical Sunnis and thus just as heretical as the Shia and us Westerners. ISIS is, in a very real way, a threat to the existence of Iraq.

Look how many mosques and other Iraqi cultural landmarks ISIS has destroyed. Not only are the killing Iraqi people, they are actively trying to erase any sign of the existence of a non-ISIS Iraq. When you kill people, take their lands, and erase any sign of their passing, you well and truly have made them cease to exist.

ISIS isn’t doing that in France. The Eiffel Tower is still up, the Louvre hasn’t burned down, we still have smelly cheeses…. ISIS is not an existential threat to France. And since they made the mistake of poking the bear, I’m not sure Putin will let ISIS live long enough to ever become that sort of threat to France.

ISIS doesn’t pose an existential threat to France that is a ridiculous exaggeration. The country may be changed by recent events but its existence is not in doubt. It does pose an existential threat to Syria and perhaps to Iraq but then Iraq is not the country it was prior to 2003.

But, at what point does it start to become an existential threat, not what is obvious (the maximum level of, when it is past a threat.

What do they (whoever they are) mean by “Iran is existential threat to Israel” if Iran hasn’t attacked Israel in the way some of you have described what the term means?

One has to have both means and motive.

The US has the means to just hit the button and wipe out a large percentage of humanity, but we really lack the incentive to do so. Israel actually poses more of a threat to the Middle East than we do; they also have a formidable military with nuclear capability, but they have more motivation to use them than we do. Hell, even Russia is more of a threat; I think the bombings and 150,000 troops Putin just sent is more than just “saber rattling”.

ISIS has the motive to destroy, well, pretty much everything that isn’t their particular branch of Islam, but they are of limited means. They have the means to destroy Iraq, but they can’t really do much of anything anywhere else.

At worst, ISIS can send out remote operatives who may, after months be able to do something relatively small, but the reason they choose crowded venues for their acts is precisely because they only have a little strength and thus make every bomb count. When they try anything too big or elaborate, they get caught before they can enact their plans. 9/11 was a massive undertaking yet only managed to take out a few city blocks.

Now, if they developed certain capabilities then they could be an existential threat to everybody just by merely existing. For instance, if they got their hands on some enriched uranium, they still wouldn’t have what it takes to make a nuclear device, but that would be enough for a “dirty bomb”. Imagine if the recent blasts in Paris rendered even part of the city unfit for human habitation.

But so long as we manage to keep them from acquiring certain things, they are relatively manageable.