After the Caliphate

In 2014, the declaration of the Islamic State caliphate was hailed as a major victory by the global jihadist movement. But it was short-lived. Three years on, the caliphate was destroyed, leaving its surviving fighters – many of whom were foreign recruits – to retreat and scatter across the globe.

So what happens now? Is this the beginning of the end of IS? Or can it adapt and regroup after the physical fall of the caliphate? In this timely analysis, terrorism expert Colin P. Clarke takes stock of IS – its roots, its evolution, and its monumental setbacks – to assess the road ahead. The caliphate, he argues, was an anomaly. The future of the global jihadist movement will look very much like its past – with peripatetic and divided groups of militants dispersing to new battlefields, from North Africa to Southeast Asia, where they will join existing civil wars, establish safe havens and sanctuaries, and seek ways of conducting spectacular attacks in the West that inspire new followers. In this fragmented and atomized form, Clarke cautions, IS could become even more dangerous and challenging for counterterrorism forces, as its splinter groups threaten renewed and heightened violence across the globe.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Long Road to the Caliphate

Chapter 2: The Inner Workings of IS

Chapter 3: The Coming Terrorist Diaspora

Chapter 4: From 'Remain and Expand' to Survive and Persist

Chapter 5: After the Caliphate: Preventing the Islamic State's Return

Notes & Bibliography

Index

“A pioneering work that puts the rise of the Islamic State in perspective and makes compelling arguments about the threats it will pose in the years to come.”
Daniel Byman, Georgetown University

“Clarke's richly detailed and informative book fills a conspicuous gap in the literature by providing an up-to-date assessment of the IS, its short-lived but enormously consequential proto-state, and the movement's uncertain future."
Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown University and author of Inside Terrorism


“Authoritative and comprehensive”
Foreign Affairs

Colin P. Clarke, Ph.D., is an assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center, an associate fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.