opinionWar

Why a War of Attrition Favors Us, Not ISIS

The warning is delivered with an ominous tone: “You are no longer fighting an insurgency. We are an Islamic army, and a state…”

With these words, the dark-hooded messenger in the James Foley execution video signaled a key transition for ISIS. Its leaders have moved away from a long period of fighting in the shadows as an insurgency and embraced conventional warfare. They have chosen to take and hold territory. As a result, ISIS is vulnerable to sophisticated attacks—attacks that countries like the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Russia specialize in.

This is a fundamental error, and the world’s great powers should move now to take full advantage of ISIS vulnerabilities, hitting the group hard in an effort to degrade its forces and weaken its ability to concentrate military power. This military objective will contribute to the overall objectives of preventing the export of terrorism and buying time for moderate forces to rise and oppose the Islamist ideology.

For years, ISIS fighters found shelter through secrecy and deception. They hid among the population, manipulating locals by instilling fear of retaliation coupled with hope for law and order. ISIS found fertile ground in the lawless regions of Syria and Iraq, taking advantage of this sanctuary to grow and thrive.

Simply stated, ISIS has committed the grave error of strategic overreach, and it is in the interest the world’s great powers, including the United States and Russia, to punish this error by inflicting massive attrition upon it.

ISIS leaders have now adopted maneuver warfare. They have performed quite well thus far, as exhibited by their considerable gains in Syria and Iraq, including the taking of a key airbase from Assad’s government forces. In both word and deed, ISIS has moved to a new phase in its effort to recreate the Islamic Caliphate in Mesopotamia. In doing so, ISIS leaders are adopting the strategies of another insurgent leader—Mao Zedong of China.

Mao articulated three phases in a protracted war to overthrow government and establish a new order. The first phase is the true guerrilla phase, where insurgent forces hide among the population and slowly gain strength. They fight only when the odds are favorable, as they have no need to take and hold territory. They bide their time while growing in strength.

According to Mao, the most critical decision comes next. The insurgent leadership must determine when its forces are ready to seize territory, specifically territory where the government is weak. Mao used the term “stalemate” to describe this phase, and understood that with this decision came the risk of attrition—the weakening of the organization due to significant losses . He was willing to accept this cost because of favorable trends, namely that his forces were gaining in moral and physical strength, while that of government forces was decreasing due to their “bankrupt” philosophy of governing. It was important not to overreach in this phase, as too much attrition would threaten the very existence of the insurgent organization. Eventually, insurgent forces would be strong enough to enter a third phase, where they would overwhelm government forces and fight all the way to the capital.

Like Mao, it is clear that ISIS leaders have made the critical decision to leave the first insurgency phase behind in order to conquer territory in the second phase. This made sense when their two key opponents were the failing Assad regime in Syria and the demoralized Iraqi Security Forces. With these weak foes, it was no surprise that the ISIS offensive met with considerable success in the spring and summer.

 

Strategic Overreach

 

ISIS, however, went too far. Within the space of weeks, they conducted genocidal attacks against minority groups, pushed into Kurdish territory, captured a potential “weapon of mass dest