Since it surged into public awareness in 2014 with its rapid, bloody takeover of parts of Iraq (and subsequently Syria), the terrorist group popularly known as the Islamic State has captivated the global imagination. The group's rapid military advances, coupled with its unbridled brutality, have made it global public enemy number one. As a result, the organization has become the near-singular focus of Western counterterrorism policy.
Of late, however, strategic setbacks suffered by the Islamic State in its rump "caliphate" of Iraq and Syria have raised the prospect that America's counterterrorism fight, at least in its current form, might soon be a thing of the past. Yet the Islamic State's decline has also raised a host of new and troubling questions about the future disposition of its franchises, competitors and ideological fellow travelers - answers to which will be essential to the success of U.S. counterterrorism policy in the years ahead.
A CRUMBLING CALIPHATE?
At the height of its power in late 2014 and early 2015, the territory of the Islamic State covered 81,000 square miles - a geographical expanse roughly equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom.[1] During this period, the terror group held sway over 8 million civilians, a population on a par with that of Switzerland.[2] It likewise generated a yearly revenue of some $1 billion in 2015, making it the best funded threat group in recorded history.[3]
Today, the Islamic State's fortunes have declined considerably. In recent months, concerted military action on the part of the United States and its Coalition allies has significantly eroded the group's territorial reach. As of this summer, British intelligence consultancy IHS estimated that ISIS had lost a quarter of its total territory (an area more or less the size of Ireland).[4] This loss of ground, coupled with an array of "soft power" strategies employed by the United States and its allies, has adversely impacted the group's political and economic fortunes. As of this summer, the Islamic State's total revenue is believed to have declined by as much as half, forcing the group to implement an array of belt-tightening measures (such as significant reductions in the salaries of its fighters).[5]
Not surprisingly, policymakers in Washington and European capitals have been quick to conclude that ISIS represents a dwindling - if not yet defunct - problem. As the Commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel (USA), noted to reporters in August, growing "pressure" on the group by U.S. and allied forces is prompting the proto-state to revert back to its more modest "terrorist-like roots."[6]
Despite these setbacks, however, the Islamic State remains a resilient and capable threat actor. An October 2016 study by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security concluded that, despite its recent territorial losses, both the global influence and reach of the Islamic State remain potent. This is attributable to the group's extensive, and innovative, revenue stream, which relies on seven distinct pillars: black market oil and natural gas; black market commodities; antiquities; extortion, taxation, and robbery; kidnappings for ransom; support from nation states in the Gulf, and; emerging fundraising tactics like fraudulent financial activities.[7] These diverse sources, in turn, "continue to strain the U.S. Government's ability to disrupt the group's financial flows."[8]
Moreover, the Islamic State is still thinking globally. A June 2016 report by the Congressional Research Service noted that the group has succeeded in fielding at least six functioning "armies" in Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan.[9] This, coupled with independent cells inspired by its ideology, has given the group a continuing capacity to strike globally - something that Western officials have acknowledged. "Our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capacity and global reach," CIA Director John Brennan told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence this summer.[10]
Indeed, despite recent coalition advances, it is still possible to envision the Islamic State maintaining control of a smaller, more geographically sustainable territorial expanse that nonetheless provides it with the land, population and revenue necessary to keep itself in business well into the future. In other words, ISIS - even in diminished form - will continue to constitute a threat to Western interests for some time to come.
AFFILIATES UNMOORED
Nor will the decline of the Islamic State's current "caliphate" eliminate the threat posed by the group's extensive network of global affiliates. To date, no fewer than 34 separate radical groups have made common cause with or pledged allegiance to ISIS and its self-proclaimed emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.[11] That list includes, among others, Nigeria's militant Boko Haram movement, the radical Ansar al-Khilafah group in the Philippines, and the violent Ansar Beit al-Maqdis faction that dominates the Sinai Peninsula. Likewise, Islamic State-affiliated militants have gained a significant foothold in post-Qadhafi Libya, which has become viewed as a "second front" for the group in its war against the West.[12]
These factions, and others, will doubtless be deeply affected by the Islamic State's current path of decline in Iraq and Syria. This, however, cannot be expected to result in their dissolution. In virtually all cases (save Syria), these organizations predate the advent of the Islamic State, and have autonomous personnel, infrastructure and operational capabilities. Indeed, for many (like Nigeria's Boko Haram), affiliation with ISIS has turned out to be more an ideological and political alignment than a genuine merger.[13]
As a result, the decline of the Islamic State could well usher in an era of diffuse, localized jihad - one in which ISIS' current and former partners, in the absence of coherent central authority, seek to promote their own radical vision on a national or regional level.
AL-QAEDA'S LONG GAME
Significant, too, is the disposition of the Islamic State's progenitor and ideological rival, al-Qaeda. Over the past three years, the two groups have waged a pitched struggle for the hearts and minds of the world's jihadists. It is a contest that ISIS is widely acknowledged have won handily - at least while it was on the ascent.[14]
Less well understood is how this rise has affected al-Qaeda, in terms of both ideology and operations. Yet, as scholars like Daveed Gartenstein-Ross convincingly argue, the Bin Laden network has adapted significantly in response to the Islamic State, rebranding itself throughout the Middle East and North Africa as a more authentic and measured Islamist alternative.[15] It has also increasingly embraced the necessity of territorial control - something that its leadership eschewed in previous years as a distraction from the overriding goal of global jihad.[16]
The results are striking. Today, the organization holds more territory than at any time in its history. From Yemen to Syria to Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has become entrenched on large swathes of territory, exploiting empty political space in conflict zones and local aversion to the brutality of ISIS to insinuate itself with local Sunni populations. This long-term strategy, moreover, has benefited tremendously from a lack of serious attention on the part of the West, which remains preoccupied with the anti-ISIS fight. As a result, the Bin Laden network - once believed to be on its heels - has succeeded in laying the groundwork for a long-term strategic presence as a global actor.
A NEW TERRORIST INTERNATIONALE
The legacy of the Syrian civil war will play a key role in the complexion of future terrorism as well. Over the past half-decade, the struggle between the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his political opponents has steadily metamorphosed from a local conflict into a global jihad. Thanks to the influx of thousands of foreign extremists, the country has steadily transformed into the new Afghanistan, a training ground for today's terrorists and a crucible for a coming wave of extremism.
The historical analogy is instructive. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 - carried out by the Kremlin to prop up the country's embattled communist regime - touched off a mass mobilization of radicals throughout the Muslim world. Over the years that followed, thousands made their way to Southwest Asia to wage jihad against the Soviet Union. All told, experts estimate that as many as 20,000 foreign fighters joined the ranks of the Afghan mujahideen in the decade between 1979 and 1989.[17]
Over time, and through the assistance of facilitators like al-Qaeda's intellectual godfather, Abdullah Azzam, and his support network of safe houses and training camps (known as the Maktab al-Khidamat[18]), this cohort became a network of seasoned, trained and battle-hardened professionals. And once the Afghan jihad ended, some of its "alumni" sought out other conflicts in places like Chechnya and the Balkans, while others returned to their countries of origin and proceeded to carry out subversion on a local level. The result was that the decade of the 1990s saw the internationalization of the jihadist ideas and tactics that had been used to such great effect against the USSR.[19]
Today, the foreign fighter problem generated by ISIS and incubated by the Syrian civil war has the potential to be far more deadly. An April 2016 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that, in the two-plus years since its rise to prominence in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has succeeded in attracting more than 31,000 recruits from countries as diverse as Tunisia, Norway and Trinidad & Tobago.[20] In other words, the Islamic State has already marshaled one-and-a-half times as many foreign fighters to its cause than were active on the battlefield during the entirety of the Afghan jihad. In turn, once today's conflict draws to a close, Syria's "alumni" can be expected to return home, sparking a new wave of global instability in the process.
In fact, this trend is already taking shape. In recent months, as the Islamic State has lost territory on an accelerating scale, European nations have begun to brace themselves for an influx of returnees for that conflict - and for a spike in terrorism carried out by these same actors.[21]
A REINVIGORATED IRANIAN THREAT NETWORK
The Islamic State's status as the standard-bearer for Sunni jihadism has likewise diverted attention for the growing potential for Shi'ite radicalism, which is causally linked to the expanding capabilities and strategic ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As a result of the nuclear deal concluded last year between Iran and the P5+1 powers (the U.S., UK, Russia, China, France and Germany), the Iranian regime has received what amounts to an enormous economic windfall in the form of some $100 billion in previously-escrowed oil revenue, reintegration into the global financial system, and an array of measures intended to stimulate post-sanctions trade. The cumulative impact of this assistance has been nothing short of transformative. Iran's economy, which was teetering on the brink of collapse in the Fall of 2013, is now on a path of sustained growth, according to international financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank.[22]
As Iran's economic fortunes have stabilized, its strategic ambitions have expanded. Over the past year-and-a-half, among many other initiatives, the Iranian regime has deepened its military footprint in Syria in support of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, redoubled its investments in assorted Shi'ite militias operating in neighboring Iraq, and provided extensive military assistance to Yemen's Houthi rebels. The cumulative effect is that Iran can now be said to be in control of four Arab capitals: Beirut, Lebanon; Damascus, Syria; Baghdad, Iraq and Sana'a, Yemen.
Tehran, moreover, is thinking bigger still. The Iranian government has invested billions of dollars in the acquisition of new military hardware from suppliers like Russia and China[23], and Iranian military officials have charted an increasingly ambitious - and aggressive - strategic agenda abroad.[24] The message is unmistakable: Tehran today is on the march.
This new activism is likely to be manifested in a surge of additional funding to proxy groups that support and promote the Islamic Republic's global vision. Indeed, even before the lifting of multilateral sanctions as a result of the nuclear deal, Iran was estimated to be spending between $3.5 billion to $16 billion annually on support for terrorism and insurgency worldwide.[25] This figure included funding for Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, Hamas in the Palestinian Territories, and a host of other militant factions in Iraq, Syria and beyond. Now that Tehran has begun to reap the monetary dividends of its nuclear arrangement with the West, these investments can be expected to become deeper still, with significant detrimental effects for regional stability in the greater Middle East.
BEYOND SOUND BITES
While still on the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump vowed repeatedly to make the destruction of ISIS a key foreign policy priority if elected. His administration consequently can be expected to make the formulation of a new approach to radical Islam one of its cardinal tasks once it takes office in January. But as it crafts its strategy, the Trump White House is liable to find that it faces a complex and multifaceted counterterrorism challenge - one in which the fight against the Islamic State represents just one battle in a much larger war.
As such, official Washington will need to settle in for a long-term conflict. And it will need to formulate a counterterrorism strategy that is as complex, as adaptive and as wide-ranging as the forces that it seeks to confront and defeat.
ENDNOTES
[1] Rick Noack, "Here's How The Islamic State Compares With Real States," Washington Post, September 12, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/09/12/heres-how-the-islamic-state-compares-to-real-states/.
[2] "In ISIL-Controlled Territory, 8 Million Civilians Living In 'State Of Fear' - UN Expert," un.org, July 31, 2015, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51542#.WDZYsKIrKYU.
[3] "ISIS Made $1 Billion in Revenue in 2015: US Treasury," Press Trust of India, June 10, 2016, http://www.deccanchronicle.com/world/middle-east/100616/isis-made-1-billion-in-revenue-in-2015-us-treasury.html.
[4] "Islamic State Lost A Quarter Of Its Iraq, Syria Territory In 18 Months: IHS," Reuters, July 10, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-syria-idUSKCN0ZQ0FW.
[5] See, for example, Jose Ragliery, "ISIS Cuts its Fighters' Salaries by 50%," CNN Money, January 19, 2016, http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/19/news/world/isis-salary-cuts/.
[6] As cited in Bill Gertz, "Islamic State: From Nation-State to Terror Group," Washington Times, August 31, 2016, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/31/islamic-state-from-nation-state-to-terror-group/.
[7] U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security, Cash to Chaos: Dismantling ISIS' Financial Infrastructure, October 2016, https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Dismantling-ISIS-Financial-Infrastructure.pdf.
[8] U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security, Cash to Chaos: Dismantling ISIS' Financial Infrastructure, October 2016, https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Dismantling-ISIS-Financial-Infrastructure.pdf.
[9] Rowan Scarborough, "Islamic State Expands Beyond Iraq-Syria Base with Six Armies on Three World Regions," Washington Times, June 20, 2016, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/20/isis-expands-beyond-iraq-syria-base-with-six-armie/.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Edith M. Lederer, "UN Chief: 34 Groups Now Allied to Islamic State Extremists," Associated Press, February 6, 2016, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/99927b5e8a5848c397bce9adb3ac9a0d/un-chief-34-groups-now-allied-islamic-state-extremists.
[12] See, for example, Fiona Hamilton, "British Jihadists Told To Head for Libya," Times of London, September 28, 2015, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/africa/article4569617.ece.
[13] See J. Peter Pham, "How Boko Haram Became the Islamic State's West Africa Province," The Journal of International Security Affairs no. 30, Winter 2016, http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/number-30/how-boko-haram-became-islamic-states-west-africa-province.
[14] J.M. Berger, "The Islamic State vs. al Qaeda," Foreign Policy, September 2, 2014, http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/02/the-islamic-state-vs-al-qaeda/.
[15] See, for example, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Nathaniel Barr, "An Opening for Al-Qaeda," The Journal of International Security Affairs no. 30, Winter 2016, http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/number-30/opening-al-qaeda.
[16] Ayman al-Zawahiri letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, July 2005, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/v2/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Zawahiris-Letter-to-Zarqawi-Translation.pdf.
[17] See, for example, Thomas Hegghammer, "The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad," International Security 35, no. 3, Winter 2010/2011, 61, http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/The_Rise_of_Muslim_Foreign_Fighters.pdf.
[18] Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, "Maktab al-Khidemat (MAK)," n.d., http://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/maktab-al-khidamat-mak.
[19] See, for example, Yoram Schweitzer and Shaul Shay, The Globalization of Terror: The Challenge of Al-Qaida and the Response of the International Community (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2011), esp. Chapter 2.
[20] Efraim Benmelech and Esteban F. Klor, "What Explains the Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS?" National Bureau of Economic Research NBER Working Paper no. 22190, April 2016, http://www.nber.org/papers/w22190.
[21] See, for example, Griff Witte, Sudarsan Raghaven and James McAuley, "Flow of Foreign Fighters Plummets as Islamic State Loses its Edge," Washington Post, September 9, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/flow-of-foreign-fighters-plummets-as-isis-loses-its-edge/2016/09/09/ed3e0dda-751b-11e6-9781-49e591781754_story.html?utm_term=.395b63dc9557.
[22] See, for example, International Monetary Fund, "Iran: Concluding Statement of an IMF Staff Visit," October 3, 2016, http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2016/10/03/MS100316-Iran-Concluding-Statement-of-an-IMF-Staff-Visit.
[23] Franz-Stefan Gady, "Iran and Russia Negotiating $10 Billion Arms Deal," The Diplomat, November 15, 2016, http://thediplomat.com/2016/11/iran-and-russia-negotiating-10-billion-arms-deal/.
[24] See, for example, "Iran Plans to Expand Naval Build-Up to Far Seas, Including Yemen, Syria Waters," Fars (Tehran), November 26, 2016, http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950906000676.
[25] Carla Humud, Christopher Blanchard, Jeremy Sharp and Jim Zanotti, "Iranian Assistance to Groups in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories," Congressional Research Service Memorandum, July 31, 2015, http://www.kirk.senate.gov/images/PDF/Iran%20Financial%20Support%20to%20Terrorists%20and%20Militants.pdf.