DOWN BUT NOT OUT? How the Islamic State Could Rebound.

As I’ve discussed before, despite the Islamic State’s goal of becoming a truly global insurgency, its success on the ground has been inexorably bound to local conditions, making it more of a “glocal” than global phenomenon. In European and North American countries with democratically elected governments, jihadist organizations like the Islamic State remain small, isolated and unable to pose an existential threat. By contrast, contemporary jihadists have thrived in locations marked by vacuums of authority; governments suffering from crises of legitimacy; and long histories of ethnic, tribal or sectarian conflict. Effective counterinsurgency programs — which also help establish security and justice for the local population — can successfully manage the serious threat posed by jihadism, especially if they balance military might with government policy. But mass executions, especially those that kill innocents, cause irreparable damage and destroy one of the most critical elements of a counterinsurgency: the trust of the local population.

Former Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, himself a very successful insurgent, once wrote that a guerrilla fighter “must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea.” In Iraq and Syria, jihadists were given plenty of room to swim from 2011 to 2014 because of the actions of the al-Maliki and al Assad governments. But after two years of the Islamic State’s brutal rule, the group has largely lost support from local populations — and the freedom and power that come with it. Consequently, now is an ideal time for counterinsurgency forces to use the advantage of negative public sentiment to help find, fix and finish Islamic State fighters.

However, that advantage can be lost, as it was after the death of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in April 2010. Unless the United States and its allies can help create some sort of legitimate and stable government in the Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria, the coalition will not eradicate the group, no matter how many bombs it drops. Jihadists will be able to lay low within the countries’ local populations until the opposition eases its offensive, and then they will re-emerge.

A long, hard slog.