That is, does it have control of enough territory to have a functioning economy?
We hear about the fight and the refugees, and I have heard the occasional report about the ‘ISIS capital’ of (I believe) Aleppo. But, behind the fighting, is there enough space for ISIS to set up ‘civilian’ institutions, run a postal service, plant and harvest crops, build roads, etc, etc? Obviously they might not be able to because of the fighting, but could they if the fighting magically ceased and everyone remained in place?
Is it even clear they want to? Where, in their agenda, does establishing normal governmental services lie? It seems like they put a much higher priority on destroying all vestiges of disagreement and westernism.
“A Post Office? How dare you speak of a Post Office while Israel still exists…” etc.
There’s a New York Review of Books article I quoted in another thread which discusses their support for local services. A later article in that journal questioned that characterization.
Of course. They control more territory allready than a good number of European states. But naturally, given that they’re shit heads ruled by shitte idelogy, their version of a functioning economy would give them an economy the size of a small housing estate in Oslo. They won’t even be able to maintain the oil infractructure.
I’d say that’s the minimum - enough military forces that you have physical control of the area you rule, and sufficient forces to deter outsiders. Some single entity - whether that be a dictator, a council of generals, or a democracy - controls that military and it’s all controlled by the same entity. And the money to keep all this going.
Nothing else is required, though keeping the grocery stores stocked and the post office moving and so forth helps enormously in keeping income up. ISIS definitely has the military part down for now - inside their territory, they mostly control it, and they have enough forces that none of the Western democracies want to mess with them. But, troops have to be paid, and ammunition has to be purchased, so once they expend the ammo and money from areas they seized they have to somehow keep things going enough to stay financially solvent. They can tax the people in the area they control, but those people have to be able to earn more money or there will soon be nothing to tax.
Westerners who claim that ISIS is just a passing fad are naive.
They are suffering from a serious disease called political correctness, which if left untreated causes blindness.
Chappachula, your link doesn’t establish if ISIS has sustainable economic output. I guess I shouldn’t use the word “sustainable”, it has PC connotations of referring to being environmentally friendly.
What I mean is, ISIS can rob and tax all the people in the area it controls. Kill the ones who don’t pay up. But once those people have no more money left to give, what then? Even if it murders them all, it doesn’t collect any more currency.
No one else is willing to loan ISIS money, and in order for them to continue the fighting, they need ammo and weapons. They could force people inside their territory to manufacture some of it, but the higher end stuff that they need to be a viable military has to be purchased from someone else, and in order to make those purchases, they need to trade a good that has value.
Supposedly, the U.S. has bombed a lot of their oil production. How much can their people realistically produce if they are constantly getting murdered?
Does Somalia have an economy? Rwanda? North Yemen? South Yemen? Eritrea?..
They just happened to be labelled on the map before they collapsed, so we call them states.
ISIS is not yet labelled on English-language maps, but it is probably better functioning than Somalia.
And it is a force that needs to be reckoned with internationally.
Well there’s always the antiquities trade. And they collect utility charges without apparently turning over the funds to the Syrian central government at least as of last year. Also, as of July, “Damage caused by US air strikes to the Syrian oilfields in Deir el-Zor has been compensated by ISIS’s conquest of Palmyra (Tadmor), which has two fields of natural gas and a phosphate mine, the largest in Syria.” Inside the Islamic State | Malise Ruthven | The New York Review of Books [INDENT]Other sources of income include bank robberies, kidnap ransoms, “fees” at roadblocks, and “taxes” imposed on traders living in ISIS-controlled areas. Atwan sees management of these funds as “indicative of a large, well-organized, state-like entity” governed in strict accordance with Islamic law. Jizya—the per capita tax paid by Jews and Christians prior to nineteenth-century Ottoman reforms—is now exacted from non-Muslims, while booty and “spoils of war”—including captured women and slaves—may be distributed in accordance with Koranic prescriptions.
Also among such spoils of war are the antiquities taken to buyers from ancient archaeological sites, such as Palmyra. In general, sites are destroyed only after everything of value that can be transported has been removed.[/INDENT]
It’s neither of those things. We don’t define a state as having a GDP of X. But that doesn’t mean that the definition of state is solely based on inertia (though some degree of inertia makes sense).
Debateable; they’re in the middle of a war with a number of countries and all their territory is recently-seized and disputed.
In any case, it seems a strange argument to compare to the most clearly failed-state at this time, and say therefore IS is a state.
ISIS is acting as a state.
It is a significant player on the world stage,acting in the international game of politics at the level of a state.
The commander-in-chief of the largest army in the world has ordered his generals to prepare plans for massive miitary maneovers against it,(in the unlikely case that should they be needed)–this is a level of war which is engaged in by states against other states.
Tens of thousands of volunteers have travelled across the world to join this new state and its army.
ISIS is a state. Pretending that they are just a gang of criminals* won’t make the state disappear.
World leaders are going to have to admit that ISIS is a state, and treat it like one. That means recognizing that Islamic extremist states exist, and the West has to resist them. Similar to the way that the West recognized, and resisted, communist states. The first step in defending yourself is to recognize who your enemy is.
When David Cameron says that Isis is not a state, and President Obama tells us that Isis is not Islamic-they are whitewashing the political discourse, and ignoring real dangers.
We do not need to panic and prepare for World War III, but we do need to recognize the facts.
*(like , say, the drug cartels in South America.)
If they don’t have a sustainable economy - if they can’t collect any oil or natural resources without the equipment getting bombed, if their reign of terror over the populace means no one can earn a living, then they will eventually disappear. The Western world would just have to wait a few years, and IS would get so weak that anyone could take them over again. Some articles indicate they are dependent on conquest - once they stop being able to sack new cities and steal their stuff and sell their women, (since the remaining cities are too heavily defended), their funding dries up.
Similar to a zombie epidemic, actually, if such a thing were possible. Zombies are too stupid to grow their own food or even open cans for food, so they can only eat animals and each other. Eventually there will be almost none left as there is not sufficient calories around to keep the populace alive without farming and similar resource gathering.
This is why they need adequate rule of law and adequate state services so the people in their territory can earn a living that can be taxed. Without it - if they just entertain themselves murdering people messily - they will soon run out of money.
ISIL does not control a state under any commonly accepted definition of a state. There are competing theories as to what defines a state, but the rule of thumb is that a state should have definable borders, a fixed population, and recognition by other states. (There are some other matters that often arise, but I’m eliminating for simplicity.)
ISIL territory has no definable border. It is just whatever happens to be where they are. One can fairly say they have a population, but they are not recognized by anyone. Clearly they are not a state.
Their de facto border has some fluidity, but it can be drawn; there are maps. It can be stated with some (not necessarily perfect) factualness whether one is or is not in IS territory at a given moment.
A population of several million people lives in that territory, has been living there for more than a year in most cases. You can’t have that many people living that long without there being an internal economy, whether some entity is ‘controlling’ it or not. Obviously being in perpetual war is a serious handicap, but it’s not automatically fatal, particularly as they control oil and gas resources that even their battlefield enemies will pay them for.
I don’t claim to be an expert, but according to sources I have read, yes, it is very important to them. Unlike groups like al-Qaeda and other groups, whose goals were closer to what you are talking about, ISIS has declared the Caliphate, and the Caliphate requires territory and “statehood” to be legitimate. See, for example, this article in The Atlantic:
Rwanda? Rwanda? Rwanda doesn’t belong on this list at all. It’s politically repressive, but with a growth rate of 8%, a quickly rising GDP and orderly cities filled with international chains and major banks, it’s currently one of the most organized, stable and powerful countries in the region. Rwanda is so freaking centrally governed that they have national street-sweeping day once a week.
Seriously-- Rwanda?
Eritrea is also definitely a state. A stale, repressive police state, but it has more in common with North Korea than Somalia.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone who disagrees that Somalia falls short when it comes to “being under control of a central government.” That’s why it’s popularly referred to as a “failed state.” It was a state, that state failed. Yemen is pretty much in the same boat. Keeping them labeled on the maps is aspiration, not a reflection of reality.