The summer of 2015 has been a terrible climate moment and an energy game changer in the Middle East. From the end of July to the middle of August, a terrible heat wave has swept the whole region, from Iran and the Persian Gulf to Egypt, causing hundreds of deaths and a heavy pressure on the health of people, the infrastructures and social cohesion (Kyle Jaeger, “”Heat Dome” in the Middle East is ravaging region’s residents”, ATTN, August 4th, 2015). At the end of this sequence, at the beginning of September, the Italian oil giant corporation ENI announced having found a mammoth off shore deposit of natural gas in the Egyptian economic exclusive zone (Jeff Reed, “ Elephant discovery made …
Tag Archives: Islamic state
Scenarios for the Future of Libya – Scenarios 1 (2) – a Victorious United Government?
After having focused on understanding the actors in Libya’s civil war, with this article we shall continue detailing the scenarios assessing the potential for a peaceful solution for Libya’s future within the next three to five years, suggest indicators to monitor their happenstance and progressively evaluating their likelihood. The first phases for this scenario were presented here (scenario 1.1 “Peace treaty signed” and 1.1.1. “Unity Government formed”) and the organisation of the whole series of scenarios for the future of Libya can be found here. The analysis and indicators below suggest that sub-scenario 1.1.1.1 is unlikely to succeed without international assistance, which we shall discuss in sub-scenario 1.1.1.2. Scenarios 1: Towards Peace – continued Summary of the previous phase-scenarios The …
Understanding the Islamic State’s System – Money, Wealth and Taxes
As we evaluate the Islamic State’s ability to create a real and sustainable polity, we examined previously the overall structure of the Khilafah with its wilayat system (“Structure and Wilayat“), the top ruling authorities and related legitimacy (“The Calif and Legitimacy“), and the monopoly of the legitimate means of violence, i.e. military, security and police (“Means of Violence“). Continuing using Weber’s classical principles of what a state is (1919), we shall now turn to the capacity of the Khilafah to extract resources. Indeed, as the recurrent problem of public budget deficits and currently of the Greek crisis, permanently reminds us, no state may survive long without an ability to get resources or income that are necessary to carry out its mission, notably in terms of security. In other …
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Understanding the Islamic State’s System – Means of Violence
As we seek to assess the Islamic State’s ability to create a real and sustainable polity, meanwhile understanding it better, we first focused on the overall structure of the Islamic State and its Khilafah, which can usefully be seen as a wilayat system. Then, we started analysing the top leadership constituted by the Calif (Khalif, Khalifa), the Shura Council and the Sharia Council, what these institutions mean and entail in terms of legitimacy. Here, after having rapidly explained our methodology, using Max Weber’s (1919) classical distinction, we shall focus on the monopoly of the legitimate means of violence, i.e. military, security and police. With the next post, we shall deal with the extraction of resources as well as with all the other administrative agencies. Of course, legitimacy …
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The Islamic State Recruitment Psyops – From the Balkans to France
Since we published our sub-series on the Islamic State psyops products and foreign fighters (The Foreign Fighters’ Threat; Attracting Foreign Fighters (1), 23 March 2015, and Foreign Fighters’ Complexes (2) 30 March 2015), new psyops products related to this theme have been released. Below is an update considering the new products, with implications in terms of geographical expansion and deepening of message for selected targeted audience. The list of the videos is given at the bottom of the post. It is all the more important to consider these new products and impacts that some complacency of a sort appears to be developing in North America – and potentially Europe? – regarding the Islamic State: one could, somehow, accommodate a potentially winning Islamic State (e.g. Ronald Tiersky, “ISIS Could …
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Scenarios for the Future of Libya within the Next Three to Five Years
Image: “Rebels Heading for Tripoli” by Surian Soosay [CC BY 2.0] via Flickr Now that we have identified and understood the actors in Libya’s civil war (see State of Play), we may outline the various scenarios regarding Libya’s future within the next three to five years. A civil war with two rival governments, armed coalitions, …
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Understanding the Islamic State’s System – The Calif and Legitimacy
In this section of our series on the Islamic State, we seek to assess the Islamic State’s ability to create a real and sustainable polity. The capture of Ramadi (Iraq, Anbar, e.g. Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy DC, 17 May 2015) on 17 May and Palmyra (Tadmur, Syria, Homs) three days later on 20 May 2015 (e.g. Oryx blog, 21 May 2015) by the Islamic State – showing among others the ability to win against two different governmental armies, one supported by the US-led coalition of 60 plus states (U.S. Gov) plus Shi’a militia and probably Iran, the other by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, two strategic cities on two fronts separated by 620km – the sudden acknowledgement by U.S. officials, that no, the war against the Islamic State …
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War in Libya and Its Futures – Tribal Dynamics and Civil War (3)
In our previous post, we discussed the Amazigh and Tuareg tribes, who were marginalized and persecuted under Qaddafi, and their current involvement in the war. Similarly, the Toubou faced persecution and marginalization in the recent past, but became more powerful after the 2011 revolution, a result of their contribution to revolutionary forces. As a result, the balance of power over smuggling routes in Southern Libya (Fezzan) shifted to one that favored the Toubou, which drove the Toubou and Tuareg to end their long-lasting Midi Midi truce and clash in Ubari. This shift in power has also brought about violent clashes between Toubou and Arab tribesmen over smuggling routes and regional power. Here, we shall discuss the Toubou political grievances, their …
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Understanding the Islamic State’s System – Structure and Wilayat
Conflicting information regarding the Islamic State and the evolution of the war emerge everyday from the media, while analysts, commentators and official statements are no less swaying. For example, on 13 April 2015, “Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman” stressed that the Islamic State had “ceded 5,000 to 6,000 square miles of territory”, painting a “rosier portrait” as …
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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 200 – The Future is Now: Robots Warfare In Iraq
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… Read the 23 April scan → World + Tech & Weapons – This week’s featured article is Nichols “Militia’s War Robots Raise Questions About Future Of Warfare” for Forbes. Nichols points out there that a 23 March 2015 video posted by Muqtada al-Sadr Shi’a Peace Brigades (Saraya Al Salam) (see brief on the group by Jihad Intel) advertises some (still small) futurist warfare capabilities, demonstrating the use of two armed robots or “weaponized unmanned ground vehicles (UVGs)”. Nichols then interestingly uses this example to underline that the common American focus on technology and future warfare needs to be considered also in the light of their use by non-state actors. He then imagines how the future of …
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