Beatriz Fernandes da Silva, a junior researcher at the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and a member of the Portuguese Political Science Association
The new book, Enemies, Near and Far: How Jihadist Groups Strategize, Plot, and Learn, by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Thomas Joscelyn, offers a ground-breaking approach that makes us wonder if we have been interpreting jihadist actions incorrectly since their very beginning. Through the lens of organizational learning, the authors evaluate the historical, strategic, and tactical paths of jihadist groups. Following upon that, they conclude that these organizations have taken advantage of both Western intelligence, and governments’ failure to acknowledge the capacity of these groups to learn and adapt.
Organizational Learning
The 2014 plot of Ibrahim Boudina, the first operative sent by ISIS to target Europe, that failed due to his rudimentary skills, serves as the book’s opening scenario. What most would consider a mission that was successfully unravelled by French law enforcement, is understood by the authors as the first step in ISIS’ organizational learning curve. Throughout the book, the writers delve further into how failures and improvements in attacks against, for example, the aviation sector and in the digital sphere, were all part of this learning curve.
Chapter II provides a brief literature review of organizational learning and the pressures violent non-state actors (particularly jihadist groups) face to innovate. According to Gartenstein-Ross and Joscelyn, organizational learning occurs when knowledge is acquired, understood, shared, and integrated into the group’s organizational memory. Moreover, this can be accomplished through either discontinuous learning by adopting drastic changes, or through continuous learning by adjusting current practices. Finally, the reasons for learning can either be proactive, when there is a potential to gain advantage over a rival, or reactive, when the need for learning is triggered by an event. The reader should note that jihadist groups are unique cases of organizational learning, due to their ambidextrous organizational structure in which the main core grants some autonomy to its branches.
The authors present an innovative perspective on how violent non-state actors experience this learning process. In a simplified manner, Gartenstein-Ross and Joscelyn describe the violent technology adoption curve when an organization tries to embrace a new technology (adoption) but fails at doing so at first. Then, in a second phase, the techniques are improved. This is known as iteration, which is learned through trial and error and experimentation. Afterwards, a breakthrough happens. The third phase sees an increase in attack success rates. Finally, the last stage, competition, occurs. In this stage, the adversaries of said organization adapt in order to counter its activities.
Prime examples of this curve can be found in chapters III, IV, and V, which analyze how Al-Qaeda focused on their organizational learning in the domains of aviation and the digital sphere. For example, Al-Qaeda has refined its attacks by learning from past mistakes, such as the bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434.
In this case, there was a technical breakthrough with its initial plot (adoption) that failed when it was broken up by authorities, but Al-Qaeda learned and improved (iteration), succeeding in the attacks after it. Moreover, Al-Qaeda has been able to improve by assimilating knowledge from terrorist entrepreneurs like Richard Reid who boarded Miami-bound American Airlines Flight 63 in Paris with a bomb hidden in his shoe. Concerning ISIS, its organizational learning has been achieved greatly by using the virtual plotter model, where operatives of the jihadist cell support and guide terrorist attacks abroad, such as the attacks in July 2017 on an Etihad flight by brothers Khaled and Mahmoud.
By consistently attempting to find loopholes in airport security procedures, jihadist groups have demonstrated their organizational learning and, as a result, aviation security continues to adapt and learn themselves, creating a reactive dynamism. Concerning the digital sphere, explored in chapter V, jihadist organizations have also taken advantage of the internet’s quick reach and anonymity to disseminate their propaganda and spread know-how and guidelines to inspire future recruits to perpetuate attacks.
Exploiting Political Vacuums
Chapter VI focuses on how Al-Qaeda used the political void and anarchy caused by the Arab Spring to propagate their beliefs. By adopting different strategies for different regions while remaining quiet about their influence in the region, Al-Qaeda has demonstrated the group’s strategic flexibility and learning. This strategy was misinterpreted by Western analysts who initially treated the groups as local entities, independent from the jihadist group.
The following two chapters explore the beginning of ISIS and how its organizational learning approach differs from that of Al-Qaeda. While Al-Qaeda favors covert actions, ISIS exaggerates its presence, especially online, using social media to recruit and bolster its attacks to further their perception of strength, as witnessed by their presence in Derna, Libya.
The competition between these organizations, nevertheless, provided an opportunity for mutual learning. ISIS, for instance, attempted to mimic Al-Qaeda’s ambidextrous organizational model. Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, took advantage of ISIS’s aggressive approach to launch anti-ISIS propaganda within the pro-jihadist audience.
As chapter XIX explores, Al-Qaeda was able to survive both the post-9/11 American strikes and the ISIS insurgency by exploiting how American intelligence underestimated the scope of the terrorist group’s network due to its quiet presence in Afghanistan as well as local support for the group — all a result of their organizational learning.
Chapter X, on the other hand, focuses on ISIS’ creative use of virtual plotters to sustain a dual strategy by engaging with enemies, near and far, which led to a misinterpretation on the part of the Obama administration regarding the group’s ambitions and operations.
Conclusion
The book concludes with its eleventh chapter, summarizing how Al-Qaeda and ISIS have learned as organizations. The authors provide governments and intelligence organizations with advice on how to counter these groups in the future. Additionally, the authors cite artificial intelligence (AI) and drones as two emerging technologies to watch out for in jihadist strategies. Henceforth, governments must comprehend the organizational learning dynamics of these groups in order to better understand and anticipate their upcoming plans.
For this reason, Gartenstein-Ross and Joscelyn encourage governments to establish jihadist group monitoring units that can launch campaigns to refute their propaganda. Moreover, the scholars advise on a pre-emptive implementation of strategies to counter jihadist’s use of technology. Last but not least, governments should also target terrorist entrepreneurs (those with specialized knowledge) and eliminate their safe havens. But none of this is feasible without a more thorough understanding of these groups’ behavior.
The authors conclude that it is crucial that governments themselves revise their own lines of analysis. One cannot understand and want to counter the organizational learning of others without being aware of its own. So, to lessen current consensus errors, new perspectives in the field should be welcomed with curiosity. Welcoming a new perspective is exactly what the authors present in this book and this fresh new insight is what makes it a must-read for governments, agencies, practitioners, academics and whomever is interested in this topic.
You can find our interview with the author of the book here: https://eeradicalization.com/the-state-of-jihad-an-interview-with-daveed-gartenstein-ross/
