The Banality of Islamic State
How ISIS Corporatized Terror
By Cam Simpson
businessweek.com
November 20, 2014
Islamic State introduced itself to most Americans this summer through two infamous beheading videos. They were professionally produced films, released by what U.S. intelligence officials would later call the most sophisticated terrorist propaganda machine they’ve seen. (On Nov.?16, Islamic State said it had beheaded an American Muslim convert and aid worker, Peter “Abdul-Rahman” Kassig.) But as the group has continued to make gains despite international air attacks in the wake of the beheadings, it’s become clear that its sophistication reaches well beyond video production and messaging. It’s evident in military operations, such as Islamic State’s recent quick conquest of the ancient Iraqi city of Hit in Anbar province through a precision use of suicide car bombers, and in its ability to replicate the operations across the region.
The group’s leaders portray themselves as akin to seventh?century warriors thundering forth on horseback to expand their religious empire by sword. They call their car bombs “steeds” and their drivers the “death admirers, the knights of martyrdom.” But in many important ways they have much less in common with medieval warriors than they do with modern bureaucrats, and a successful attempt to defeat them may require understanding their logistics, their financing, and their management structure as much as their extreme theology.
It may sound bizarre for a group calling itself a caliphate, but the foundation of its management model, as identified by experts, is more akin to that of General Motors than it is to a religious dynasty from the Dark Ages. After decades, we may have arrived at the ultimate professionalization of terror.... |
