８月下旬に開かれるアメリカ政治学会年次会議のプログラムが発表された。そこで発表予定の論文のまとめを添付する。

論文の内容は、イスラム国が２０１３年からの５年間でどのように発展し、現在の状況に至ったのか、そしてアメリカや他のライバル・グループとどう対立してきたのか、などについて論じる。１１月下旬にドイツで発表予定の論文とも関連している。

Critical analysis of the ISIS war: The US, ISIS, and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham

I assess how successful ISIS was in achieving its goal from the time of its separation from the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) in 2013 to 2018. I explore what ISIS did and did not do in its effort to prevail in military, fiscal, cyber, and political aspects of war. I make two arguments. First, ISIS failed to emerge as a clear-cut winner in 2019 but did so along with all its competitors, including the United States, because all parties fought multi-front wars that diminished the chance of outright victory while pursuing blurred and uncoordinated objectives. None of them was continuously decisive enough in the battlefield, cyber sphere, and international political arena to avoid a collective stalemate. For ISIS, the main challenge was to gain political traction for its objectives while fighting many enemies, which proved to be too hard to make drastic progress on the war. On the other hand, the US-led multilateral coalition failed to deliver on its stated interest in defeating ISIS, which was shared by President Bashir Assad of Syria and al-Nusra Front. The second argument I make is that the errors ISIS made during the five years turned out grave enough for its opponents to exploit. Over time ISIS is more likely to lose than win the war. It has no stable sources of self-sustenance at its disposal, with few political supporters outside the battle zone and financial sources constantly curtailed, and it remains militarily inferior to most of its main opponents. ISIS does not explore alliances with Russia, Iran, and major non-state actors to its advantage; even if it did, it is doubtful that ISIS would be able to mobilize them all effectively to defeat its opponents.

The paper is organized in three sections. The first section is “competing perceptions of victory” where I discuss how participants in the war defined their primary objectives and perceived what a victory would look like when achieved. The second section is “ISIS strategy” where I investigate how ISIS’s strategies in military, economic, and cyber spheres have fared against coalition members. The final section is “policy implications” where I offer policy prescriptions to the US policymakers and strategists of the war, before I conclude.