This is a good question, and I do not have a complete and definitive answer to it, but I have some ideas about some of the reasons. These reasons are founded in the West's notions about war and Westerners' need for freedoms.
Traditionally, at least in much of the western world, wars were fought along "fronts." One side's soldiers lined up on one side, the opposing soldiers lined up on the other side, and then they tried to kill one another. The front was always a fairly well-defined geographical area. In fact, most of the success against ISIS has occurred in areas in which ISIS has taken over a specific geographic area. ISIS is now waging a war that has no traditional front at all. ISIS recruits people from all over the world to engage in individual or small group attacks in many different countries, which means there is no real front to defend or fortify anymore. No matter how good one's military is, this situation is very difficult to defend against.
In the same vein, wars were historically waged against nations, city-states, or tribes. War was declared against an entity with specific geographic borders. In World War II, it was a fairly straightforward task to decide what cities to bomb or where to invade from the sea. At some point, one entity would surrender and a peace would be negotiated with leaders who represented a nation. In this case, ISIS is in more than one country. At the very least, it is present in Syria and Iraq. The western nations are not at war with Syria or Iraq, just with an element within them. That makes it impossible to have a traditional kind of warfare. No matter how western nations attack, they will harm many people who are not terrorists. Surgical bombing has its limits.
Another facet of traditional war that makes it difficult to fight ISIS is the desire to follow the rules of war, the rules of engagement. Western nations want to have "civilized" wars, not harm civilians or torture prisoners, for example. ISIS has no interest in following the rules. It steals, kidnaps, and tortures. If one side always follows the rules and the other side does not, it is really difficult for the rule-followers to win. (I am not advocating that we stop following all rules, but this is one reason for the problem.)
Generally speaking, when people go to war to fight for our nation, we hope they will return. ISIS has no such expectation or intent. It sends young men, women, and even children to their deaths, promising a reward in the afterlife for their sacrifice. As long as ISIS can effectively do this, Western nations can hardly compete, as they will not recruit people based on sure death and eternal reward.
Finally, there is a tradeoff between security and freedom that must be considered in a war like this. The West could probably "win," that is, keep themselves safer, if citizens gave up many of their freedoms. Severe curfews could be implemented all over the western world and people could be required to have papers to travel anywhere. Nations could destroy religious freedom and place all people of the Islam faith in camps, as the United States did to Japanese Americans in World War II. Countries could require people to have chips in them so the state could keep track of everyone, or do what was done in Minority Report, which is incarcerate people thought to commit terroristic acts. Very few people want to live in a world like this. Saddam Hussein kept terrorism in check, but at too great a cost. As long as people want these freedoms, western nations are likely to continue to have a difficult time defeating ISIS.
There are other reasons, to be sure, and I hope others weigh in because this is an important issue today. Certainly, though, our ideas about warfare and our desire for freedom make ISIS a very difficult enemy.
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