Agency with a Tactical Edge

Abstract

The chapter outlines the research findings on how ISIS fights and what makes it unique in terms of relative combat effectiveness. It presents concluding observations for future research, with finding that a flexible shifting across three major types of strategies, 15 categories of tactics, and multiple operational approaches best explained ISIS success. Its strategic agility, operational adaptability and tactical innovations have made the difference and the chapter explains precisely how that works. The also chapter outlines how ISIS was able to build-up its combat capacities and how it effectively employed them to fight, expand, and endure in four countries. The level of tactical ingenuity and strategic adaptation of the organisation’s “provinces” and combat units is remarkable in comparison with other armed nonstate actors. In the Arab region, the combat effectiveness of ISIS surpasses that of many Arab armies, considering its limited resources. The chapter shows how the highlighted group of case-studies (represented by a sample of ISIS Provinces) poses challenges to some of the literature on military, insurgency and terrorism studies; as well as to some of the security policies employed in the region.