Behold the propaganda leaflets that the United States and its coalition partners are producing in the battle against ISIS. They have been circulating since December on social media, aimed to dissuade foreign fighters or just plain Muslims from joining the ranks. The message, and the imagery, are pathetic. But there is also a huge trap in critiquing them.

Sputnik International is a Russian state-owned “news” site run by Rossiya Segodnya. It’s not that hard for the average citizen to figure it out given some basic Google skills. But to the aimless, bored, and uncurious scouring the internet for information about the impending war of worlds, this propaganda machine run by Russian Intelligence just seems like, well, any other independent site worried about the sad state of international security. Its top-billed inclusion on my RSS feed and in Google news searches is both impressive and misleading. And that calculated simplicity is what makes it some of the most brilliantly orchestrated and yet, subtle, psychological warfare in recent years.

It’s been a year since ISIS announced its “caliphate” over an area straddling Iraq and Syria, accelerating its reign of terror and persisting in expanding its reach into the so-called civilized world. The brutality of the rampagers is now a given–the extreme acts of killing, genocide, and systematic rape all featured on social media and intended to be a bullet aimed straight at western sensibilities; offensive clickbait that demands a response, any response.