Whether ISIS had any connection with the terrorist attack in Nice, it really “doesn’t matter,” former CIA case officer and Soufan Group Director of Special Projects Patrick Skinner told The Cipher Brief in an interview. We talked to Skinner about ISIS’ messaging and the difficulty the West has in responding to it.
The Cipher Brief: What can be done to counteract the stickiness of ISIS’ message?
Patrick Skinner: Every government around the world is struggling with it, especially the U.S., because we don’t do messaging very well, nor should we because that’s government propaganda. It’s very difficult. The problem is, because of the diffuse nature of the message and the medium, everybody is now a potential Ministry of Propaganda if they choose to be one, and they don’t have to be affiliated with the Islamic State, they can just cheer them on. It’s a really big problem.
In the early hours after the attack, the debate was over, “Is this actually an ISIS attack?”—which is the exact same one we had in Orlando and San Bernardino. In a way, it doesn’t matter, because ISIS is going to say it is, and people will believe it. There’s no bad publicity for ISIS, and it’s very difficult to fight something that is utterly resistant to facts.
The more that you attack the message, the more you deepen that narrative of persecution; it is a grievance-based message perfectly tailored to anybody who has grievances, real or imagined. So we’re stuck trying to use logic against an illogical, emotional message.
Now, there is an undeniable ideological component, and we expect that the actual members are the true believers. But the people that are radicalized are criminals for the most part; they’re already violent people.
So it’s not so much an ideological draw as it is just a sense of belonging. It gives their purposeless life some purpose, and most people want to do something with their life, even psychopaths. We’re really struggling because ISIS’ message is so just broad and illogical. Meanwhile, the West tries to say, “OK, we have to use facts.”
This is especially true on Twitter. They win on Twitter because Twitter is 140 characters, instant, and fact free. In fact, if you try to be rational on Twitter, you come across as boring. Twitter is built for snarky comments, and it’s built for why you should eat junk food, but you can’t explain to your kids in 140 characters or less why they should eat their vegetables. It doesn’t work. So social media, which is bad for impulse control, also fits their target audience: people with bad judgment.
There hasn’t been, and I don’t think there will be, a real counter-narrative campaign that works for such a broad threat. You have to really tailor it towards individuals, and if you already knew who they were, then you would just go talk to them with social workers or police.
TCB: If counter-messaging has not been effective, what can be done to lessen ISIS’ appeal?
PS: A lot of things have to happen. Basically, if you strip the word terrorism from these conversations, then you have the word crime and then you say, “Think of all the things that you have to do to lower crime.” At the end of the day, these are crimes. Now, they’re motivated somewhat differently, but in this case we don’t truly know the motivation.
There is an argument to be made that crushing the actual Caliphate and taking away their physical holdings will do two things. First, it will get rid of the foreign fighters going there, because they literally require a physical destination.
Second, it also diminishes the bandwagon appeal. People want to be associated with a winner. People have no idea what they want to win, but it’s the current thing that everyone is talking about. Therefore, a positive effect might be lessening that bandwagon appeal.
But in the short term, it’s going to cause an increase in homegrown attacks, because the foreign fighters who might want to go, can’t make it there. However, ISIS is still pumping out this message of fighting where you are. Pick up a rock, a car, or literally hit the person next to you—that’s actually their message now.
We want to make it a messaging issue, and I understand that, but if it was purely branding, then we would have won a long time ago, because we have Hollywood, we have Madison Avenue. One thing America does best is we can sell; we know how to market. The fact that we’re not winning tells you that we’re probably fighting the wrong war. We’re trying to frame it as a message of narrative, and in some ways it is, but it’s utterly resistant to our traditional ways. Madison Avenue is very good at getting people to buy stuff that a lot of stuff people don’t need. The Islamic State message is, “you need it.”
TCB: What does the almost automatic assumption of ISIS responsibility do to the organization’s image and prestige?
PS: Al Qaeda would not conduct terrorist attacks if they had a low probability of success, because they didn’t want to be embarrassed. It would actually be bad publicity if they couldn’t pull off a terrorist attack. Nowadays there is no such thing as a failed terrorist attack. Even a claim generates enough publicity, so it’s a win-win. Like Garland, Texas – it was spun as “ISIS attacked Garland, Texas,” which of course, they didn’t.
But at this point, it doesn’t matter. You can put out the news that this guy was completely mentally unstable about his divorce and did this, but it still doesn’t matter. We’re beyond facts now. ISIS has burned the facts out of counterterrorism debates.
We get jammed up about “ISIS hasn’t claimed it.” At some point, what does it mean when you say ISIS? ISIS fanboys online are, and they might as well be, Baghdadi himself for all the impact they have on social media.
TCB: How do you see this attack affecting counterterrorism efforts in France moving forward?
PS: The timing is really, really bad. There’s never a good time for this, but the timing for this is particularly nasty. The French instituted a state of emergency after last November’s terrorist attacks in Paris, and it was finally set to expire. Then they announced they’re going to keep the state of emergency for the next three months, which is understandable, but it’s always regrettable when you have a state of emergency in a democracy.
States of emergency can become slippery slopes. For example, in Egypt, there is now a permanent state of emergency. In France, every three months there’s going to be a terrorist attack or there’s going to be a credible threat because France does have a problem. And so, you can make the case every three months to extend the state of emergency. The Bastille Day celebration was celebrating the birth of social liberty and freedom for France, and then the response to this terrorist attack will be to limit some of the freedoms in the name of safety. That’s really nasty.
France has an undeniable problem. They have a lot of potential extremists. They have a lot of young, angry second generation North Africans who haven’t assimilated for whatever reason. Anyone that says they know exactly why France has a problem is probably making it pretty simplistic.
France does have a very effective counterterrorism service, and they have a very capable intelligence service. But in cases like this, there’s not much to go on. People are going to say, “Why didn’t they stop it?” And you could say, “Well, why didn’t you stop a carjacking?” Because this is a plot of one. There’s no real communication or planning. It’s virtually impossible to tell.
But these are real, credible threats and the way our systems are set up, our current counterterrorism measures are not designed for this. They are designed to detect cell-based attacks, communications, and travel. These mechanisms are not designed for this type of one-person attack. Local police aren’t designed to handle this. Nothing is.
