Organizing Conflict

Not a Unity, but a Rhizome

Commonly, Western military organizations view radical Islamist groups as structurally homogeneous, ideologically coherent, and even irrational in their actions. This, we argue, is due to two reasons (apart from superficiality): their tendency to view the groups through the nature of their own organizational being, as well as their temporally limited and judicially supervised operational mandates. By convention, the objective of organizational change and development is to identify a time and a location for an organizational problem or a challenge to occur. This spatiotemporal nexus is something military organizations aim to act upon. However, we argue that this is a myopic view that overlooks the rhizomatic emergence of armed resistance groups. In fact, it does little more than serve the discursive purpose of justifying anti-ISIL policies in the West.

In this section, we present the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). ¹ Arguably the prime contemporary example of radical Jihadism, the ISIL movement conquered large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory before and during early 2014. However, despite its rather recent appearance on the Western radar of conflict, it has not emerged out of nowhere. Within the confines of this essay, we show how ISIL emerged from the rhizomatic foundation that made its appearance possible. Toward the end of this description, we discuss the recent institutionalization (“tree-becoming”) process of ISIL in its attempt to transcend its current, pre-institutionalized state, and the potential challenges it faces in this process.

The background to ISIL’s successful emergence is based on the failure of the Baghdad administration in establishing security in Iraq. It is also fueled by Sunni dissatisfaction with the Shi’ite leadership in Baghdad, and is largely built on the remains of the U.S.-toppled Ba’athist administration, formerly led by Saddam Hussein. Unlike its organizational predecessors, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which focused on fighting the post-2003 administration in Iraq, ISIL has expanded its view and aims at replacing current power structures in the Middle East, effectively disregarding the British and French spheres of influence drawn in the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. ISIL and its predecessors did not appear suddenly, but after more than a decade of anti-government activity mainly in Iraq, envisioned by Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, the founder of one of ISIL’s predecessor groups, al-Tawhid wa-al-Jihad (Price, Milton, al-‘Ubaydi, & Lahoud, 2014).

Following a dispute between Zarqawi-led ISI and Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second in command, over the deadly Amman bombings of 2005, Zarqawi established the Mujahideen Shura Council in 2006, in an attempt to expand the local Iraqi influence within the movement and settle differences between the factions (Warrick, 2015). Later that year, however, he was fatally injured in a U.S. air strike near the city of Baqubah. Between the years 2008 and 2011, the movement’s capabilities for capitalizing on the Syrian disarray were dramatically increased (Fishman, 2014). In 2010, the leader of the ISI and the Mujahideen Shura Council, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, along with his deputy, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was killed in a raid by U.S. and Iraqi forces near the city of Tikrit (Warrick, 2015). Due to this turn of events, the leadership position was now vacated, only to be filled by a new kind of leader (Warrick, 2015): “not a warrior, but a scholar, a professor of Islamic law who held a doctoral degree . . . Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi” (p. 244). In April 2013, al-Baghdadi officially announced the expansion of the movement to Syria, as well as its new name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (The Middle East Media Research Institute, 2013).

Prior to its rise to prominence in 2014, the tactical palette of ISIL mainly consisted of insurgency, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare. Most of its core leadership has been involved in clandestine and violent opposition since the 2003 collapse of the Ba’athist state. In the civil wars of Syria and Iraq, cooperation between the Jihadist and non-Jihadist groups is rather atypical. In a sense, ISIL and al-Qaeda are competing for the same leading role in the global Jihad. The grand movements attempt to absorb smaller armed groups within their own ranks. This tendency to absorb is at work both during operations as well as at other times. Muslims living in the West are often recruited or taught to sympathize with the cause through social media sites, and the style of communication varies from traditional (religious) to contemporary (anti-occupation) styles. Despite its recent successes in capitalizing on the turmoil in Syria, ISIL has not been able to displace or even marginalize al-Qaeda (Berger, 2014; Zelin, 2014).

Startlingly, 17 of ISIL’s 25 key leaders have served prison sentences in U.S.-managed Iraqi prisons following the occupation that started in 2003 (Chulov, 2014). While incarcerated by the world-leading democracy, they not only got to know each other, but also developed their management processes, logistics, and communication. In other words, Camp Bucca near the city of Umm Qasr was their “university.” ² Some escaped during the “Breaking the Walls” campaign led by the predecessor group, the ISI, during 2012 and 2013. However, ISIL has not stopped expanding since its immediate military successes. At least in the main urban centers, it has made an attempt to consolidate its grip on power through the development of its administration.

A Mix of Discipline and Duration

A key factor in understanding Jihadism is the conception of time. In the West, adhering to chronological (“clock”) time is crucial. Western expeditionary military operations have their limited political mandates and thus the military operations have specific time frames within which to take effect. Moreover, similarly to Western social organization in general, Western military organizations are organized as hierarchical tree structures in which command and control is enacted through bureaucratic planning and execution processes based on chronological time. The “other” side, however, experiences no pressure to calculate time. In fact, the Taliban is often quoted as saying, “NATO has all the watches, but we have all the time.” This reminds us of a fundamental difference vis-à-vis the conception of time in various phases of social development. Whereas the pre-modern and largely agrarian society is well aware of the cycles of nature in terms of life and death, day and night, and plowing and harvesting (in other words, its life-world revolves around “becoming”)—a bureaucratic understanding of society is chronologically ordered. In effect, an immediate reaction to this would be that ISIL emerged from pre-modern, tribal and religious soil, but aims to achieve a more sophisticated level of institutionalization—by trying to become a bureaucracy. When journalist Martin Chulov (2014) interviewed a notable Jihadist, who goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Ahmed, about his incarceration in Camp Bucca, the importance of available time became apparent:

We had so much time to sit and plan . . . It was the perfect environment. We all agreed to get together when we got out. The way to reconnect was easy. We wrote each other’s details on the elastic of our boxer shorts. When we got out, we called. Everyone who was important to me was written on white elastic. I had their phone numbers, their villages. By 2009, many of us were back doing what we did before we were caught. But this time we were doing it better.

Initial success and rapid expansion into new territories pose new challenges for ISIL itself. Through the evolution of its emergence, its “underground cells” turned into military units, also evident at the tactical level; hit-and-run has turned into “conquer and hold territory.” In this development, the fact that ISIL had several ex-Ba’athists from the toppled Saddam administration in high positions in its ranks played a crucial role (Barrett, 2014). In fact, this phenomenon is not foreign to Western powers either; ex-soldiers are known to have become mercenaries for some of the numerous private “security services training companies” such as Blackwater (in this regard, see Scahill, 2008). The most critical factor in terms of the movement’s longevity lies in its administration—how to hold onto power and keep the network functioning. At the same time, however, we should bear in mind that military commanders rarely make valuable civilian administrators. The greatest challenge ISIL will face is that of holding and governing the territory it has acquired, as its totalitarian method of governance is unlikely to evoke lasting affection toward the administration. It is one thing to motivate ideologically driven fighters on the frontlines, and another to convince a largely civilian society of pragmatic modes of governance.

Moreover, the recent report of torture practiced by the Central Intelligence Agency (“Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA Torture,” 2015) may function as evidence of Western malpractices and thus increase the anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East, thereby helping movements such as ISIL in their recruitment efforts. What they have on their side is the clarity of their religious message, although some Islamic scholars have challenged its radical interpretations of Islam. This radicalism is one of the ingredients in their offering to the Arab youth in the Middle East, who are currently left with little hope of a peaceful future: ISIL is one of the few movements in the area with credible promises of adventure and hope for a new future for its followers (Barrett, 2014). Thus, it seems that ISIL has the upper hand in creating meaning for its followers, providing as it does a “counter-culture” against the Western mainstream. ³

Tree-Becoming—The End of ISIL?

ISIL has not been content with its immediate military successes, however. At least in the main urban centers, it has made an attempt to consolidate its grip on power through the development of its administration. Thus, it is drawing not only domestic and foreign fighters to be sent to the battlefields of the Jihad, but also a large number of civilian technocrats. This could also be the weakest link in the ISIL movement, as its continuity depends on its prowess in the civilian realm. As any student of civil engineering knows, it cannot prevail unless “. . . it can maintain existing public infrastructure and meet demands for food, water, health care, sanitation and energy, and build and sustain a functioning economy . . .” (Barrett, 2014, p. 9). According to U.S. Army estimates, ISIL employs somewhere between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters, as well as a large number of administrative staff. Fighters are commonly volunteers or conscripts, sometimes coerced into service by local commanders loyal to influential families or tribes of the conquered areas. In a similar manner, the administrators consist of volunteers and workers ISIL has convinced to stay by paying them their salaries. These people are not ideologically motivated into staying, and thus their loyalty to the movement cannot be regarded as self-evident (Barrett, 2014).

Hence, the main question for ISIL will be how to organize their administration in the long run—in the “tree” or the “rhizome” way. The answer cannot lie in using totalitarian control—the sheer size of conquered territory alone makes delegation a necessity in and of itself. In other words, ISIL has to be able to assure its non-ideological employees and allies of its purpose and place in the Middle East (Barrett, 2014). Barrett goes on to point out that in terms of organizational culture, the “logic” of administration within ISIL is the hierarchical and religious military structure. The provincial system affords more freedoms to the local governors, who are systematically rotated through the controlled areas, most likely as an attempt to prevent the emergence of local power cliques. The provincial governors have administrative and services capabilities under them. Despite all this, ISIL is a prime example of totalitarianism, showing no tolerance of dissent. This strongly implies that the “security” logic within the movement is the dominant one, also considering the role of the Security and Intelligence Council, responsible for preventing any aspirant plots against its leaders from materializing. Such an important organizational function most likely affects the way things are managed within the movement.

The second question concerns the extent to which ISIL may stretch, without cutting off its critical nodes. The organization is fairly straightforward, with the core of the movement believed to consist of four or five “councils.” The Military Council is responsible for conquering and holding the acquired territory, whereas the Provincial Council oversees the civilian administration within the state. Other councils are Financial, Media, and “possibly a Council that looks after fighters and their families” (Barrett, 2014, p. 36). There are also several other organizations and actors that try to use the networks ISIL has created, such as international criminal groups, black market investees, and drug and weapon smugglers. This is intriguing, considering the twin objectives of the movement: to establish an ideologically driven government based on the ideas of Salafi ⁴ and Takfiri, ⁵ as well as conquering more land. Arguably, the movement has been able to provide meaning vis-à-vis the Assad administration of Syria. However, its harsh method of governance and intrusion into the private lives of the people living in the area it controls have resulted in “popular acquiescence through fear rather than any enthusiastic embrace of the new order” (Barrett, 2014, p. 46). Contemplating the evolution of guerrilla and terrorist movements leads us to an evaluation of the threat of solidification; in trying to institutionalize the Jihad, ISIL will also lose the flexibility of the rhizome. In the following section, we turn our attention to the ontologies of organizing, as we further problematize why movements such as ISIL are not understood, let alone foreseen in the Western discourse on organizing and conflict studies.

The “New” Conflict

The idea of “national security” has been reconstructed since the early 1990s. Environmental, migration, media, cyber, terrorism, hybrid, and gender issues have all widened the traditional “military” scope of conflict. ⁶ Thus, in the context of security, a focus on individuals and communities has displaced the concept of state (Shaw, 2011). Information is a key ingredient in the positioning of any organization—not merely a tool in the organization’s everyday practice, but a weapon in the “war of positioning” that takes place in the info-sphere (MacKay & Munro, 2012). According to Munro (2005), business and military organizations are increasingly reliant upon information technology—in fact, information, culture, and business are “weaponizing” in their own right due to the global information networks. For Munro, the means of production of the new service economies are increasingly orientated around the exploitation of employees’ and customers’ minds, their emotions, and their interactions with each other. He equates information warfare with the way in which people understand and relate to their environment, making it a matter of phenomenology ⁷ (Munro, 2010a), rather than objectifying empirical analysis.

As information is in the nexus of organizing, analyzing it becomes of paramount importance. From this perspective, security and intelligence services face a new challenge of understanding and influencing the digital and material architecture of human social interaction, developed in both civilian and military spheres (Munro, 2010a). The traditional boundary between military and non-military is fundamentally blurred. The way in which information, culture, and money have become weapons is a vital part of the concept of so-called “hybrid” war. When engaging in such warfare, lower level actors may influence the public by using their anonymity as a source of power. In fact, human collectives exert more influence through the use of mass/social media, out of the reach of the traditional authorities. In this light, practices that emerge around “nomadic” information emphasize communication (Munro, 2010b).

In the historical context of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, the key factor in the doctrine of irregular warfare (Lawrence, 1935) was the insight regarding the role of decentralized means in realizing centralized objectives ⁸ —a phenomenon often paralleled with contemporary Islamic military groups (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 1999; for an analysis of the role of Lawrence, see also Khdour et al., 2014). At the tactical level, this is demonstrated in the way in which the Arab fighters of the early 20th century emerged from and fled back into the silence of the desert, as well as the way in which ISIL became a state-like player in the heart of the Middle East. In understanding the rise of ISIL, embracing becoming requires the abandonment of the idea of “essence” (Nayak, 2008). In the following section, we move on to discuss the processual perspective on organizing, becoming, and the ontology of the “rhizome” and how they are intertwined (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980).

Being, Becoming, and Appearing

The rhizome

In the following section, we introduce and elaborate on the rhizomatic alternative to the two basic ontologies described above. We select and develop the notion of the rhizome as an alternative ontology in understanding humanity (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980):

The rhizome itself assumes very diverse forms, from ramified surface extension in all directions to concretion into bulbs and tubers. . . . any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be. . . . Our criticism of these linguistic models is . . . that they are not abstract enough, that they do not reach the abstract machine that connects a language to the semantic and pragmatic contents of statements, to collective assemblages of enunciation, to a whole micropolitics of the social field. A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles. (p. 7)

According to Deleuze and Guattari (1980), the first principle of the rhizome is that any point of a rhizome can be connected to any other, and must be. There is no demand for a hierarchy, and matter or information does not need to flow vertically through the formal structure. The second is heterogeneity. This means that the traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature. The resonances can develop between disparate lines, and a plane of consistency can be constructed across difference. The third principle is multiplicity, and the fourth is rupture. A rhizome may be broken, or shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines. For a summary of the differences between arborescent and rhizomatic systems, see Table 1 (Glezos, 2012, p. 178).

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Table 1.

Arborescent Systems and Rhizomatic Stems.

Arborescent systems	Rhizomatic stems
Principle of hierarchy: Arborescent structures have established hierarchies through which flows must necessarily pass.	Principle of connection: “Any point of a rhizome can be connected to any other, and must be.”
Principle of homogeneity: All differences can be resolved in a more fundamental unity.	Principle of heterogeneity: “Traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature.”
Principle of unity: Multiplicities are stable unities, formed through connections between stable lower order unities.	Principle of multiplicity: “There is no unity to serve as a pivot in the object, or to divide in the subject. There is not even the unity to abort in the object or ‘return in the subject.’”
Principle of concentricity: Spaces are ordered in a nesting hierarchy of importance. Higher order problems must be challenged at an equal or greater level of scale or power.	Principle of asignifying rupture: “A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines.”
Principle of structure: Foundational principles provide a generative order for arborescent organizations.	Principle of cartography: “A rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure.”

For Deleuze and Guattari, philosophy (a) begins from the middle, (b) is creation, and (c) happens when an enabling outside force appears. In other words, philosophy cannot start from zero-level “truths” (or mathematical “axioms”) or the end of history, but every beginning is already in the middle of becoming. According to rhizomatic ontology, organizing emerges from the collective want of the social system as a whole. Unlike linguistic and structuralist models, the rhizome works “under” the conscious, linguistic level of human individuals and societies, and hence beyond conscious articulation, analysis, and critique. This “social unconscious” functions below the surface of things although there is little to show at the level of human individuals or collectives at any given point in time. Similarly to a fungus in its natural environment, we see what emerges above the surface, but the rhizome that gives birth to it remains hidden. Human organizing is such a fungus-like life form although the rhizome (that should be “there” under scrutiny) remains elusive—escaping any attempt at conscious articulation. It is as if there were a small machine deep within the rhizome, one that cannot be linked to other machines. The principle of connectivity ensures that any part of the rhizome may be and will be connected to any other part. This also gives rise to heterogeneity, something which opposes direct associations between subject and object, reference and referent, leader and follower.

In terms of heterogeneity, there are different shades of properties and dimensions, which resist strict categorization—heterogeneity inherently resists homogeneity and the power that creates and supports it. Thus, a rhizome can be compared with a horizontal web of structures with uneven patterns, rather than an even-spaced lattice. Ruptures in the rhizome have no significance: it can be broken anywhere and anytime, but it will continue as it was and be fixed by the rhizome itself. Unlike tree-like structures built on binary logic (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983) that constitute the bulk of early communicative systems, and that aim at describing heterogeneity on the basis of homogeneity—the plurality of branches from one root—the rhizome defies both central organization and the linear conception of time.

The rhizome is not merely a metaphor but also a model according to which life itself appears. For some animal species, burrows are rhizomorphic: “. . . as habitat, means of provision, movement, evasion and rupture” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 10). Understanding this takes us a step closer to understanding decentralized armed resistance groups. Moreover, the one aspect of the rhizome is that it eludes strict definitions—every attempt to pin down its meaning will inevitably become obsolete at some point in time. As Deleuze and Guattari (1983) note, the rhizome “. . . never allows itself to be over-coded . . . All multiplicities are flat” (p. 16). There is not and will not be unity in identity or definition, thus the varying characteristics of, say, social movements that fall under some category. In understanding the social condition of the rhizome, one should consider the richly connected, heterogeneous and anarchic nature of the Internet, for instance (Coyne, 2008). Thus, the helpful metaphor in understanding the Internet is that of a rhizome, rather than a “tree” of communication.

The Rhizomatic Emergence of Conflict

As we have shown in outlining the rise of ISIL, the concept of the rhizome is valuable in understanding the emergence of organizing. Within the confines of this article, the context is armed conflict. Common political, scientific, and technocratic approaches to conflict studies emphasize the role of new technology, such as real-time telecommunications and media. This easily leads to an over-emphasis on the development of technological military capabilities (Astore, 2014), and distracts the analysis away from the phenomenon. With this essay, we bring a new theoretical perspective to understanding the grass-roots emergence of suitable contingencies for flourishing social movements that may end up shaping the power structures—as is the case with the ongoing presence of ISIL in Syria and Iraq. In fact, we argue that merely concentrating on the technological aspect of the military detracts from understanding the rhizomatic emergence of conflict. This is because the mind-set of “engineering” emphasizes prior knowledge, careful planning, and operational design with existing and potential resources. Armed Jihadist groups do not operate in accordance with this logic—nor do any other resistance movements for that matter. The “military” management is likely to be successful only in taking care of its own mission execution in which it arguably is the best authority. Understanding—not to mention controlling—the development of new technology is inefficient at best.

A parallel can be drawn by juxtaposing the concepts of “cyberwar” and “netwar.” In the terminology of the established Western military discourse, Terranova (2007) posits that “a comprehensive, integrated, communication, command and information approach to the conduct of high-intensity conflicts involving formal military forces pitted against each other, ‘netwar’ appears to pose what we describe as ‘uncomfortable social dilemmas’” (pp. 131-132). What is striking in the case of ISIL is that it embodies a “netwar” kind of approach to organizing. It appeared from the “desert”—from terrain that was identified and even considered to be “managed” by the Western Coalition. On the Internet, ISIL may challenge the Western, tree-like security organizations in a rhizomatic environment, thus being able to capitalize on its own strengths. So in this sense, we expand Terranova’s articulation of conflict to characterize the emergence of ISIL. The limits of Western thinking about armed conflict may be seen in the rigidity associated with understanding the set of adversary “options” being confined to a “known” set. For instance, according to Mattis and Hoffman (2005), the U.S. military expects future enemies (read: “terrorists”) to look at four approaches as a kind of “menu” and to select a combination of techniques or tactics accordingly—a merger of different modes and means of war. This unprecedented synthesis is what they call Hybrid Warfare. Our position is, however, that movements such as ISIL do not adhere to these categorizations.

What approaches like this fail to appreciate is that the nomadic war machine is organized in a way that resists the formation of centralized power (Mansfield, 2008). Criminal gangs, the mafia, and “new” Jihadist movements often limit the ability of their leaders to adopt power outside the scope of its transitory or symbolic forms. The power formations are also emergent, fragile, and unpredictable, as even radically undesired processes of organizing may emerge. In this setting, perhaps even more so than in others, we might find “monsters” living “on the edge.” Monstrous organizations (Thanem, 2011) live on the peripheries of established order, not least in the case of ISIL. From our rhizomatic and postmodern perspective, what organizing is lies in its communication. ¹¹ For the purposes of theoretically articulating our case example, ISIL is how it is communicated, both among its sympathizers as well as in the Western sphere. Despite this ambivalent view of knowledge, we have arrived at an incontestable conclusion: ISIL emerged from a rhizome. Reverting to the language of Bergson, Deleuze, and Guattari, information about the organization becomes the organization—or better—organizing is the becoming of information from within the rhizome.

This view leads us to understanding the necessity to relax the requirement of predictive value in much of social studies. The manifestation of the rhizome (ISIL) was influenced (and fed back into) the social formation in which it was embedded. As Deleuze and Guattari remind us, the rhizome works in the background, waiting to be manifested through the respective durations. Thus, the concept of the “rhizome” represents the social ontology—the social universe of human beings. In Table 2, we propose how understanding the fundamental differences between the three philosophical schools of organizing helps us understand the differences in their manifestations in the world of armed conflict.

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Table 2.

Underlying Philosophical Schools and Their Organizational Manifestations in the Context of Conflict.

Philosophy	Manifestation
	Author	Metaphor	Way of seeing	Approach
Appearing	Deleuze and Guattari	Rhizome	Emergence	Anticipation, cultivation
Becoming	Heraclitus	Process (flow)	Development	Proactive development, trial and error
Being	Parmenides	Organization (tree)	Stasis	Forecasting, reaction

As shown in Table 2, according to the philosopher Parmenides, “being” is exemplified by a static organization, and engaging with it is conducted through forecasting and reaction. Heraclitean “becoming” is characterized by the flow of the developmental process, as well as the inevitable dialectic of trial and error. The third level is that of the rhizome, outlined by Deleuze and Guattari. It appears through emergence, and “management” in this context takes place through the registers of careful anticipation and cultural cultivation.

Practical Implications for Organizing and Conflict

In understanding ISIL in the light of our theoretical outline of the rhizome, we are drawn to ponder the practical implications. The ethical resonance of the rhizomatic understanding enables us to act differently. What are the implications of this for managing ¹² armed conflict? From the cultural perspective, preventing conflict is a question of preparing the ground for possibility—we should work toward minimizing the reasons for the conflict to emerge in the first place. Until now, Western powers have shown little interest (beyond public speeches) in developing the Middle East in keeping with the values of democracy, freedom of speech, and social equality for various minority groups. Rather, their main interest has been—and is, for that matter—in maintaining power cliques that favor their resource-driven policies. ¹³ In light of this, the Jihadists’ argument about Western interventionism and the continued support for local dictators in the Middle East (bin Laden, 2005) is justified—The Crusades can be seen as the start of a long development culminating in the conquest of Iraq in 2003.

What this policy generates, apart from huge revenues for Western “defense” industries, is possibilities for terrorism to emerge. What is regularly omitted from the detailed analysis, as well as the public discourse, is the systemic perspective of the conflict. This is something that is particularly needed in this case; the developments after the rise of ISIL have done little to allay fears, especially from the European perspective. While naïve condemnation is hardly fruitful, the West should carefully ponder its choices and their respective consequences. Agitating political turmoil further or resorting to old-school proxy dictators in the area will most likely result in the old problems reappearing. In other words, the eternal return of the becoming of conflict will be inevitable. There will be no lasting military-only solution to the issue, not to speak of using radical groups as proxies, as has been the case until now. The continued Anglo-American support for Israel and Saudi Arabia also serves to further deepen and prolong tensions. ¹⁴

The ontology of the rhizome provides us with a radical theory of social causality; the idea that social phenomena may (or may not) emerge from either the same or different conditions—if and when the historico-politico-cultural contingencies enable a certain movement to flourish. The rhizome of Jihad appeared, how and when it did, due to factors contributing to its emergence and nature. Note that these factors may be identified and analyzed only retrospectively—prospective measures are radically limited to cultural approaches—something military and security apparatuses largely avoid and detest. Military organizations lack the capabilities of assessing potential conflict areas and situations prior to the emergence of armed struggle. In other words, their tools are limited—war-machines wage war. With respect to understanding an enemy that emerges or is fueled from a rhizome, this constitutes a problem. This is because Western armed forces most commonly operate according to the logic of “force against force.” Asymmetrically operating enemies are much more challenging to confront, while preventing such conflict in the first instance is virtually impossible. Moreover, from a critical perspective, professional armies have little incentive to eradicate or prevent armed conflict completely. War is their bread and butter. If we understand terrorism as a social disease, similar to measles in a human being, we may see the use of military capabilities as resembling taking medicine for a certain set of symptoms. In the event that the medicament is appropriate, the disease may well be contained and even eradicated. If, however, the root causes of the disease are not understood and treated accordingly, it is highly likely that the disease will re-emerge. Similarly, if the causes of terrorism (e.g., sense of injustice, social and economic insecurity, imperialism) are not understood and tackled with appropriate measures, terrorism will remain.

Apart from the rhizome of Jihad, we are continuously surrounded by others. Take, for instance, the ubiquitous Internet and its social media platforms enabling people to connect and communicate instantaneously across the globe. In this universe of meaning-making, static organizations can find it hard to survive. Through this understanding, it is increasingly difficult to grasp the constant, non-linear change that takes place within the rhizome and around it. The volatile dynamics that it embodies requires us to condition and understand social realities in radically new ways. New rhizomes are constantly emerging and changing, static understanding is condemned to marginalization and eventual defeat. In this vein, we could in fact speak of the “rhizomatization” of the global digital realm. As it happens, this is also the platform on which ISIL thrives against the Western intelligence services in its recruiting and social media propaganda campaigns. The Internet continues to be the domain in which ISIL has “force against force.”

From the perspective of nation-states, small countries are in a challenging situation regarding their national identity as they face large-scale global changes. For instance, the mediatized dimension of war has transformed the image of conflict in the eyes of citizens and politicians alike from large-scale warfare to “humanitarian” operations conducted far from their Western homelands. On one hand, computers and the Internet contribute to physically transferring war well behind clean and tidy technology—making it part of the flow of information that constitutes our identities and everyday lives. On the other hand, ubiquitous and ongoing identity-building processes take place uninterrupted almost irrespective of national security apparatuses. The “traditional” postmodern nightmare of a virtual (and thus invisible) artificial intelligence initiating an all-encompassing worldwide war (the Terminator vision) could well be replaced with one involving identity-building on a global scale, which the so-called “developed” societies could no longer adapt themselves to. Social change initiated by such actors and forces could entail unforeseeable consequences with non-linear or even chaotic ramifications. Intriguingly, the contemporary horror scenario would not be artificial intelligence out of control, but a process of identification that has radical disregard for the bounds of tradition—thus initiating an existential struggle within the established Western societies.