{"id":45467,"date":"2015-07-16T01:24:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T01:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=45467"},"modified":"2015-07-16T01:26:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T01:26:21","slug":"gaming-the-islamic-state-three-ways-from-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=45467","title":{"rendered":"Gaming the Islamic State three ways from Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — what hipbone thinking \/ gaming<\/strong> could and should bring to the natsec <\/strong>table ]
\n.<\/p>\n

I have just been browsing the Institute for the Study of War<\/strong>‘s report on its ISIS wargame<\/a>, and thought I’d wargame ISIS a bit myself, using my DoubleQuotes<\/strong> game.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

The ISW report, in its 32 pages, barely mentions religious drivers, features one use of the word “apocalyptic” in a pretty non-specific sentence that implies nothing about what that word implies in terms of religious instensity — “ISIS intends to expand its Caliphate and eventually incite a global apocalyptic war” — and generally focuses on everything but “knowing” the enemy..<\/p>\n

If they’d invited me and added a round or three of DoubleQuotes<\/strong> during a coffee break, I’d have been grateful for the coffee and the visit to DC, and very quickly played these two double-moves:<\/p>\n

For wide context:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"SPEC<\/a><\/p>\n

Upper panel: the Taiping Rebellion<\/strong>, an apocalyptic (in the true sense) movement in China, 1850 to 1864, with between 20 million and 30 million dead — as a reminder that apocalyptic movements can have, ahem, far-reaching consequences.<\/p>\n

Lower panel: Refugees fleeing the Islamic State<\/strong>, a movement whose apocalyptic (in the true sense) strategy includes a focus on great end-times battle to be fought at Dabiq in Syria, Dabiq <\/strong>being the name of their English lnaguage magazine.<\/p>\n

Read into the record in support of these two visuals:<\/p>\n

\n
  • Jonathan Spence<\/strong>, God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan<\/a>\n
  • William McCants<\/strong>, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State<\/a><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    And with narrower focus:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    here, on the brutality levels permitted in two rival jihadist groups in Syria:<\/p>\n

    \"SPEC<\/a><\/p>\n

    Upper panel: the Islamic State<\/strong> brutally executes British aid worker Alan Hemming<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Lower panel: AQ affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra<\/strong> points out that he was under an offer of protection binding on all Muslims.<\/p>\n

    There would be background reading to explore and expand that DoubleQuote<\/strong> too. But the main point is: the contest of ideas, not simply that of troop movements and materiel, would have been part of the picture.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

    **<\/p>\n

    The Atlantic Council<\/strong> has also held two wargaming sessions on IS [1<\/a>, 2<\/a>], but again the insights to be gained into the Islamic State’s end-times motivations and their implications are almost nonexistent:<\/p>\n

    ISIS carries the seeds of its own destruction primarily because it has an extremely small constituency within Islamist populations around the world, an apocalyptic vision, an unsustainable strategy of us-against-theworld, and a failed governance project. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    And that’s about it.<\/p>\n

    **<\/p>\n

    McCants’ presentation at the Boston conference<\/a>, and his forthcoming book (above), both make it clear that the apocalyptic stress of today’s “caliphate” has morphed significantly from the more immediate apocaypticism in IS’ Zarqawi<\/strong>-era predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    And for a nuanced understanding of time-urgency in apocalyptic rhetoric, Stephen O’Leary<\/strong>‘s Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric<\/a> is the definitive work.<\/p>\n

    So when do we start introducing ideational war (and\/or peace) games<\/em><\/strong> alongside our games of brute force?<\/p>\n

    And how do you factor esprit<\/em>, morale, and “angels, rank on rank” (Quran 8.9, 89.22) into troop movements and so forth?<\/p>\n

    Hint:<\/strong> they’re force-multipliers<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [ by Charles Cameron — what hipbone thinking \/ gaming could and should bring to the natsec table ] . I have just been browsing the Institute for the Study of War‘s report on its ISIS wargame, and thought I’d wargame ISIS a bit myself, using my DoubleQuotes game. ** The ISW report, in its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[622,526,627,625,624,1078,270,440,1,769],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apocalyptic","category-charles-cameron","category-doublequotes","category-hipbone-analysis","category-hipbone-games","category-is","category-national-security","category-syria","category-uncategorized","category-will-mccants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45467"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45491,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45467\/revisions\/45491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}