The brief, A New History, argues that opposition to the state will emerge from networked organizations that take advantage of the leverage afforded by the emerging global platform to create alternative forms of "virtual" governance. We saw this clearly in William Langewiesche's description of how Sao Paulo's PCC transformed itself from a prison gang into a network that now controls nearly half of that huge city. The same process is at work in Iraq, with the emergence of al Qaeda's Islamic state of Iraq (the ISI).
A good source for exploring this is Brian Fishman's (from West Point) report on Furqan Media's: Informing the People About the Birth of the Islamic State of Iraq. In this document, a scholar named Uthman Bin Abd al‐Rahman al‐Tamimi combines modern theories of globalization with Jihadi theory to argue that:
...the ISI, unlike a modern Western state, is not defined by absolute geographic boundaries, a monopoly on the use of violence, or bureaucratically‐administered services. According to Tamimi, measuring the ISI against that metric misunderstands both Islam and the globalization revolution. The ISI is structured around pseudo‐feudal allegiances from subject to Emir, shared ideological goals, and the execution of judicial proceedings.While territory is claimed, it cannot always be held. As a result, the territory it does hold is very similar to a description of a temporary autonomous zone (TAZ) :
For him, a state’s perimeter extends only so far as men stand with guns to defend it. Tamimi’s vision of statehood suggests he conceives of the ISI as a governmental amoeba, constantly shifting its zone of control across Iraq’s western expanses as ISI forces redeploy. It never controls all of the territory it has claimed, but demands that all residents of that territory swear allegiance to the ISI’s Emir.The political goods this organization delivers do not include the material. It is assumed that is taken care of by the global marketplace and by the people themselves. What it desires to provide is enforcement of a code of conduct (the PCC has its own rules for this, the ISI's is Sharia):
Tamimi lists several discrete responsibilities of the ISI, most of which involve establishing judicial processes and resolving disputes among tribal groups; another is collecting Zakat (alms). The only material services the ISI owes to its citizens is to free prisoners and support the families of those considered martyrs.In short, it could be argued that the Caliphate is already here, but in a sketchy virtual form.