German U-Boat commanders called a period in 1940-41 when they were more or less unfettered and free to attack at will, “the happy time.” For the Islamic State, the “happiest time” was certainly the period between the summer of 2013, beginning with the gradual fall of the Syrian city of Raqqa, to August 2014, when the United States began its bombing campaign. That was also the period when ISIS was largely unhindered in its access to social media and could propagate its message freely, utilizing an aggressive online community of interest to amplify it.
Both the military advances of the Islamic State in its Syria/Iraq heartland, and the outreach of its media operations, have slowly lost steam since then. The last successful ISIS military offensive was in August 2015 against Al-Qaryatayn in Syria, while a recent report richly documents the decline of ISIS on Twitter, the most emblematic media tool used during its rise to prominence in 2013-2014.
But despite this slow decay, the ISIS “state” and, even more so, the ISIS “virtual” state still retain considerable potency. Certainly, the continued growth of ISIS franchises in places like Libya and Sinai, and high profile attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, and beyond have helped maintain the propaganda image of forward momentum and growth.
The ISIS brand has been successful because it is a revolutionary message told in creative ways and tied to a plausible image of a seemingly actual utopian state. It is violent extremism with a purpose propagated by Islamist edgelords. Nestled within a broader context of burgeoning Salafi Jihadist ferment, the ISIS message was brash, uncompromising, and multi-faceted. It is a bold, confident message arriving at a time when not only the Sunni Arab Muslim world seems to be coming apart, but the West itself seems confused and unmoored.
While the number of people mobilized is tiny compared to the number of Muslims worldwide, it is also an unprecedented success compared to its contemporary Islamist rivals. By this time, the ISIS brand and message are pretty well established and internalized by its devotees.
It should come as no surprise that states in our post-modern age have struggled to meet this challenge. A revolutionary message needs a counter-revolutionary counterpoise, especially if the ISIS appeal is tied to real events on the ground. Is the response to ISIS to be another type of Islamist construct, or secularism, or nationalism? In this age of deep skepticism about those in power everywhere, what possible product of seemingly sclerotic regimes could credibly address the “cultural emotional dimension” of jihadist mobilization? To a certain extent, governments will always be limited in presenting an adequate response to a convincingly told utopian vision.
You can’t adequately counter the seemingly miraculous taking of Mosul with a tweet or a video. A hashtag alone is not going to provide an adequate response to the slaughter of (Sunni Arab) Muslims in Syria.
The ISIS message is first of all a call to arms tethered to a projection of a certain political-military reality. That perception must first be addressed in the “real” world for it to resonate in the virtual one. Boasting about unstoppable victories or siren songs about living an authentic Muslim life in “safe and faithful” Mosul or Raqqa are best addressed by removing those options as plausible alternative. So refusing that success or our military success, is the basic building block for counter-messaging.
The work of social media companies and of governments in making the ISIS message less timely and less ubiquitous is another building block. Without this step, any sort of counter-messaging would have been drowned out by ISIS online supporters as happened during the Islamic State’s propaganda heyday in mid to late 2014.
Finally, ISIS content needs to be countered with contrasting content that is widely disseminated within those sub-cultures – online and actual – where at risk communities exist. With the possible exception of the Hawija raid in October 2015, the many military defeats of the Islamic States have never been shown with the same immediacy and vividness that ISIS presents its “victories.” But the most plausible content that would have the highest probability to resonate would be the testimony and stories of those who know the Islamic State best: defectors, returnees, Sunni Muslim victims, and family members of victims.
While some steps have been taken in this regard, the volume, quality and ubiquity of this material are all still far short of what is required. Where are the recanter versions of Sally Jones or Deso Dogg or Andre Poulin? Or the chastened, regretful versions of Tunisian, Jordanian, and Saudi ISIS fighters in high definition? These anti-ISIS building blocks need to be identified and placed in the hands of empowered operators motivated by the same dark creativity and urgency that saw the rise of the ISIS project in the first place.
