Crusader Corner #9: Understanding ISIS’ “De-Centralized” Organizational Structure

Decentralization: The Future of ISIS

by Nicholas B. Pace

With the United States increasingly involved in counter-terror operations across the world, terrorist organizations have had to become more flexible and adaptive to their environment.  Centralized, top-down terrorist organizations with ambitions to target the United States and its interests are no longer feasible.  The United States’ use of technology and its ability to target any location across the globe, through the use of multiple intelligence methods and drone strikes, has made this organizational model impossible to maintain.  The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is an example of the trend in de-centralizing terror networks, and represents their evolution.  Their evolution from a branch of al Qaeda to a localized army with a radical Islamic ideology will lead to further decentralization as the group is attacked directly and forced to adapt.

The move to decentralized, flexible, adaptive networks limits the ability of the United States and its allies to effectively conduct strikes against terrorist sanctuaries, while maximizing the unpredictability and effectiveness of global terror organizations.  ISIS, like al Qaeda, is extremely effective in decentralizing its operational capacity.  Rather than plan and direct attacks from a centrally located command and control post, al Qaeda has decentralized its operations, content to ideology and ideas designed to inspire attacks directed at its targets.  This has resulted in a new organizational model that is much more difficult to target, and creates new counter-terror implications for the United States and its allies.

Why Decentralize?

As previously mentioned, de-centralization is necessary to the survival of the leaders of terror organizations.  Osama bin Laden is dead.  Ayman al Zawahiri is in hiding, and since September 11, 2001, numerous other al Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured.  Members such as Abd al Kader Mahmoud Mohamed al Sayed, who was “…a longtime senior jihadist leader and military commander who was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan sometime in the Spring of 2012” [i].  There are other reasons, however, to move toward decentralization that do not allow for simple explanations of hardship.  The rhetoric of al Qaeda itself describes such hardship, and even welcomes it as evidence that an Islamic Caliphate will be established following such a struggle.  According to Christopher Blanchard, “…Bin Laden issued a declaration of jihad against the United States in 1996…”, which he often compares to “…Islamic resistance to the European Crusades…”[ii].  The word jihad itself means struggle in Arabic, and the Crusades were a series of wars that lasted nearly 200 years[iii].  In this light, the current al Qaeda leadership does not expect an immediate end to their struggle, and likely sees it lasting beyond their lives.

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The Starfish Caliphate: How ISIL Exploits the Power of a Decentralized Organization

by Stewart Welch

Until recently, Islamic terrorist groups generally adapted themselves to one of two models. The first model was an underground resistance network that could appear anywhere and carry out spectacular attacks. This was Al Qaeda, who sought to inspire jihadists to their cause. The second model, used by groups like the Taliban, was hierarchal and geographically centered, but did little to recruit outside their location.

Today a hybrid has emerged, and that is ISIL. The recent Paris attacks demonstrate how they have managed to combine these two models to deadly effect.  ISIL utilizes a leadership structure necessary to hold territory and implement Sharia law, but their real strength comes from an ability to operate as a decentralized network that helps them project power on the battlefield and in the information sphere.

In their 2006 book, The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom describe starfish organizations as those that survive without leadership. Centralized organizations are like spiders: cut off the head and the spider dies. Decentralized organizations are more like starfish, which multiply when you try to cut them to pieces. Groups like Napster, Wikipedia, or Alcoholics Anonymous have strength in their decentralized, leaderless nature. ISIL is a spider organization that acts like a starfish. It is a formidable challenge because it utilizes the power of the starfish and exploits advantages of decentralization, while maintaining a hierarchy of leadership. ISIL possesses aspects of all five legs of decentralization that are common to open system organizations:

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