ISIS is the open source insurgency (see Wikipedia) I warned about when I began writing Global Guerrillas back in 2004.
For example:
- It operates very differently than the insurgencies we faced prior to Iraq.
- It's composed of many groups held together by a simple set of rules (minimal vs. the maximum rule sets we see in nations).
- It's fluid. It redily finds good use of new technologies and uses social media to good effect.
- It embraces the global black market and thrives on criminal enterprise.
- The groups participating in the insurgency learn and communicates stigmergically (see Nature 2009) -- which is similar to how we learn online. Try it fast --> copy anything that works (from targets to techniques to technologies).
- Since there isn't a hierarchy, it can spread very quickly to new areas as new groups self activate to join it.
- There's lots more.
The big question is when does ISIS stop expanding?
More specifically, can ISIS expand into Saudi Arabia?
Based on what I see: Yes.
If so, we're about to see an open source insurgency take down the heart of the Middle East.
Worse, the US government and its allies don't have a clue how to fight it nor any real desire to do so. They just wish it would go away.
PS: Even if the US and its allies did want to stop ISIS, they don't know how to fight an open source insurgency (the Sunni Awakening was dropped into their laps, it wasn't engineered). They are still trying to cram the round pegs of today's facts into the square holes of traditional models of insurgency.