Quote Originally Posted by Neo Emolga View Post
I just can't understand how these terrorists intend to benefit from any of this. They cannot ever hope to win when most of the free world despises everything they do.
The reason is that IS built it's identity on just a few pillars. Two of them were adhering to a incredibly strict Islamic fundamentalism in opposition to the secularization and/or stagnation experienced by the vast majority of the Middle Eastern countries with sizable Sunni populations, and the building of a functional state, complete with taxes, running water, and garbage collectors. IS's efforts at both of these goals are apparent when one looks behind the front lines of the ongoing conflicts and observe how they are attempting to run the territory that they control. The third pillar, however, is about attention-seeking. This is a common trait of revolutionary movements because in politics as in warfare the mere perception of momentum can be decisive, especially when one is seeking a revolutionary shift to the global order because it explicitly seeks converts to the cause. But whereas Napoleonic France sought renown through military victories in Europe and the Soviet Union through revolutions around the globe, IS has married itself to the idea that the Caliphate is ever-expanding. Recent and not-so-recent developments in the Middle East have hindered the growth of the territory controlled by them, so they have resorted to Al-Qaeda style foreign terrorism in order to demonstrate reach and strength. This way they can dominate the media coverage, which has the twin benefits of getting their name out there, especially through various social media platforms, to those who would already be susceptible to that message (a particularly successful campaign so far given the large number of European Muslims who have made the trek to Syria and Iraq to fight for IS and the not-insignificant number of people from around the globe who have made the attempt to do the same) and to reinforce the isolation of Muslims in Western society especially, hearkening back to the strategy of the mother organization, Al-Qaeda, which was to frame the conflict as a holy war between believers and non-believers. Attacks like the one this morning thus demonstrate strength to potential recruits, but also plant the seeds of doubt and division that make future recruitment efforts more successful.

As far as winning goes, I would be willing to hazard a bet that the leadership of IS does not see the rest of the world as being united on the necessity of stopping them. For all of the surface agreement about how bad IS is, they are in a pretty prime strategic position where the United States is not only exhausted by what are looking to be unending commitments in the Middle East, but is also being led by the nose by the Sunni Monarchies who do not want to get into too much direct conflict with IS for fear of angering their own populations and thus preferring to focusing on waging a sectarian civil war in Yemen with US aid, and does not entirely trust Turkey, Iran, and Russia who could all be valuable partners in stopping IS except for the fact that each of them have disagreements with the US over how this should be done, with Turkey preferring to overthrow Assad and the Syrian government first while also fighting the Kurds who are fighting IS and Russia and Iran preferring to support Assad's regime as the legitimate government of Syria and out of fear of what would come next, while the United States has picked the position of claiming that both Assad and IS must go but, lacking the will to carry out those proclamations, is relying on proxies that have different objectives (i.e., the Kurds seeking to form their own independent state out of pieces of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey) or who are completely useless or nonexistent (most notably the FIVE "moderate" Syrian rebels who had billions of dollars lavished on them and promptly surrendered their weapons to jihadists at first sight). The Middle East right now is very much like a scenario straight out of the Hunger Games, or Battle Royale if you have more street cred. IS does not need to fear a grand alliance like the ones that halted Napoleon and Hitler because its opponents all will find excuses to prioritize other matters over doing what would have to be done in order to wipe them out. A good indicator of this is the United States presidential election primaries going on right now. While there will certainly be plenty of platitudes about the horror of today's attack and calls for "something to be done", this will fade away and we'll return to the main focus of the election: the stagnating world economy and the undecided verdict on globalization. This is because IS has so far done exceptionally well on balancing on a tight rope where they launch attacks that gain them notoriety without provoking too much of a repercussion that it would cripple them outright. Unlike the downing of a Russian passenger plane that led to Russian involvement, I do not think that this attack, for all of the grief and pain that it has brought people, has altered the fundamental calculus in the mind of policymakers and world leaders.

That's all just the analysis of an undergrad in history and international relations of course so please do take it with a grain of salt, but I stand by what I wrote.