It may be useful to conceptualize the effort to counter the Islamic State (ISIS) in relation to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Curiously, current efforts to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS actually resembles priorities from an inverted Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. In the inverted version, self-actualization and esteem form the base. Contesting the notion that ISIS is in fact Islamic fits this ideation. The question becomes is this actually the base that supports ISIS? It seem possible however, that a standard Hierarchy of Needs pyramid with physiological and safety and security at the base is better suited for organizing countermeasures.
Would we see a more coherent strategic communications campaign if there was in an earnest consensus that the inverted hierarchy best approximated ISIS and its vulnerabilities?
I recall a brief conversation with a strategic communications professional some years ago. At the time, the question seemed tangential, and possibly even annoying, but I asked it. If the notion of groups like ISIS actually being Islamic is germane and pivotal, then, isn’t the contest of ideas regarding Islamic Jurisprudence important? Surprisingly, the answer was “no” it’s not important. Perhaps the frame of reference was entirely wrong. Specifically, I had in mind the experiences of, and the books written by Ali Soufan and Malcolm Nance. Their contention was that while working for the United States government a nuanced understanding of Islam was useful. Perhaps it was an error to extrapolate Soufan’s and Nance’s experience as interrogators. It seemed that the contested aspects of Islam could be debated or resolved in a way that led to compliance and even cooperation. The fact that this approach proved successful in contentious interrogations suggested at least the possibility that it could scale up.
Fast forward several years and the situation, or at least people talking about the situation has taken an entirely different turn. Instead of an emphasis on the substance of Islamic Jurisprudence, Graeme Wood describes the situation as it now:
“Western officials would probably do best to refrain from weighing in on matters of Islamic theological debate altogether. Barack Obama himself drifted into takfiri waters when he claimed that the Islamic State was ‘not Islamic’—the irony being that he, as the non-Muslim son of a Muslim, may himself be classified as an apostate, and yet is now practicing takfir against Muslims. Non-Muslims’ practicing takfir elicits chuckles from jihadists (‘Like a pig covered in feces giving hygiene advice to others,’ one tweeted).”
Strategic communications needs to be done in a particular way to be done effectively.
If that’s not something that rises to the level of being a priority then perhaps it is best to not focus on a symmetrical counter narrative. Abandon this area as a contested space and move on.
I’ll Fight You for Something Else
Direct military conflict plays into an established ISIS narrative about the need to resist outside influences and crusaders. An undifferentiated application of violence runs the risk of being subsumed by this self-referential and self-perpetuating narrative. Simply killing people and destroying their things is insufficient.
Attack the Enemy's Strategy
The Islamic State’s legitimacy is based on its ability to establish and sustain a state. Of course, something is either an advantage or disadvantage. As Graeme Wood pointed out, “The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.)”
They must administer goods and services in the areas they control. The calculation is that territorial control equates legitimacy. But legitimacy denotes responsibility or at least expectations. The process of administration or governance gives the organization structure and form and those aspect comprise vulnerabilities. It is merely a one dimensional way to think about ISIS taking territory that someone (United States military, Peshmerga, Iraqi security forces, or Iranian Quds Force/IRGC) has to take it back in bilaterally symmetrical fashion. There are, of course, additional dimensions to this conflict and other manors to conceptualize and counter it. John Arquilla noted correctly that:
“… in the current era, the destructive and disruptive power of even very small groups grows at a cancerous rate. In such a world, taking ground simply exposes a force to more widely distributed attacks. And chasing down enemy leaders is counterproductive when there is no central control of an enemy force that is widely dispersed in small cells.”
The exact same idea was mentioned quite a while ago now: more money means more problems. As scope and scale change so does the importance of something relative to the absolute. Disrupting infrastructure or governance can damage legitimacy. Disruption is enough to give reasonable doubt, and doubt is sufficient.
Partial Disruption > Total Disruption
To date, the US strategy for defeating ISIS has focused on degrading it. Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online defines degrade as:
To treat (someone or something) poorly and without respect To make the quality of (something) worse To cause (something complex) to break down into simple substances or parts
To prevent the effort to degrade ISIS from becoming isolated and ineffective it will be important to maintain multiple lines of operation, apply Irregular Warfare principles, and ultimately disrupt the Islamic State’s actual Hierarchy of Needs. Three additional ways this might be accomplished include:
“The term ‘pseudo operations’ (or some variant of it) indicates the use of organized teams which are disguised as guerrilla groups for long- or short-term penetration of insurgent-controlled areas. They should be distinguished from the more common police or intelligence infiltration of guerrilla or criminal organizations. In the latter case, infiltration is normally done by individuals. Pseudo teams, on the other hand, are formed as needed from organized units, usually military or paramilitary. The use of pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign counterinsurgency campaigns. In most cases, these operations have been very successful.” (p. 1)
With over 1000 militias in Syria a useful focus would be narrowing or co-opting those groups through internecine warfare (group vs. group vs. group = simplification). In practical terms, this means increasing paranoia or subversion whenever possible.
Considering past events, the likelihood that ISIS will eventually seize additional US-made equipment is worth Red Teaming. The potential to either track or spike seized equipment is worth exploring on numerous levels.
