28 May 2015

ISIS: ITS INDIRECT STRATEGY EXPLAINED (PART 1)

May 26, 2015

In order to neutralize ISIS, it is important to understand what we are confronting. Synthesizing various analyses of the entity appears to provide the following composite picture: ISIS seeks to create a geographically demarcated Islamic political entity that is potentially expansionist. The leadership of the organization is hierarchical and comprises a curious mix of hardline Islamic fundamentalists combined with genuine strategic and operational nous provided by disaffected and radicalized former Baathists of Saddam Hussein’s decimated military.

The core fundamentalist theology of ISIS emphasizes a deity that is punitive, keen on preserving religious purity above else. Consequently outsiders-Muslims who disagree with them; Shia, Christians and other minority groups and their religious symbols-can be disposed of as they are regarded as filth to be cleansed, not parties to a negotiable dispute.


The ominous shadow of the notorious Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) looms over Southeast Asia and Australia, judging from the scores of recent arrests throughout the region.

In order to neutralize ISIS, it is important to understand what we are confronting. Synthesizing various analyses of the entity appears to provide the following composite picture: ISIS seeks to create a geographically demarcated Islamic political entity that is potentially expansionist. The leadership of the organization is hierarchical and comprises a curious mix of hardline Islamic fundamentalists combined with genuine strategic and operational nous provided by disaffected and radicalized former Baathists of Saddam Hussein’s decimated military.

The core fundamentalist theology of ISIS emphasizes a deity that is punitive, keen on preserving religious purity above else. Consequently outsiders-Muslims who disagree with them; Shia, Christians and other minority groups and their religious symbols-can be disposed of as they are regarded as filth to be cleansed, not parties to a negotiable dispute.

Such an extreme religious narrative readily cloaks the base motivations of the many thugs who have been drawn into the movement and who rape, mutilate and kill for sadistic pleasure. The ensuing political ideology issuing from such a puritanical theological core is a version of Salafi jihadism, whose political goals appear to be as totalistic as its essential theological assumptions.

In the basic ISIS worldview, Islam must dominate all comers, by force if need be. Hence there is no logical reason to assume that ISIS leaders will be content with securing territory in Iraq-Syria only. If they can, they will expand further. Little wonder that they have sought to expand their influence into Taliban territory in Afghanistan-Pakistan and Libya; while conversely, similarly motivated violent Islamist entities such as Boko Haram in eastern Africa, and the East Indonesian Mujahidin in eastern Indonesia have pledged allegiance to it as well.

We are witnessing an institutional evolution of global jihadism in the Iraq-Syria region with potentially seismic worldwide implications. In short, ISIS is the new, improved, more resilient ‘mutation’ of al Qaeda.

Like its older, rapidly-declining, al Qaeda incarnation, ISIS does not seek to directly engage and defeat the armed might of its chief enemies: the ‘Jews and Crusaders’ – Israel, the US and their coalition allies-as per stock Salafi jihadi narratives. ISIS has apparently adopted but refined the original al Qaeda ‘indirect’ strategy of aiming at the true center of gravity of the Western and allied coalition: its largely multicultural publics.

The main political goal of this strategy appears to be to consolidate and opportunistically expand its self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate. ISIS’ objectives involve destabilizing and ultimately collapsing the fragile ‘near enemies’ of the Shia-aligned regimes in Damascus and Baghdad, as well as simultaneously corroding the political will of the ‘far enemies’ of Western coalition countries to carry on the struggle against it.

In line with this indirect strategy, ISIS emphasizes primarily non-kinetic means of expanding its power and influence. As much or possibly more thought and effort appear to be put into employing social media to attract followers worldwide to its religiously-legitimated enterprise of rebuilding the lost Islamic caliphate.

Social media-a weapon al Qaeda never really fully exploited-has truly been a force multiplier for ISIS. Thus not only untrained Muslim fighters, but trained military and law enforcement officers, as well as civilian professionals, and, as we have seen, entire families, have been targeted to conduct a hijrah (migration) to the caliphate to populate it and build up the ‘perfect’ Islamic society.

Even generally moderate Muslim societies like Malaysia and Indonesia have been affected by this skillful ISIS appeal. Meanwhile, another key element of the ISIS indirect approach has been to promote ‘crowd-sourced’ lone wolf or ‘wolf pack’ terrorism by self-radicalized supporters within Western and allied countries to internally destabilize them and sap their political will; whilst sowing discord within them between Muslim and non-Muslim communities and creating fecund conditions for the ISIS ideological virus to gestate further. The December 2014 Sydney incident demonstrated the ISIS crowd-sourced terror tactic all too well, and Malaysian authorities have recently warned of potential lone wolf attacks as well.

In a following post I will discuss how a Western coalition ‘direct’ strategy, employing kinetic means as the principal instrument but supported by a host of non-kinetic measures, represents a potentially effective response to the ISIS indirect approach.

AUTHOR

Kumar Ramakrishna is associate professor and head of Policy Studies in the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. He is the author of Islamist Terrorism and Militancy in Indonesia: the power of the Manichean mindset. Image courtesy of Flickr user thierry ehrmann.

Given that ISIS’ social media amplifies the apocalyptic symbolism of its territorial grasp, the psychological after-shock of their forcible removal would likely destroy the handy notion that God is on ISIS’ side-thereby strengthening the credibility of moderate Muslim voices that ISIS leaders are religious fanatics and interlopers.

This primarily kinetic approach must be accompanied by information operations aimed at relentless exploiting and amplifying the forcible unraveling of the ISIS territorial gains. The coalition must fight the ISIS social media campaign with one of its own. While moderate Muslim scholars should trumpet this as a sign of ‘God’s displeasure’, they and other influential online voices should emphasize ISIS atrocities against even Muslims who disagree with them. While kinetic force is the mainstay of a direct strategy, effective information operations requires that military power should be calibrated through adroit use of intelligence-led, surgical strikes especially in urban areas, so as to minimize civilian casualties as far as possible.

This is easier said than done, but worth the effort. Why? In the war of perceptions, excessive, indiscriminate, use of force by the Western coalition only feeds the potent ISIS social media narrative of a war on Islam- inadvertently enabling ISIS to radicalize and recruit even more manpower to the Iraq/Syria theatre as well as attracting lone wolves in the target countries of the coalition themselves.

Conclusion:

Defeating ISIS will not be a walk in the park. It represents the latest resilient mutation of the al Qaeda ‘super-organism’. Implementing a direct strategy involving primarily kinetic elements, complemented by the strands of information operations, diplomacy and economic assistance – all applied to the Iraq/Syria zone, and supported by multi-tiered domestic strands customized to various pockets of vulnerability within the Western-led coalition including Southeast Asia and Australia, will require political will and strategic co-ordination of the highest order. In particular: would the current or more likely the next US administration be willing and able to expend the political and strategic capital on constructing and leading another coalition of the willing to destroy the physical and strategically symbolic ISIS entity?

One thing seems increasingly clear: if the international community fails to muster the requisite commitment to pursue a direct strategy of this kind, the consequences for free and tolerant multi-cultural societies, not just in the Middle East but in Southeast Asia, Australia and elsewhere, could be far-reaching.

ISIS’ territorial hold represents a different kind of challenge from the amorphous decentralized threat presented by al Qaeda a decade ago. ISIS is vulnerable to an armed invasion of Iraq/Syria by a multinational coalition aiming to annihilate its command, control structure and militias, and remove the territorial reach of the caliphate. In short, ISIS’ territorial base is its center of gravity that must be relentlessly targeted.

Given that ISIS’ social media amplifies the apocalyptic symbolism of its territorial grasp, the psychological after-shock of their forcible removal would likely destroy the handy notion that God is on ISIS’ side-thereby strengthening the credibility of moderate Muslim voices that ISIS leaders are religious fanatics and interlopers.

This primarily kinetic approach must be accompanied by information operations aimed at relentless exploiting and amplifying the forcible unraveling of the ISIS territorial gains. The coalition must fight the ISIS social media campaign with one of its own. While moderate Muslim scholars should trumpet this as a sign of ‘God’s displeasure’, they and other influential online voices should emphasize ISIS atrocities against even Muslims who disagree with them. While kinetic force is the mainstay of a direct strategy, effective information operations requires that military power should be calibrated through adroit use of intelligence-led, surgical strikes especially in urban areas, so as to minimize civilian casualties as far as possible.

This is easier said than done, but worth the effort. Why? In the war of perceptions, excessive, indiscriminate, use of force by the Western coalition only feeds the potent ISIS social media narrative of a war on Islam- inadvertently enabling ISIS to radicalize and recruit even more manpower to the Iraq/Syria theatre as well as attracting lone wolves in the target countries of the coalition themselves.

A third element of a western direct strategy against ISIS is diplomacy. The Western coalition should impress upon Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia that they should set aside their traditional rivalries and focus diplomatic and related efforts on destroying a common enemy in ISIS. To this end the international community should prioritize working towards establishing enlightened, moderate, broad-based governments in Syria and Iraq with equitable representation for Sunni, Shia and minority groups, in an attempt to ‘drain the swamp’ that sustains ISIS.

In fact a regional coalition that succeeds in destroying ISIS may well generate additional peace dividends, in terms of spurring real rapprochement within the various ‘conflict dyads’ that have long characterized the region: Israel and the Palestinians; Saudi Arabia and Iran; the US and Iran.” A fourth, related element of the strategy is economic: socio-economic deficits, poor governance and the lack of effective rule of law form an enabling environment that empowers virulent mobilizing ideologies such as Salafi jihadism. Hence a Marshall Plan-like effort to rebuild Iraq, Syria and affected neighbors like Libya needs to be part of the mix.

Finally, as far as Southeast Asia and Australia are concerned, domestic security policy should comprise three key sub-elements: first, in terms of law enforcement, measures need to be put in place to raise the costs of travelling to Syria and Iraq, via widely publicized deterrent sentences for returnees and facilitators. Second, community engagement efforts by credible scholars, ‘formers’ and civil leaders must help constituencies to build ‘mental firewalls’ against the religiously and culturally supremacist ideology of ISIS, together with a better understanding of behavioral and attitudinal indicators that lead to violent extremism. Finally in the Southeast Asian context especially, regional hotspots such as Mindanao and Poso in eastern Indonesia, need to be closely monitored and better overall governance gradually introduced, with a view to draining the swamp that fuels the virulent narratives that sustain ISIS.

Defeating ISIS will not be a walk in the park. It represents the latest resilient mutation of the al Qaeda ‘super-organism’. Implementing a direct strategy involving primarily kinetic elements, complemented by the strands of information operations, diplomacy and economic assistance – all applied to the Iraq/Syria zone, and supported by multi-tiered domestic strands customized to various pockets of vulnerability within the Western-led coalition including Southeast Asia and Australia, will require political will and strategic co-ordination of the highest order. In particular: would the current or more likely the next US administration be willing and able to expend the political and strategic capital on constructing and leading another coalition of the willing to destroy the physical and strategically symbolic ISIS entity?

One thing seems increasingly clear: if the international community fails to muster the requisite commitment to pursue a direct strategy of this kind, the consequences for free and tolerant multi-cultural societies, not just in the Middle East but in Southeast Asia, Australia and elsewhere, could be be far-reaching.

AUTHOR

Kumar Ramakrishna is an associate professor and Head of Policy Studies in the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is the author of Islamist Terrorism and Militancy in Indonesia: The Power of the Manichean Mindset. Image courtesy of Department of Defense.

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