An absolutely enduring aspect of the growth of ISIS, ISIL, Daesh was the wildfire-way it sparked and spread across Syria, Iraq, hopped the Med into Libya, and beyond. Whatever the worldwide dissonance that fueled the movement, the globalized media—social and conventional—served as ISIS’ accelerant. According to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the United States Military Academy, the same medium that so effectively wielded and was so central to ISIS’ image of as a growing worldwide presence is betraying ISIS’ slow death.
THE INVINCIBLE
ISIS’ bold, brutal, and prolific strategic communications had a life of their own once deployed to info-sphere, producing an ideal effect for the terrorist organization. As a function of terrorism, ISIS’ releases certainly terrorized. The more extensively ISIS could effectively terrorize audiences around the globe, the more powerful and convincing the movement. CTC Deputy Director Dr. Daniel Milton writes in Communication Breakdown: Unraveling the Islamic State’s Media Effort, “Over the past three years, the Islamic State has leveraged an effective combination of technology, language expertise, and centralized management to create a media organization that enables the group to project an image of power, order, and sophistication.” No matter how initially relatively weak and operationally ineffective ISIS may have been, the impression even a small number of ISIS fighters augmented by teams of effective communicators made was one of apparent invincibility.
FORCE MULTIPLIERS
Local monsters like Jihadi John shadowed the globe. ISIS invaded personal spaces. Images and messages of atrocity after atrocity served multiple purposes. Certainly, they terrorized most. They were macabre entertainment for many. And they were a Siren call for others searching for meaning and outlets for brutality. No matter how they served, the effect was exponentially augmented. “This image has acted as a force multiplier,” writes Milton, “allowing the group to punch above its weight as it seeks to cultivate new followers, threaten enemies, and strengthen the will of its current cadre of fighters and administrators.” The more horrific the images and messages, the more quickly they spread, the more powerful they were, the more catalyzing to otherwise dormant criminals.
AN HISTORICAL RECORD
In its most recently released study, the Combating Terrorism Center’s forensics go back to traces of ISIS’ earliest fits and starts as al Qaeda in Iraq by way of some of AQI’s earliest, now declassified documents, so the CTC offers a really rather new perspective here going all the way back to the then novel Al-Furqan Institute for Media Production. So far, “there has not been a similar focus on what captured documents reveal about the group’s earlier efforts to establish, adapt, and utilize the media as it fought against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq from 2003-2011.”
BEYOND THE DECLINE
According to the CTC report, all indications are that ISIS is slowly coming apart at the seams. Dr. Milton tells New York Times’ Scott Shane, “’It’s not just the numeric decline . . . . The caliphate was their big selling point. Now there’s an inability to say we’re doing the things that make us a state. And that was behind their broad appeal.’”
However, coming apart doesn’t mean defeat. It means what it says: it’s coming apart. At the same time, it’s reinventing itself. Indeed, getting better and better at what it does is written into its DNA. From the very beginning, “AQI/ISI demonstrated a willingness and ability to learn and improve from mistakes. It designed a means to track its process and identify the best practices moving forward.”
ISIS’ fight is not over. Its appeal to those seeking to wage jihad is not lost. ISIS is, however, likely approaching a period of transition. Its future success and future evolution will depend on its success applying lessons it has learned so far.
