Byman, Daniel. “Understanding the Islamic State — A Review Essay”. International Security, Vol. 40, No. 4 (2016): 127–165.

Byman, Daniel. “Understanding the Islamic State — A Review Essay”. International Security, Vol. 40, No. 4 (2016): 127–165.

• This article is a review of five books on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant: 'The Rise of the Islamic State: ISIS
  and the New Sunni Revolution' by Patrick Cockburn, 'The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State' by William McCants, 'ISIS: The State of Terror' by Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, 'Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS' by Joby Warrick, and 'ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror' by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan.
• The rise of ISIS in 2014 shocked pundits, as the organization -- then known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq -- was thought to have been defeated in the aftermath of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq and had ceased to be a priority. The group was generally neglected even after ISIS established itself in Syria (127-128, 155).
• Since its massive victories in Iraq in 2014, ISIS has become America's strategic priority in the Middle East. It has also captured the attention of the American public after high-profile terrorist attacks in San Bernadino and Paris were claimed to have been inspired by the group, with American fears of terrorism being the highest since 2001 (128).
• ISIS has been widely successful as far as jihadist groups go, and has far outstripped Al-Qaeda in support and recruits. It has an expansive vision, claiming territory across multiple continents, and has thousands of supporters in those areas, including in the West (128).
• The author finds that the policies of ISIS were driven by a quest to establish their own state power and push out other states. Terrorism and other forms of extreme violence served this end, as did stirring-up sectarian tensions and providing social services. Some of this behavior was also enabled by the large number of foreign fighters in its ranks (129-130).
• Ayman al-Zahawiri prohibited Al-Qaeda or its regional affiliates from engaging in massive civilian violence, or even banning popular activities like sports and smoking, for fear of offending the local population and becoming a target of the USA (143).
• ISIS has followed the exact opposite approach to violence as Al-Qaeda, instead using spectacular violence as a method instilling fear in the population and making resistance or opposition seem pointless in the face of such horrific punishments (143).
• The brutality of ISIS has thrown American strategists for a loop, since they expect local enemies to win hearts and minds, not use massive violence to intimidate the local population. In case of revolt, as in Anbar in 2014, ISIS has also shown the willingness to execute thousands of former allies (150).
• This willingness to use extreme violence, as well as endorse activities such as rape, has also created enormous resentment among the population, which is now only repressed through that violence. This means that ISIS could collapse it a moment of weakness because of its lack of popularity (150-151).
• The traditional territorial orientation of ISIS means that it would be straightforward to defeat: it requires a large modern land army followed by an occupation of several years to restore local governance and crush the remaining insurgency. These methods are, however, difficult, and there is very little public support in the West for the long-term deployment of a large military force (130).
• The organization that would become ISIS started as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose insurgency was characterized by extreme brutality. The ideas and tactics of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would deeply influence ISIS, even though Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006 (131).
• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was born in Jordan and left to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan in 1989. He missed the Soviet forces, but remained in the country organizing attacks against the Communist Afghan government. He returned to Jordan in 1992 and was arrested and jailed. In prison, he met Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a Salafi cleric who would become a key ideology in the jihadi movement (131).
• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was released from prison in 1999 and returned to Afghanistan, where he established ties with Al-Qaeda. Although he disliked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's emphasis on fighting Shiites, Osama bin Laden gave Abu Musab al-Zarqawi money to establish a Levantine brigade of Al-Qaeda in 2000. He was forced to flee to Iran in 2001 after the US invasion of Afghanistan (131).
• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi traveled to Iraq in the lead-up to the American invasion and created networks to fight the Americans there. He led an insurgency against the American occupation, originally under the name Tawhid wal-Jihad, but officially Al-Qaeda in Iraq after he pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden in 2004 (131-132).
• His leadership of Al-Qaeda in Iraq was massively bloody and violent, with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi personally participating in some of the most publicized executions. He specifically targeted aid workers, international organizations, Arab embassies, and Shiites, helping to isolate Iraq diplomatically, stop the flow of necessary aid, and ignite a sectarian civil war (132).
• Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and its subsequent iterations, were shunned by the rest of the jihadi community, who rebuked Al-Qaeda for allowing its affiliate to engage in such indiscriminate violence against Muslims (133).
• After Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death in 2006, his organization renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq [ISI]. It continued the bloodiest of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's policies, emphasizing frequent civilian attacks, including those on schoolchildren (132).
• The violent and sectarian policies of the Islamic State of Iraq had succeeded in plunging Iraq into civil war by 2006, with Shia groups organizing their own paramilitaries and terrorist organizations to fight ISI and perpetrate crimes against the Sunni civilian population and the Iraqi government (132-133).
• The Islamic State in Iraq failed to succeed during the Iraqi civil war, however, as it attempted to establish a state demanding absolute loyalty over Sunnis. When they failed to comply, ISI killed Sunni families, earning it the ire of local Sunni tribes, who cooperated by the USA to destroy the organization and kill off most of its leadership, including Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2010 (133).
• Abu Ayyub al-Masri was particularly unrealistic, ordering fighters to construct pulpits for the Mahdi and killing anyone who did not bow to him and pledge loyalty. This behavior alienated all of ISI's allies and led to its initial destruction (138-139).
• The conditions for the rebirth of ISIS were set by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who campaigned for reelection in 2014 on a sectarian Shia ticket. Once in power, he alienated and oppressed the Sunni population, causing many Sunni tribes to cooperate with ISIS and other jihadist groups against the Iraqi government (133-134).
• Although it did not originally have a presence in Syria, ISI took advantage of the Syrian Civil War to build up a base in Syria using jihadi smuggling networks tolerated by the al-Assad government as a way of subverting the US occupation in Iraq. The group was further bolstered by the al-Assad government's decision to release thousands of jihadists from prison as a way of radicalizing the opposition and thus increasing support for the Syrian government (134).
• Just like the Syrian government specifically targetted moderate forces in the Syrian rebels as a way of radicalizing and discrediting its opponents, ISIS also preferred fighting the Syrian rebels to the al-Assad government. ISIS was most active in areas where the Syrian government had already surrendered to rebel forces (134).
• Originally, ISI entered into the Syrian civil war under the name Jabhat al-Nusra, created on 24 January 2012. Jabhat al-Nusra, however, behaved very differently from the ISI and followed all of Ayman al-Zawahiri's advice on treating local populations with respect, not imposing harsh sharia law immediately, and not massacring Christians (135).
• ISI was upset with the relatively moderate policies of Jabhat al-Nusra and jealous of its territorial gains in Syria and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sought to restore control in April 2013. Jabhat al-Nusra, however, appealed directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who decided, in June 2013, that Jabhat al-Nusra would be an independent Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, while ISI would concentrate solely on Iraq (135).
• Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was furious at Ayman al-Zawahiri's decision and the ISI split from Al-Qaeda entirely, sparking a conflict between ISI and Jabhat al-Nusra in which ISI emerged victorious (135).
• For many Sunnis, both the sectarian conflict in Iraq and the civil war in Syria fit into the same narrative of Shia governments, supported by Iran and the USA, trying to oppress and destroy Sunnis. Even in Syria, where the US talked shit about Bashar al-Assad, Sunnis saw a lack of American intervention of proof that the US was aligned against Sunnis (135).
• In 2014, having established control over large areas of Syria and chased out Jabhat al-Nusra, ISI attacked over the Iraqi border, seizing control of large areas of northern Iraq, including the city of Mosul. On 4 July 2014, from Mosul, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a new Caliphate with himself as Caliph (135-136).
• The rapid military gains of ISIS, combined with its attempts to genocide the Yazidi people, prompted American intervention and the USA began to use airstrikes against ISIS on 8 August 2014 (136).
• The author asserts that, although ISIS is highly ideological, this ideology is instrumentalized and subordinated to strategic goals. This means that, although a common ideology underpins and determines the group's actions, on the surface this ideology can appear incoherent or contradictory (136).
• ISIS is based in Salafi doctrine that rejects innovation in religion, fears outside influences as corrupting, and holds that only a small number of Muslims are truly faithful. Within this framework, ISIS stresses monotheism, with all mystic or non-Quranic practices being viewed as violations of this, and violent jihad as a religious obligation (136).
• ISIS explicitly rejects secular nationalism and only recognizes Muslim identity. To this end, it tries to destroy distinct Syrian and Iraqi nationalisms, while constructing its own Sunni nationalism. This idea was particularly popular among Sunnis who feel alienated from or repressed by their own states (136-137).
• There is a strongly apocalyptic and millenarian strain of thought in ISIS, with a number of recruits believing that they are participating in the battle between Muslims and non-believers at the end of the world. These apocalyptic messages appeal to many Muslims in the Middle East, for whom regional chaos is a sign of Armageddon (137).
• This apocalyptic belief impacted ISIS policy, clearly demonstrated in the campaign to take Dabiq, a small town that they belief will be the final battlefield between Muslims and the 'forces of Rome' (139).
• As soon as ISIS comes into an area, many key opposition figures, such as religious minorities and government or rebel collaborators, flee, fearing ISIS's reputation for brutality. It then cracks down on and destroys brigands, concentrating all power in its own hands and increasing its legitimacy by attacking unpopular bandits hated for their theft (140).
• When it establishes control over an areas, ISIS will implement sharia law, beginning with visible signs like the prohibition of alcohol, mandatory covering of women, and use of traditional punishments like amputations, stoning, and beheading. This serves to demonstrate ISIS's Islamic credentials to the community (138).
• ISIS offers state services in areas it controls, providing medical care, enforcing price controls, and establishing its own municipal government, police force, and court system. Although the quality of many of these services is poor, they are often the only ones available, especially after ISIS has driven out international aid groups (141).
• The services provided by ISIS may also be better than those provided by the Syrian and Iraqi governments. One of the major reasons for ISIS's success was the weakness and corruption of its state competitors. The same holds true for the Syrian opposition: ISIS ran things more efficiently (148-149).
• This commitment to service provision has been a financial liability after the group started taking losses, as it had to pay out more money to support families whose men had died in the conflict while at the same time losing tax revenues due to territorial losses (152).
• ISIS collects taxes in areas it administers and also buys and sells wheat, water, gas, and oil for profit. In addition to this, ISIS fighters and some other loyalists are rewarded by being given young women, especially from religious minorities, as sex slaves (141).
• ISIS's taxation is often harsh and very few of these funds are invested in anything besides warfare and some basic social services. This means that little economic investment or development occurred in ISIS-controlled areas or was ever going to (152).
• New recruits and members in ISIS are gathered by establishing training camps for boys and indoctrinating boys and men in its ideology. Recruitment internationally is also enabled by the provision of services, whose best elements are highlighted by ISIS in its propaganda (141-142).
• ISIS continually alienates everyone around it by demanding absolute loyalty and being uncompromising in their ideology -- this sets them apart from Jabhat al-Nusra. Unlike other jihadist groups, ISIS has rejected any possibility of cooperation with Turkey or the Gulf States, and has attacked every other faction in Syria and Iraq (139, 153).
• This meant that, when it became involved in the conflict in August 2014, the USA found it easy to assemble a coalition against ISIS and the group had no supporters. In addition to having no state sponsors, ISIS also angered every other rebel, opposition, and jihadi group in the region. Its continued violence against new enemies also resulted in nearly all parties declaring it their main enemy (152-153).
• ISIS has a very loose definition of enemy, and everyone who has not pledged loyalty to ISIS is considered one. Moreover, simply being related to enemies, like having a cousin in the Syrian Army, is often enough to be killed by ISIS (153).
• Despite being very strict in its application of ideology, most ISIS members are theologically illiterate, many were secular before joining the group, and many foreign recruits joined for reasons unrelated to Islam. This means that ISIS can change its tactics or apply its ideology differently without much pushback from its followers (139).
• This moderation is showed in its pragmatism towards the Syrian government, obeying a number of ceasefires with pro-Assad forces to concentrate on fighting the Syrian rebels, all while professing eternal enmity towards both groups (139).
• ISIS has tried to spread internationally in other 'provinces'. Some areas have organic movements that pledge loyalty to ISIS, some, as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, have emerged as a result of schisms in existing jihadi groups, and some have emerged because ISIS sent embassies to those areas, as in Sinai and Libya (142).
• In terms of IR theory, ISIS is a revolutionary state. As a revolutionary state, ISIS inspires anxiety among its neighbors, is extremely aggressive, and constantly feels vulnerable (144). 
• While it does occasionally engage in terrorism, ISIS more often employs a combination of convention and guerrilla tactics in its fight against regional states. Moreover, its use of terrorism is meant to spark sectarian tensions as a way of destabilizing competing regional states and supplying more recruits radicalized by sectarian violence (144).
• ISIS also incorporates tactics associated with terrorism into its conventional military strategy, such as using suicide bombers behind enemy lines to sow confusion and weaken enemy resolve. Terrorist attacks, as opposed to convention attacks, on Iraqi forces have decreased morale and lessened recruitment (145).
• ISIS has the capacity to conduct a full range of military operation, from convention warfare, to media campaigns, to guerrilla combat, and terrorism. This is because it has both former Iraqi security officers and trained foreign fighters. This ability to conduct operations at different levels makes it difficult to destroy since it can switch from conventional warfare to insurgency and back again as need be (145-146).
• The military success of ISIS has served to further enhance the group's power, as other groups have defected to ISIS once they believed that it stood the best chance of success (150).
• Foreign fighters, who underwent a rigorous training of which perhaps half survived, were a crucial resource for ISIS, with the majority joining ISIS after its split from Jabhat al-Nusra and more than 30,000 joining after the declaration of the Caliphate. These fighters were highly motivated, willing to carry out suicide attacks, and the approximately 5,000 from the West could return and carry out attacks there (146-147).
• Sometimes, these foreign fighters are a liability, however, as their presence breads resentment among the native population, especially when foreign fighters cannot speak Arabic. Lack of Arabic language has been such a series issue that ISIS has created separate anglophone and francophone brigades. As the conflict has progressed, the competence of foreign fighters has also increasingly become an issue (151-152).
• One of the reasons that ISIS was so successful was its deft use of media, using videos to emphasize its governmental practices and extreme violence, in contrast with the dry theological press releases of Al-Qaeda. This media profile caught the attention of young jihadis. ISIS was also more skilled in using social media than other groups (147-148).
• The extreme violence it would disseminate on social media both helped ISIS recruit more fighters and sowed sectarian tensions and fear in other communities, decreasing their willingness to resist ISIS (148).
• ISIS is, at this point [2016], outnumbered in both Syria and Iraq, especially because it has made enemies of everyone. Additionally, ISIS has taken perhaps 20,000 casualties since the beginning of its sweep into Iraq (151).
• Although it hates everyone, ISIS focuses its attention on the 'near enemy' of national Arab governments. Its violence is particularly concentrated on other Muslim groups, especially Shias and other religious minorities, as much as Arab governments (153-154).
• This approach is different from that of Al-Qaeda, which focuses on the 'far enemy' of the USA and prioritizes attacks on the West over attacks on Shias or national Arab governments. ISIS reverses this emphasis (154).
• ISIS's concentration of Shias and apostate Sunnis stems from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's belief that the USA was a temporary enemy of Islam that would eventually get bored and leave. Shias and other Muslims improperly loyal to the faith, however, were a permanent threat to Islam and thus needed to be destroyed as a priority (154).
• ISIS and Al-Qaeda are in direct competition for funds, recruits, and the support of the jihadi community. This means that the two groups are often their own greatest enemies and ISIS has used extreme violence to destroy Al-Qaeda and its affiliates (154-155).
• The great threat ISIS poses is to countries in the Middle East, as demonstrated by the destruction and sectarian violence it has unleashed in Iraq, which has killed 40,000 between 2013 and 2015 alone. It and its affiliate groups pose similar dangers to other Middle Eastern countries, especially Lebanon (155). ISIS is unlike to be totally defeated and will continue to pose a threat for years to come (165).
• Through its system of franchising affiliate groups in provinces, ISIS also endangers countries as far away as Nigeria and Philippines because the spread of the group means that its exceptionally brutal tactics could also embed themselves in these conflicts -- although the actual relationship between the provinces and ISIS is unclear (155-156).
• As the 2015 Paris attacks showed, ISIS does pose a threat to the West, but it has put little effort into organizing these attacks. Instead, most ISIS attacks in the West are merely inspired by, not coordinated by, the group. Very few foreign fighters have returned to their home countries and fewer still have done so wanting to commit terrorist attacks and undetected by security services (157-158).
• Lone wolf fighters, inspired by ISIS, have been a growing phenomenon that has led to an increase in terrorism in the USA (158). These attacks do not pose a serious threat, but they do sow fear among the population because they are so difficult to defend against (159).
• The US approach to fighting ISIS has been of mixed success. The wave of airstrikes beginning in 2014 and the arming of allied militias among Kurds and Iraqis has cost ISIS much of its territory and forced it to adopt guerrilla tactics, but failed to destroy the group (160).
•  The use of airpower as the primary means of fighting ISIS has essential weaknesses, especially without an effective ally on the group. While air strikes can devastate infrastructure, kill high-ranking leaders, and prevent ISIS from grouping large units, it has not been effective against the dispersed guerrilla tactics adopted by ISIS (161-162).
• The absence of strong and effective allies on the group in Syria and Iraq means that intelligence necessary for an effective air campaign cannot be procured. This makes bombing ineffective and further limits the capacity of air forces to augment counter-insurgency warfare (162).
• The US and its coalition allies are provided the majority of firepower against ISIS, as allied forces in Iraq and Syria have demonstrated a limited capacity to challenge ISIS in combat. Additionally, these forces are often as hated if not more hated than ISIS (149, 162).
• The weakness and division of the anti-ISIS forces means that it is unclear what will happen when ISIS is defeated, as few, if any, groups are ready to reclaim that territory. This means that even the defeat of ISIS does not necessarily mean an end to conflict (163).
• The American security apparatus designed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks is designed to combat Al-Qaeda and has limited applicability to combat ISIS. Some tactics, like drone strikes, are much less effective against ISIS because of its much larger organization less susceptible to targeted killings of leadership (159).
• The author recommends that to fight ISIS internationally, the USA should disrupt ISIS's ability to communicate between its provincial affiliates, establish a vast intelligence network seeking to identify ISIS cells, and support vetted governments combating ISIS in their own countries (163-164).
• Attempts by the USA to go after ISIS's Islamic narrative or attack its Islamic credentials are likely to fail, since the US has no credibility to make those attacks. At best, the US might be able to convince Saudi Arabia to do so by emphasizing the danger posed by ISIS (164).
• Attacking ISIS's online presence must be part of the wider campaign against ISIS. There are limitations to this, however, since free speech has to be taken into account, as must the difficulty of keeping ISIS members off of the internet (164).