Does ISIS Threaten the United States? – The Second of a Series

Cable television is flush with chatter about a potential terrorist threat from ISIS. But put down the remote for a moment and consider this: Contrary to what many in the news are saying, ISIS is not an international terrorist organization – at least not like we have come to think of them. Not like al-Qaeda. ISIS is an insurgent rebel group. It has conquered lots of land – some due to its good fortune and some due to its own military prowess – but it is simply not an international terrorist group in the classic way that Americans think of them. While it could in the future develop a bona fide international terrorist capability, there is no publicly known indication that ISIS has yet developed this skill.

Why is that? Generally speaking, the skills needed to fight an insurgency are not the same ones needed to carry out covert action in a foreign state thousands of miles away. Can ISIS operatives shell a city, launch an infantry assault, or storm an airfield? Yes. Those are military skills – skills needed to conduct a war and conquer territory. They are not principal parts of terrorist tradecraft.

What is part of that tradecraft? Well, in popular culture, we tend to think of making bombs as a terrorist skill, and it is. Can ISIS make improvised bombs? Sure, some of them can. Certainly some who were around back when it was Al-Qaeda in Iraq, fighting the U.S. Army in the mid-2000s. Does that make them international terrorists that threaten the United States? Consider this: Bomb-making information is widely available online. Does that make anyone who looks up bomb-building instructions a viable terrorist? No – simply having information is not the same thing as being able to use it effectively.

Simply knowing how to build a bomb doesn’t mean you can use it in a manner that will produce the desired effect. Not only must the bomb detonate reliably, but the persons who plan to set it off must first enter the target country, access the location to be attacked, surveil it to determine the best time and place to set the bomb, figure out when the safest time to place it is, figure out when a detonation will have the most destructive effect, and have a reliable means to detonate the bomb (either remote or via a suicide operative). Each of these is an important skill beyond the physical process of building an improvised explosive device (IED), and each makes terror operatives susceptible to detection by law enforcement and intelligence agencies as it is carried out. In some cases, simply learning the skill exposes the operatives to detection.

These skills are a big part of what separates ISIS from classic international terrorist organizations. ISIS doesn’t have the ability to plan and conduct surveillance successfully in a foreign area controlled by forces hostile to it – and this is especially true of Western nations. The last 13 years have repeatedly proven a truth that counterterrorism operatives have long known – that the difficulty in being a successful terrorist is not so much the doing of the deed (although history shows plenty of failure there as well, e.g., Faisal Shahzad trying to bomb Times Square with propane tanks), but rather the planning and preoperational surveillance. During those activities, the terrorist is most vulnerable to detection, infiltration, and apprehension by law enforcement. That is why all but a couple of the many plots in the last 13 years have been foiled at that stage. If you can’t plan and do surveillance without getting detected and apprehended, you’re not an effective terrorist. You’re an inmate.  Or, if you are located overseas, potentially something less fortunate.

How does that relate to ISIS? Well, currently ISIS is well funded and can fight a ground war. But money, artillery, and infantry can’t substitute for knowing terrorist tradecraft – and it is precisely the skill to perform undetected planning and surveillance in the West without being detected that ISIS lacks. Without that capability, it is not a notable threat to the U.S. That is true even though some of its members hold passports that may allow them to enter the country, as has been widely reported. But we must consider that, to date, American intelligence and law enforcement have done a very, very good job in thwarting terror of foreign origin. The vulnerability a terrorist has when conducting surveillance and planning is the reason why. Until ISIS develops operatives with the skills and training necessary to conduct overseas terrorism in the West, it will not be a direct, material threat to the United States.

In Part Three, we will look at what known terrorist capabilities ISIS actually possesses as it concerns an attempt to attack the U.S. and whether they mandate military action from the USA.