Oil prices hit their lowest level since summer 2004 this week, continuing the rapid shift that began in July 2014. The global benchmark, Brent crude oil, closed trading Jan. 8 at $33.37 per barrel, closing out the lowest week of prices in more than a decade. A number of factors contributed to the drop. The Chinese economy and financial markets performed poorly this week,sparking fears that a slowdown will dampen demand.

Oil is the most geopolitically important commodity, and the ongoing structural shift in oil markets has produced clear-cut winners and losers. Between 2011 and 2014, major oil producers became accustomed to prices above $100 per barrel and set their budgets accordingly. For many of them, the past 18 months have been a period of slow attrition. And with no end in sight for low oil prices, their problems are going to only multiply. Each nation, though, has its own particular level of tolerance, and the following guidance highlights the key break points to monitor.

Former Soviet Union

Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan stand to lose the most among the countries of the former Soviet Union. As one of the world’s largest producers, Russia is the most important. Russia’s economy relies heavily on energy, and energy revenues constitute more than half the current budget. This budget, however, is calibrated to oil prices of $50 per barrel. As prices deviate further from this benchmark, Moscow has two funds totaling $131.5 billion to make up the discrepancy. But the margins are tight: Nearly half the amount on hand may be needed to cover 2016 budgetary shortfalls even if oil rises to $50 a barrel.

To remain afloat, the Russian government would have to drain both of these funds unless it cuts the state budget. Cuts would come with major tradeoffs. Moscow is embroiled in a standoff with the West, so slashing defense or security spending would be challenging. Russia will also hold critical parliamentary elections in September, so cutting social programs is not a good option either. Compounding this dilemma, Russian oil firms are in dire straits; although the government could restructure the tax system to provide them with relief, it would undermine government revenues. Moscow also has the option to privatize a large part of state-owned oil giant Rosneft this year to raise funds.

Both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan face dilemmas similar to that of Russia. Kazakhstan’s budget is set at $40 a barrel, although it does have $55 billion in its national oil fund. An alternative budget is now being drawn up based on $20 a barrel, but such a change will almost certainly mean cuts in spending. Like Russia, Azerbaijan’s government set its budget based on $50 a barrel. Azerbaijan holds $51 billion in its state oil fund. Both countries are concerned with rising social tension over their weakening economies, although their governments have proved adept at cracking down on dissent. Kazakhstan plans to privatize state-owned companies and assets to raise money in 2016, though there has been little interest in the program among potential buyers.

Middle East and North Africa

Regionally, Algeria, Iraq and Iran, the oil-producing Gulf Cooperation Council states, will feel the most impact from low oil prices. For 2016 government budgets to break even, the International Monetary Fund projects that Saudi Arabia will need oil prices of $98.3 per barrel. Bahrain will need prices of $89.8 per barrel and Oman of $96.8. All are significantly higher than the break-even points of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. For the most part, however, the Gulf Cooperation Council nations are in a position to weather low prices, since they hold low levels of debt and high financial reserves built up from years of high oil price revenues. Although Bahrain is an exception to this because it is not a major producer, Riyadh would sustain the country through a crisis to prevent spillover into Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

In the short term, the Gulf Cooperation Council will not fall into financial crisis, but its member states are still making the financial adjustments needed to keep their reserves high and to avoid going deeper into debt. All of the Gulf nations will cut government spending in 2016 to some degree, albeit carefully, and will accelerate legal reforms. To ease the burden on citizens, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are reducing fuel subsidies but maintaining spending on education and social services. Bahrain has reduced food subsidies but is considering cash handouts to balance the cuts. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait are all discussing implementing taxes to increase state revenue, a measure unprecedented in the regional bloc.

Saudi Arabia is the most important country to watch. In addition to the careful cuts in social spending, the government has already started to privatize assets, starting with three major airports. Riyadh has even discussed floating a part of state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, in an initial public offering. Privatization will diversify the funding sources of these entities but also is politically risky. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has hinted that reforms may be rapid, even as the king emphasizes the strength of the economy, but powerful members of the Saudi royal family will be wary of moving too swiftly. With dozens of privatization plans on the table, discontent within the ruling family is all but inevitable. Riyadh is also facing major regional changes with the return of Iran to the international economy and the enduring conflict in Yemen, meaning that defense and foreign spending will need to remain high.

Not all regional players have the fiscal advantage of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Algeria’s economy is highly dependent on natural gas, and its foreign reserves dropped precipitously in 2015 because of lower oil export revenue, leading to a $10.8 billion deficit. A mild winter in Europe, a key market for Algerian natural gas, will not help the situation. Algeria has sought to boost foreign investment through tax reform and the introduction of import and export license authorizations. But the country is heading toward a precarious political moment: the eventual death of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has held office since 1999. The nation’s elite are now jockeying for position ahead of this transition; although continued reform measures are necessary, many will be wary of any that may erode their power. This will limit the country’s options, compounding the current crisis.

In Iraq, both Baghdad and the Kurdish capital of Arbil are already in serious financial trouble. The national government and the Kurdistan Regional Government need to maintain high levels of spending to fund their battle against the Islamic State. With oil revenues dropping, this means they will need to reduce other expenditures. The governments do have the option of renegotiating their contracts with international oil companies. Baghdad is in the midst of such talks to replace its current contract, which stipulates that Baghdad pay oil companies a fixed fee. Arbil is juggling its security situation with payments to international oil companies and the giant Kurdish civil service sector. The Kurds have already made it clear that they have no plans to export oil through Baghdad’s state-owned marketing company but will instead market it themselves and export through Turkey. Ankara and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Arbil will grow closer as both increase energy cooperation and deal with the mutual threat of the Islamic State. Arbil’s increased suffering under low oil prices will only strengthen this relationship.

Amid low oil prices, February elections are also approaching in Iran. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will be banking that his talks with the West and success in negotiating the end of sanctions will help moderates and his traditional conservative allies defeat hard-line conservatives. The opposition has asserted that Rouhani’s economic policies are not working. Low oil prices will make these arguments only more credible. The end of sanctions will enable Iran to increase the volume of its exports, but with prices down nearly 70 percent since 2014 the revenue generated will not reach the level it would have two years ago. This realization may not become clear to voters until after February elections, meaning Rouhani could perform well. But by 2017, the discrepancy will likely be obvious, jeopardizing his chances for re-election in 2017.

Latin America

Oil-dependent and ailing Venezuela will suffer a great deal because of sustained low oil prices. Annual inflation is already at nearly 300 percent according to leaked central bank estimates. Inflation will mount and shortages will become even more extreme. Lower oil export revenues will reduce the country’s expenditures not accounted for in the budget, which in 2015 supplied much of the additional foreign currency needed to finance imports and foreign debt payments. Venezuela will likely need to decrease imports, and the country could even default on its foreign debt later in 2016. In the near term, the government, now with an opposition supermajority, will take what steps it can to address the economic situation. Currency devaluation and consumer price hikes would be the most effective remedy, but these would come with unacceptable political costs. Further unrest is inevitable, and the government will need to work to contain this from spreading too widely.

Brazil’s economy has already sustained a great deal of damage from the corruption scandal in state-owned energy firm Petrobras. Unless the government decides to curb the major criminal investigation into the company and associated officials, the scandal will continue to disrupt supply chains and contractor financing, further delaying existing projects. In response to the disruptions, Petrobras will need to further cut its investment plans, which will slow future foreign investment and energy production.

Ecuador’s oil exports plummeted by 30 percent in 2015 and will continue to be low through the next year. Quito has the option of imposing trade barriers to reduce imports and to compensate for lower export revenue, but this would compound the economic slowdown. The nation will hold a presidential election in February 2017, which could highlight eroding public approval for the ruling Alianza Pais coalition because of the declining economy.

North America

North America has, of course, been under the same low oil price pressure as the rest of the world. Nevertheless, production has been resilient in recent months, staying at around 9.2 million barrels per day since October. Production has the potential to fall again, however, as the oil hedges taken out against low oil prices in 2015 expire. The remaining 2016 hedges are mostly at a lower volume or price, a fact that will increase the burden on oil-producing companies. Across the continent, companies have drilled numerous new wells, but companies are holding off for higher prices before they complete the projects. This means that there is spare capacity that can react if prices make a sudden leap. As Iranian oil comes back on the market, if North American production remains high, it could exert more downward pressure on prices. Producers of heavy oil in Canada in particular are going to remain under more pressure as Western Canadian Select, the Canadian heavy oil benchmark, is already well below $20 per barrel.

Sub-Saharan Africa

The portion of Africa below the Sahara Desert is home to numerous small oil-producing countries that will feel the pinch of low oil prices to different degrees. The continent’s largest economy and oil producer, Nigeria, will be affected the most. Unlike producers in the former Soviet Union and in the Middle East, Nigeria has calibrated its budget using the rather realistic price of $38 per barrel. The problem is that even at this price point, the budget will run a deficit of $11 billion, 2.2 percent of GDP. Abuja will find it difficult to maintain its fuel subsidy programs and its currency peg to the U.S. dollar, put in place in June 2014 when the naira fell 25 percent. Since that time, the gap between the official and unofficial currency exchange rates has widened. Low oil prices will only make it wider. The new president, Muhammadu Buhari, has been clear that he does not support devaluation but will face pressure from various political interests and will likely need to cut spending.

Angola, Africa’s second-largest producer of crude oil, is under the same financial pressure as other world oil producers. The government, however, is quite stable. The ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has tight control of the state security apparatus. Any threat would have to come from within the party itself. The government has based its 2016 budget on $48 per barrel oil prices and is continuing the large-scale austerity programs it began in 2015 in response to the initial drop at the end of the previous year. Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is now contemplating whether to step down in 2017. Power brokers within the ruling party are competing to become his successor, and low oil prices will make this competition more heated simply because there will be less money to pour into patronage networks.

Asia-Pacific

Most Asia-Pacific countries are net consumers of oil rather than net producers. This means that much of the region stands to benefit from low oil prices. However, there are two exceptions: Malaysia and Indonesia.

As one of the few net producers in the Asia-Pacific, Malaysia will feel the greatest pressure from cheap oil. Last year, roughly 20 percent of the Malaysian government budget came from the earnings of state-owned oil company Petronas. As the firm’s earnings declined, Kuala Lumpur was forced to impose an unpopular goods and services tax to make up for the shortfall. The government’s 2016 budget has Petronas contributing less than 12 percent of federal income. If oil prices continue to plunge, however, Malaysia will have to find new ways to raise money, either new taxes or pared-down services and subsidies. This will make the government unpopular at a time when Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is mired in a corruption scandal involving the country’s sovereign wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Since the political opposition in Malaysia is still incoherent, those who stand to gain from Razak’s declining public support are probably his rivals in the ruling United Malays National Organization.

To the south, Indonesia will find low oil prices to be a mixed blessing because the country is a net consumer of oil but a net producer of natural gas. Natural gas revenue will certainly drop, which will hit state and export revenue. But low oil prices will give current President Jokowi Widodo a chance to continue delaying unpopular gasoline and diesel subsidy cuts. When Jokowi came to office in 2014 he cut fuel subsidies, bringing domestic prices to international levels. But as prices rose during the course of the middle of 2015, he declined to raise consumer prices and instead had state-owned Pertamina sell imported products at a loss. Now, with prices still dropping, Jokowi may be able to avoid the issue of raising prices and instead may cut them.

Europe

Much like the Asia-Pacific region, low oil prices will be largely a boon for Europe because most countries are net oil consumers. Norway, theContinent’s main oil and natural gas producer, will not be so lucky. The country is in the middle of an economic slump due in no small part to a drop in oil-related investment and activities in Norway. According to the International Monetary Fund, Norway’s GDP growth fell to 0.8 percent in 2015, down from 2.2 percent the year prior. Over the same period, unemployment grew from 3.5 percent in 2014 to 4.2 percent in 2015; this figure is expected to rise even further in 2016. Though the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development projects a gradual economic recovery for Norway in the next two years, the trajectory of oil prices could impede this.

In the long run, low oil prices could also cause problems across the Continent as a whole. Presently, they are improving Europe’s economic climate; this could lead Europeans to believe that they are witnessing a “real” recovery when in fact a sizable share of the progress is caused by external factors. This misperception could play a particularly significant role in Southern Europe, where governments are beginning to slow reform efforts. Additionally, reduced oil prices could work against the European Central Bank’s attempts to create inflation in the eurozone in the hope of boosting economic growth in the bloc.

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran — two Middle Eastern powerhouses — have deteriorated following Riyadh’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr Saturday.

Hours after the death sentence was carried out, protesters in Shiite-majority Iran attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. The Saudis cut diplomatic relations with Iran over the attack on its embassy.

On Monday, the Saudi government announced that all flights to and from Iran are suspended, according to the Saudi Pres Agency. The suspension is effective immediately, and the country’s civil aviation authorities will take steps to accommodate those with existing bookings to and from Iran, the press agency reported.

Saudi anti-terror coalition challenges U.S. role in Middle East

CNN’s Merieme Arif, Kevin Wang, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Alla Eshchenko, Jonathan Mann, Jim Sciutto and Yousuf Basil contributed to this report.

Jacky Hugi is the Arab affairs analyst of Israeli army radio Galie-Zahal, a columnist for the business newspaper Globes and the former Arab Affairs correspondent for Maariv

A new version of the Quran in Hebrew has just been added to the nation’s bookshelves, bringing the total number of translations into Hebrew to five. “The Quran in Other Words,” is the name of the latest translation of the holy text into Hebrew. Unlike the previous four translations, which were translated by Jews, this entire project was done by Muslims.

While the anticipated audience for the book is Israeli, the project’s initiator and publisher is Jordanian. The translation was published and released by Bayanat, an independent center for the study of Islam located in Amman.

The work of translating the text was given to Subhi Ali Adawi, an Israeli-Arab educator from the village of Turan in the Galilee. The 60-year-old father of six children, all of them academics, describes himself as a “believer, but apolitical.” He has taught Hebrew and Arabic in schools throughout the Arab sector for the past 40 years. Today, he is the principal of the high school in the village of Reineh.

“Translating is not just replacing some word or other with the equivalent word in the target language. It also means that the spirit of the language is relayed,” Adawi told Al-Monitor. “The Quran has long, winding sentences, but it also has well-formulated ideas. It is incumbent on the translator to maintain the cohesiveness of the text. Not one of my predecessors preserved the original structure consistently. Some of them used biblical language and forced some connection or other with the Bible, even though the Quran stands alone as an independent text. There is no subjective intervention whatsoever in my text. I didn’t add a single word and didn’t try to paraphrase anything.”

Adawi said that he took extra care not to corrupt the word of God. “I had the privilege of being the first Muslim to translate the Quran into Hebrew. Any believer would feel a deep sense of responsibility for the translation,” he said.

The first translation of the Quran into Hebrew was completed by a German Jew named Hermann Reckendorf in 1857. Adawi considers this pioneer work to be an affront. Reckendorf claimed that the stories in the Quran were stolen from Jewish scriptures, and that the Arabic is of inferior quality. In 1936, a new translation by Joseph Joel Rivlin (father of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin) was published. Another translation, this one by Aharon Ben Shemesh, was released in 1971. The most recent — and most accessible version to date — was produced by Uri Rubin a decade ago and published by Tel Aviv University Press.

Adawi spent 3½ years working intensely on this project. “It was a true labor, in every meaning of the word,” he said. “It was a Sisyphean and exhausting endeavor, but also an act of worship. I worked on it with a feeling of exaltedness. I approached it with a sense of awe for the divine. After all, the Quran is our Holy of Holies.” The result is worthy of respect. It is an elegant edition, but at the same time accessible to a Hebrew readership. The language itself is highly polished, a rare achievement for someone for whom Hebrew is not his mother tongue.

The biggest challenge Adawi faced during the translation process was “to relay the words as they are. I worked out of a deep belief that I wanted to relay the Quran in a manner that remains faithful to the Hebrew language. That may sound simple, but the Quran is a victim of prejudice and is often subjected unjustly to distorted and flawed interpretations, even among some Muslims. People tend to base their negative opinion about the entire Quran on some reading of a single verse, or even just part of a verse. And there were many linguistic challenges too. Verbs sometimes appear in the past tense, but they must be translated based on the estimated time that the events occurred. Many translators fall into that trap.

“The Quran is a gift to all of humanity. It contains guidelines for proper living, combined with reward and punishment. There are chapters about respect of the other, and there are chapters that exhort people to “go and see,” go tour the land and the people and learn from that. Look how many nations have been here. Look at how they thrived, only to fall, because they veered off the straight and narrow path. That is the Quran. It is a guidebook for humanity.”

“If it is so true and so correct,” I wondered, “why is it subject to so much hostility?”

“That is a political issue,” Adawi said. “It has nothing to do with religion. When you delve into the Quran in depth, you won’t find anything that encourages murder or terrorism, as some people interpret the text. The Quran prohibits killing. It adopts the language of the Jewish Mishnah, when it says in Sura al-Maidah [Table Spread with Food, 5:32], “Whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind.” The believer is commanded to adopt pleasant manners in disputing with anyone who thinks differently than he does. The Quran makes many references to the Old and New Testaments. We believe that the three texts are derived from the same tablet hidden in heaven, but that distortions occurred with the other two texts.”

According to Muslim belief, the Quran descended from heaven to the world after God concluded that Jews and Christians had distorted his divine message. Hence, Muslims believe that it is the only holy text that hasn’t been distorted. According to the Quran, Muslims are the chosen people, not the Jews, who have gone astray.

While many people around the world consider the Islamic State to be the most vocal proponent of Islam, Adawi said, “What the Islamic State is doing is not Islam. It is a crime against humanity. We have no commandment to murder children and the elderly while they are out strolling in a Paris park. There is no basis for that in the Quran. There are people whom we are allowed to fight, but there is also plenty of room for tolerance, inclusiveness and respect of the other. That is why it is so important to listen, and the Quran provides plenty of room to listen.”

When Al-Monitor pointed out that the Quran’s attitude toward Jews isn’t particularly friendly, Adawi responded, “There is criticism and even reprimand, but the same attitude exists toward Christians and even some Muslims. Sura al-Baqarah [The Cow] says, for example, that the Jews violate their covenants.”

When asked about how that same sura calls Jews “apes,” he responded, “The verse is referring to those Jews who violated the Sabbath. It says, ‘Be you apes, miserably slinking!’ It is not referring to all Jews.”

“I consider myself a modern man,” he added. “I am open-minded and enlightened, and I respect people, no matter who they are. Humanity is the supreme value for me, but that does not prevent me from having a firm belief in Islam, a belief that I am proud to hold.”

Nabil Tannus, a translator and lecturer on education, is full of praise for Adawi’s translation work. He told Al-Monitor, “He translated the Quran the same way that I would translate a poem. It is very apparent that he dreams these words. His translation is not just literal; he also relays the idea behind the text.”

Tannus, who teaches at the Arab College for Education in Haifa, believes that the Jordanian publisher did a fantastic job. “Visually, the way it is designed is very user-friendly. There are those who opposed the translator’s decision to incorporate comments in the sidebar, but it is very helpful to curious readers and researchers. Furthermore, he took it upon himself to add diacritics marking vowels, and stood up to the challenge. In short, he did an outstanding job.”

Jacky Hugi

The agreement reached last month , December 12^th after two weeks of discussion, is more original than historical. It is the first time ever  that 195 states members of the United Nations chose the same direction against climate change.

The final report given by the President of the COP21, Laurent Fabius is very detailed and not easy to read. Young Diplomats’ Economic Expert Adrien Gonin collected the most relevant points on this agreement to understand the decisions taken by the 195 countries.

Is the treaty ambitious enough?

Despite all the work done the last weeks on this summit, the treaty raises many questions. The delegation present at the meeting declared having reached a common position to fight against global warming. Many NGOs do not agree and denounce the lack of legal constraints.

By reading the COP21 report, it is true that it is imperfect and incomplete. The countries only agreed on a framework, a basis with global objectives to follow but not precise enough on the way to control and respect those goals. As an example, the text gives the objective of reducing global temperature by 2°C but only encourages the state to “try to limit their warming by 1.5°C”. Moreover, there is no legal incentive given by the COP21 to punish the states that will not respect this rule.

So the agreement is not, as said Laurent Fabius, “restrictive”. According to the international law: the text does not sanction the countries for not following the commitment taken by each country.

       Is a worldwide decrease of 1.5°C achievable?

If we consider today´s situation of global gas emissions, a decrease of 1.5°C is an impossible mission. This number, asked by many island states such as the Maldives Islands, which are threatened of submersion, has only a political and symbolic significance. The COP21 did not agree on long term goals translated into concrete numbers, but only on unclear goals in order to reach an “equilibrium of the global climate”.

The amount of USD 100 billion was suggested to be given to the South States as a compensation of the environmental damages caused by the Northern countries. In 2009 the Northern states  promised to mobilize USD 100 billion for 2020 in consequence to the climate change, drought, floods, cyclone and the rise of the seas.

The text written on December 12^th gives the Southern countries satisfaction. The amount of USD 100 billion will be considered as a limit amount. After this sum, a new “collective calculated goal” shall be established before “April 2025”. But again, there are no concrete commitments of any country behind this idea. This point was mostly not agreed because of the American position. John Kerry refuses to reach this agreement of paying for the southern countries, as he already knows the position of the American congress, which is hold by the Republicans and not very environmental friendly.

Moreover, there will be no compensations for the losses and damages for the countries threatened the most by the climate change. The agreement declares: “the necessity to avoid and reduce by its minimum the losses and damages due to the negative effects of the climate changes and to find solutions”. – Clearly, the wealthiest countries of the world are refusing to pay for poor countries for the climate damages they suffer.

        Transparency as the future pillar for common work against the climate change.

The transparency of all the countries is key to future improvement in terms of reducing the global warming. The transparency shows how serious a country is committed towards its engagement. It also involves their own reputation to their peers and the public.

The article 13 of the report provides a mechanism for transparency: an international comity of experts will check all the information given by a state in terms of their emissions and the progress accomplished to reduce them. Moreover, these evaluations and reports will be public and available to everyone.

The challenge of the transparency is to enable trust and dialogue between countries as a first step to take concrete decisions and act against the global warming and reduce the gas emissions. Nevertheless, this agreement contains no constraints for any country. Every 195 county can still act in their own interest, despite the fact they all signed the treaty…

The biggest oil producers are speechless

The first oil producers in the world are the states of the Middle-East and other members of the Organization of the countries exporting petrol such as Venezuela and Nigeria. The GDP is of these countries is based on the carbonized energies. This countries do not really act against polluting energies.

Only few oil countries listed their engagements to reduce their gas emissions. Middle-East countries such as Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Qatar and South Arabia did not give any hope to produce green energies. The United Arab Emirates gave a report in which gas and oil are presented as the most efficient source of energy in the world.

The next steps to a wealthy planet…

Next year the COP22 will take place in Marrakech. The challenge will be to fix concrete goals and rules, constraining the states to act against the global warming, which has not been achieved in Paris. The question about the losses and damages and their financing remains not resolved and taboo. The global agreement can be criticized as very weak. But it´s a first success to have united and negotiated with 195 countries – where long-term interests are very different. The COP21 shall be a framework for the next negotiations, which should set concrete rules against the global warming.

Forecast

• Political and social turbulence in the Middle East will continue to foster the rise of terrorist groups, some of which will have the motivation and capability to attack U.S. interests.
• As the United States looks to address these threats, it will attempt to find a strategy that is both effective and sustainable.
• To this end, the United States will continue to provide training, intelligence and logistics support to local actors fighting against terrorist groups.
• To supplement these efforts, however, the United States will have to steadily increase direct ground combat personnel — relying heavily on special operations forces.

Analysis

The Middle East’s traditional power structures are crumbling, paving the way for new groups and threats to rise from the ruins. The United States, as a result, will be forced to reconsider its strategy in the region. Just as al Qaeda’s setbacks enabled the Islamic State to flourish, so, too, will other terrorist groups move to fill the void created by the Islamic State’s eventual decline. Terrorism will pose a threat to U.S. national security for the foreseeable future, and policymakers in Washington have no choice but to pursue more sustainable ways to counter it. The United States will ultimately shift its tactics in the region, striking a balance between empowering local security forces and selectively deploying specially trained and equipped forces in its attempt to tip the scales in the war against militant Islam.

Rebuilding a Region

The Middle East has been shaped by the wars, colonialism and post-Cold War fragmentation of the last century into a collection of states governed by militaries and monarchies. Yet, over the past decade a wave of foreign interventions and domestic social uprisings has torn many of these political structures away. At the same time, powerful third parties such as the United States have withdrawn from their alliances in the region, undermining the balance of power that their presence often ensured between the Middle East’s major state and non-state actors.

Amid these dramatic upheavals, regional concentrations of power are emerging in Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council. But the swathes of land between them remain mired in chaos as the societies left behind grapple with the ethnic and sectarian divisions that underlie the region. Nowhere is this more evident than in Iraq and Syria.

As the Middle East continues to break itself apart — reassembling the pieces may take decades — militant groups will take advantage of the resulting power vacuum to grow and proliferate. And as they increasingly engage with the stronger, more coherent military forces stationed throughout the region, they will use asymmetric tactics like terrorism to level the playing field and extend their reach.

The Global War on Terrorism

The United States did not begin to truly understand the threat that terrorism posed to its homeland until Sept. 11, 2001. In the wake of the attacks, U.S. leaders realized that with the right intent and capability, terrorist groups could successfully target and kill large numbers of American citizens on U.S. soil. To prevent an attack on the scale of 9/11 from happening again, former U.S. President George W. Bush launched a widespread offensive against terrorist groups around the world that he dubbed the Global War on Terrorism.

This name is something of a misnomer. The United States does not, and cannot, attack every terrorist group in the world. It simply does not have the will or the resources to do so. Furthermore, terrorism is a tactic, which by its nature cannot be eradicated. Instead, Washington chose to target transnational groups (and their support networks) that have demonstrated the intent and capability to attack the interests of the United States or its allies through asymmetric means.

This strategy is not tied to any single group, although one organization may pose a greater and more urgent threat than others at certain times. For example, at its inception the strategy largely centered on finding and dismantling the al Qaeda core, held responsible for coordinating the 9/11 attacks. Now that this goal has been largely achieved, the United State’s focus has shifted to the Islamic State, where it will likely remain for the next few years as the U.S.-led coalition works to degrade the jihadist group’s capabilities.

But even if the United States can marginalize the Islamic State, the underlying elements that enabled the group’s rise will not disappear as quickly. As conflicts throughout the Middle East continue to play out, other groups will surface with similar capabilities and intentions. These groups will not necessarily all be Sunni or even religious in nature, like al Qaeda and the Islamic State are. For example, the Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front has already attacked U.S. targets in Turkey, as have Shiite militias in Iraq.

In the face of such threats to come, it is hard to ignore the suggestion that Washington simply abandon the region. But the Middle East is a strategic supplier of oil to the global market, and the critical link connecting Africa, Asia and Europe. Leaving it to its fate is not an option. Then again, neither is more of the same.

Invasion vs. Desertion

It is increasingly clear that the United States’ approach to eradicating al Qaeda — launching full-fledged invasions, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq — is not sustainable in the long run. The goal of each ground incursion was to strike the jihadist group within its own safe-havens. While both invasions were successful in some ways, they also failed to decisively eliminate the threat. In Afghanistan, al Qaeda fighters were able to escape across unguarded borders and fade into the difficult surrounding terrain to avoid capture. From there, they adopted a blend of guerrilla tactics and terrorism to wage a protracted war against foreign troops.

In Iraq, remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime were able to quickly reorganize into a capable insurgency, while local Shiite militias took advantage of Hussein’s destruction to launch attacks of their own. In both cases, U.S. leaders quickly, if begrudgingly, realized that a prolonged force presence would be needed to suppress new threats. While this provided some level of stability to each country, it solved neither Baghdad nor Kabul’s problems entirely. Large numbers of “occupying” troops became the catalyst for increased recruitment into these militant groups, further exacerbating the problem.

Unable to fully destroy its enemies and caught in the middle of a bloody sectarian war, the United States began to look for an exit strategy. Neither it nor its allies could afford to continue deploying huge portions of their militaries to wage wars with no end. By overcommitting in the Middle East, the United States had essentially hamstrung its military capabilities elsewhere in the world.

At the same time, political pressure was building to draw operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to a close. In the midst of a sharp recession, U.S. policymakers were being forced to choose between making deep budget cuts and taking on greater debt to fund conflicts overseas. Meanwhile, the body count steadily rose, and the American public became less and less willing to sacrifice its soldiers to an intangible cause.

And so, U.S. counterterrorism strategy changed. The new goal was to withdraw all forces belonging to the United States and its allies and replace them with assistance from afar. Financial aid, intelligence sharing and logistical support became the West’s primary tools of influence. Yet this approach is also failing. Security in Afghanistan degraded alongside the United States’ eventual drawdown to a small but sustainable footprint. And in Iraq, once all foreign personnel had departed, the absence of capable Western forces and the outbreak of civil war in neighboring Syria enabled al Qaeda in Iraq to transform: First into the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and then into the Islamic State.

Finding the Perfect Balance

In light of these developments, the United States has had to adjust its approach once again. Washington and its allies have already halted further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, expanding their mission timelines and in some cases reversing the decision to further reduce the military footprint on the ground. Meanwhile, the United States has redeployed forces to the Iraq theater — and beyond — in an effort to stabilize the region following the Islamic State’s rapid spread. More recently, Washington pushed a small contingent of U.S. special operations forces into Syria after efforts to train a local proxy force repeatedly failed.

Still, Washington continues to search for the perfect balance between wide-scale invasion and complete disengagement. So far, the attempt to partially re-engage in Iraq and Syria with tangential combat support has either achieved limited success or failed outright. Western-backed forces have regained some territory in Iraq over the past year, but what gains have been made are gradual and costly. On a positive note, though, the strategy of limited engagement is far more sustainable than either of its predecessors.

As the United States settles in for a lengthy battle against the terrorists that wish to attack it, it will continue looking for ways to effectively combat its enemies without outstripping or overcommitting its resources. What we are seeing is a slow tipping of the scales as small portions of direct combat power are added to supplement the combat support of local forces already in place. It is military satisficing.

Ultimately, this hybridized force structure will allow for a combination indirect and direct support across a large portion of the region. On the one hand, Washington will support its local allies with training, intelligence, logistics support and airpower; on the other, it will use small portions of units and special operations forces to shift the tempo of battle in its allies’ favor. This will require SOF to work in concert with other small ground units that can conduct raids, manage the fight, and coordinate a variety of fires including precision guided munitions, artillery, and close-air support. This strategy will inevitably lead to a yearslong commitment — just to address the Islamic State.

While this approach will eventually degrade the Islamic State, the Middle East as a whole will continue to be riven in different directions as new power structures and alliances emerge and gel. This will only incubate more militant groups with a continued goal to challenge the United States and its interest in the region. This in turn will force Washington to stay engaged in the Middle East as military planners shift to the next threat, be it similar to before or entirely different. To bring about an acceptable level of stability — or instability, from the U.S. point of view — will require the commitment of tens of thousands of personnel on the ground and in the skies above the region, for many years to come.

The country of Nicolas Maduro just started its  political transition. After he lost the National Assembly to the opposition coalition, the successor of the charismatic Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro is running out of options for to maintain the country under control. Meanwhile, Venezuela’s financial situation has become alarming. The newly empowered Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition (MUD) might, change and cancel some foreign policy decisions that have become economically burdensome, including the country’s discounted energy shipments to Cuba and its oil-for-loans deal with China. Of course, these agreements exist as a product of close diplomatic relationships with the relevant countries, and political imperatives may be strong enough to keep them in place for the short term. But the threat of financial default will loom large for Venezuela in 2016; if Caracas finds itself in a debt restructuring process, its bargains with Cuba and China may no longer be worth the cost.

Analysis

Venezuela’s current foreign policy is the result of a major shift that took place during the rule of former President Hugo Chavez. Prior to Chavez’s election in 1998, Venezuela was a centrist state that was politically oriented toward the United States and Europe, and the country maintained some deals through which it exported limited quantities of oil at discounted rates.

But Chavez’s ascendance put Venezuela on a new ideological path. As its socialist ideology came to mirror that of Cuba, cooperation between the two countries deepened. Venezuela expanded low-cost oil and refined products shipments to Cuba to about 53,000 barrels per day in 2000. Then, two years later, an attempted coup to overthrow Chavez made Venezuela’s government even more eager to secure Cuba’s friendship, which officials hoped would help reinforce their hold on power. Over the next 13 years, Venezuela almost doubled oil exports to Cuba, bringing shipments to between 80,000 and 90,000 bpd by 2015. In exchange for receiving crude oil, gasoline and other energy products at rates below market value, the Cubans provided valuable intelligence and military assistance to the Venezuelan government, sending advisers to help train and equip its security forces. The export revenue helped fund the expansion of social programs that Chavez hoped would win him voter loyalty and avert future coup attempts.

As Chavez led the country in an ideological shift to the left, domestic spending grew even as foreign investment dwindled. Over his first decade in the presidency, rampant inflation, currency controls, hostility to private businesses and rising risk of default gradually cut Venezuela off from access to foreign capital. Its cash-strapped government soon turned to China for financing, looking to fund rising domestic expenditures that far outweighed what it earn from oil exports alone. The two governments struck agreements that ensured China could purchase hundreds of thousands of barrels oil per day. In return, China provided billions of dollars in loans to fund Venezuelan infrastructure projects, reinvestment into energy exploration and production, and funding for imports of Chinese goods.

Cutting Costs vs. Preserving Ties

In the wake of the opposition’s win of a supermajority in December elections, both of these agreements may now be under more scrutiny. Venezuela is looking for ways to make up for shortfalls in its budget, and the sale of oil on delayed payment plans to Cuba has been keeping badly needed funds out of the Venezuelan government’s hands. Still, scrapping either agreement would be a challenge. The oil-for-loans deal with China, at least, is relatively safe. Whatever its financial straits, Caracas is loath to risk its relationship with its primary foreign lender, largely because the deal with China gives Venezuela access to much-needed cash.

As for the agreement with Cuba, Venezuela’s longtime ally will likely fight to keep the deal in place. Cuba still depends heavily on subsidized imports from Venezuela, at prices it simply could not find on the open market. Cuba’s slow detente with the United States will take years to complete, and in the meantime, the embargo limits the country’s supply of foreign currency, which it needs to fund crucial food and fuel imports. In short, Cuba has a lot to lose from Venezuela’s financial insolubility: If Venezuela eventually defaults on its loans, the ensuing debt restructuring process would potentially put the Cuban energy agreement on the chopping block. But in the short term, Cuban officials may reach out to Venezuela’s new legislative coalition and successfully pressure it to keep the current discounts in place.

The Effects of a Default

Even with a new ruling coalition, there are limits to how much political will congress will be able to muster to risk the country’s ties with Cuba and China. Other programs may be more vulnerable to the cost-cutting proclivities of the MUD. The National Assembly may abate foreign aid or reconsider the Petrocaribe agreement, which allows participating countries in Central America and the Caribbean to pay for Venezuelan oil in installments over a 25-year period after paying a portion up front. Petrocaribe member states are actually paying more up front now than they were in previous years because the sum paid up front rises as the price of oil falls. But state-owned oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela has still been suffering severe losses. Caracas has already cut back on Petrocaribe exports, and the National Assembly may see curtailing the program as one small step toward a more balanced Venezuelan budget.

There is good reason to think that the MUD, even under pressure to resolve the country’s financial woes, will leave Cuban and Chinese trade agreements untouched for now. But without a comprehensive solution in sight, the threat of disorderly default next year is present and growing, and it could drastically shake up Venezuela’s political priorities. In the subsequent economic turmoil, some foreign interests will doubtless fare better than others. As a solvent lender of last resort, China will likely keep benefiting from bountiful Venezuelan oil imports, while Cuba will probably fare more poorly.

Forecast

• Thailand’s unpopular crown prince will succeed the country’s beloved but aging king, depsite speculation otherwise.
• An orderly succession process will reduce immediate political uncertainty in Thailand and support the ruling military junta’s near-term efforts to remake the country’s political system .
• As a weak monarch, the prince will depend greatly on the military for legitimacy and will not command an independent power base.
• Over the longer term, the succession will expose Thailand’s deeper issues as the weakening of the monarchy triggers a scramble to reshape the country’s power structure.

Analysis

For more than a decade now, Thailand has been locked in an uneasy stasis regarding the future of its monarchy. Widely popular King Bhumibol Adulyadej, on the throne since 1946, has long been portrayed as a benevolent and stabilizing force — an informal supreme court of last resort capable of settling political disputes, punishing those who have overreached in pursuit of power, and restoring societal balance. This depiction credits the king with ensuring at least a superficial veneer of harmony in a fractious country that has seen nearly 20 attempted military coups since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932. But the beloved king has spent the better part of the past decade in the hospital, fueling anxiety about how Thailand will cope in the absence of such a unifying figure.

Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, the king’s only male heir, lacks his father’s prestige and routinely has been embroiled in scandal. In a society that attaches celestial importance to the throne and largely views the monarchy as a force preserving Thai culture and values, the prince is thus seen as exceedingly unfit for kingship. Among Thai elites who have used the monarchy to preserve the existing societal order and to legitimize their preferred policies, the prince has become a threat to material interests as well. Such concerns have at times been exacerbated by the once apparent cozy relationship between the prince and self-exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose ambition and consolidation of power before the military ousted him in 2006 — and whose repeated attempts to return to power ever since — make him viewed as a far greater threat to the existing order than the prince himself. Most alarming to the royalist elites has been, at least until recently, the possibility that the prince would pardon Thaksin and allow for his return.

As a result, for much of the past decade, powerful factions aligned against the prince were believed to be casting about for suitable alternative succession scenarios, such as having the more popular Princess Sirindhorn take the throne or having the queen act as regent until an heir from the next generation comes of age. The apparent struggle for the throne provided a behind-the-scenes context for the political unrest playing out in violent protests in Bangkok’s streets. Indeed, royalists used the monarchy to legitimize protests against Thaksin, while Thaksin used anti-monarchy rhetoric (implicit or otherwise) to signal his willingness to deprive the monarchy of its popular mandate.

As various players positioned themselves to bend the succession process toward their own aims, fears grew that a disorderly handover would metastasize into a multi-sided power struggle that could shake Thailand to the core. This was one reason for the military’s 2014 coup that ousted Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck.

What Has Changed

The royal succession — the first since the end of the absolute monarchy — will indeed be a singular and deeply unsettling event for Thailand. But at least the immediate risks of a chaotic changeover are fading. In fact, they were likely overstated in the first place.

Despite his unpopularity, the crown prince has always had factors working in his favor. First, the value of maintaining a real line of succession should not be underestimated. The monarchy is viewed as the embodiment of Thai character and, perhaps most important, as a bulwark against the corrosive forces of modernity that the Thai establishment claims Thaksin represents. To break with precedent — by, say, elevating Princess Sirindhorn, who is 60 years old and childless and thus will not further the line of succession — would weaken the royalists’ portrayal of the fight with Thaksin as an issue of traditional Thai values versus modern excess.

Second, the military’s firm grip on power since the 2014 coup has largely neutralized Thaksin and Yingluck and minimized their relevance to the succession equation. The junta has resolutely demonstrated its willingness to hold power — even if it means postponing elections indefinitely in the face of international and opposition pressure — until it feels satisfied that Thaksin has been sidelined for good. (For his part, Thaksin appears to be continuing to abide by a strategy of laying low until the military has little choice but to allow elections.) Meanwhile, Stratfor sources say that the escalating anti-monarchy rhetoric from Thaksin’s Red Shirt supporters during the 2008-2010 protests soured his relationship with the crown prince.

Uncoupled from Thaksin, the prince becomes palatable to most major stakeholders in the capital. In fact, the prince’s unpopularity is considered as much of an asset as a liability. As a weak monarch, the prince will be highly dependent on the military for legitimacy and will not command an independent power base sufficient to challenge the junta’s plans — or those of other pillars of power.

This dynamic highlights a key factor: the inherent limits on the monarchy’s influence. The current king built and maintained power largely by wielding it sparingly, neutrally and only in ways that support the image of royal infallibility. To do otherwise would risk open defiance and an erosion of influence (as may have occurred in 2008, when royalist Yellow Shirt protest leaders ignored the king’s behind-the-scenes urgings to end their siege of Bangkok’s airports). This is how the Thai monarchy thrived in an era when the influence of royal families around the globe waned or was abolished altogether. The new king will have even less latitude to maneuver independently and is unlikely to make a bold move, such as aligning with Thaksin, if such action risks exposing the monarchy as being wholly irrelevant.

As a result, according to Stratfor sources and media reports, the factions most opposed to the prince have largely been mollified. This reality was illustrated in a number of recent high-profile public events intended to forcefully signal that the crown prince is healthy, matured, and the undisputed choice to replace the king. To maintain the monarchy’s role in areas of society where it benefits them, the royalists will promote the King Bhumibol as a guiding light even after death, starting with a lengthy state-mandated mourning period marked by lavish public displays of reverence. Princess Sirindhorn, continuing her current role as the highly visible public face of the monarchy, will play a central role in preserving the crown’s image of magnanimity. Meanwhile, because the crown prince is 63 years old and believed to have chronic health issues of his own, the royalists will continue to groom and promote one of his sons as the eventual, more benevolent king to which Thais have become accustomed.

The Palace Is Only One Piece of the Power Struggle

Even if the succession process itself is orderly, Thailand is facing a longer-term problem: an erosion of royal prestige during a time of profound societal challenges and change. The monarchy has not always been revered and central to Thai affairs. As will the crown prince, King Bhumibol began his reign during a period of major political upheaval. He, too, was weak, shrouded in controversy related to the death of his brother, his predecessor on the throne, before taking advantage of a confluence of factors in the 1950s to begin slowly building up his power and prestige.

But the crown prince is highly unlikely to ever replicate his father’s path to esteem. During the Cold War years, the Thai establishment and military saw a strong monarchy as key to mitigating the threat of communism; now, the main players that will share Thailand’s peculiar balance of power with the next king have interests in his remaining on shaky ground. In the distant future, the moment may be right for a royal resurgence like King Bhumibol’s, but the next kingship will struggle to retain its influence.

This may prove highly disorienting for Thailand. Whatever the constraints on the current king’s wielding of influence, his deft touch from the throne has unquestionably helped preserve a delicate balance of political and business power among the monarchy, the military, and the political classes. Moreover, his occasional public interventions have helped prevent revolutionary impulses in Thailand from escalating to the degree seen in many of the country’s conflict-ridden neighbors. The crown prince will not be able to play a similar peacemaking role. The Thai military will attempt to fill the vacuum created by the monarchy’s erosion by pushing Thais to accept a politburo-style system, but the junta realizes it is fundamentally ill-suited to play a unifying role.

Eventually, as the mourning period fades, Thailand’s unsettled scores and underlying divisions will return to the fore. The military will have to prove that it is capable of navigating Thailand’s economic challenges and maintaining order without sparking a backlash to its heavy-handed tactics. Over the longer-term, a weakening monarchy will also bolster Thaksin in his self-styled position as Thailand’s modernizer — or, if not Thaksin himself, another populist figure capable of uniting Thailand’s rural masses. Bouts of violence between those trying to preserve the existing order and those willing to overturn it will return with time (often with vast sums of money at stake), and powerful business and political blocs will vie to reposition themselves in an off-balance system missing its core historical restraint.

Analysis

Satellite imagery obtained through our partners at AllSource Analysis show the continued hectic Russian presence at Bassel al Assad air base. An Su-24 can be seen on the runway ready for take off, while what appears to be an Il-20 Coot spy plane is taxiing around the air base. In addition to the Su-25, Su-24, Su-30 and Su-34 aircraft previously deployed to Bassel al Assad, we see more Su-34 aircraft that have recently arrived as reinforcements from Russia. The Su-34 is a more capable strike aircraft than the Su-24, the type that the Turkish air force recently shot down. The Su-34, with a more expansive air-to-air capability, is therefore better able to defend itself relative to the Su-24.

Additional capable air superiority fighters apart from the four Su-30s already deployed to the air base are not visible, but that does not exclude the possibility of their presence. Indeed, the Russians have bolstered their air defense capabilities, as can be seen with the deployment of the S-400 surface-to-air missile system to the air base.

As is apparent from the recent images of the Shayrat air base, there has been construction work to improve that airfield as well. Two Su-22 squadrons and one MiG-23 squadron were previously based at Shayrat, but most of their aircraft have long since been decommissioned alongside previous types operated from the base. Some of these aircraft can be seen discarded or decommissioned across Shayrat, including five aircraft on the southwest corner of the air base. With the new construction, a number of helicopters can also be seen deployed at the base. These helicopters appear operational and recently deployed to Shayrat, but it is difficult to assess whether they are Russian or Syrian.

It is clear that the Shayrat air base is gaining importance for the Syrian government and its allies, as recent construction and deployments attest. With increased operations taking place in the central-eastern Homs region, including defensive efforts aimed at preventing the Islamic State from severing the critical M5 highway running from Homs to Damascus, the refurbishment of the airfield and its use makes operational sense. As can be seen, the Russians have yet to deploy fixed-wing warplanes to the air base as recent rumors have suggested, though such an eventuality cannot be excluded.

Moscow’s plans to strengthen its military presence in the Artic Circle make Neighboring countries nervous.

Forecast

• The Islamic State will continue efforts to improve its capabilities in communication and offensive attacks in cyberspace.
• The availability of cybercrime tools and services on underground criminal markets will allow the Islamic State to further bolster its existing abilities.
• The geographic spread of the Islamic State’s online presence and its ability to tap into underground markets mean that efforts to counter the group’s online activities will occur in countries other than Iraq and Syria.
• Regardless of offensive capabilities in cyberspace, the Islamic State’s online activities will continue to focus on disseminating propaganda in efforts to draw recruits and funding.

Analysis

On Nov. 13, armed militants killed 130 people in Paris. On Nov. 14, unarmed militants from the public relations branch of the Islamic State sat down at their computers, signed in to their social media accounts — accounts from which they could reach virtually anyone in the world — and claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Propaganda is immensely important to the Islamic State. Part of its mission is to convince the world it is as dangerous as it claims to be, so it is little surprise that the group’s behavior on the Internet is every bit as theatrical as its behavior on the battlefield. Even some of the venues of the Paris attacks — a soccer stadium, a concert hall — are structures of performance meant to host large crowds. In that sense, the Islamic State achieved precisely what it intended to on Nov. 13: It commanded the attention of a global audience, which it can use to spread its message and recruit new members.

Harnessing Technology

Islamic State’s first claim of responsibility for the Paris attacks was disseminated through a popular instant messaging service, Telegram, which allows end-to-end encrypted communication. A month earlier, the Islamic State’s media wing began encouraging its supporters to use the service. After the initial release of the message, the rest of the Islamic State’s social media network operators and supporters amplified it further. The initial call to use Telegram drew focus to the Islamic State’s technical capabilities in cyberspace, particularly when coupled with the group’s repeated claims that it has offensive online capabilities.

Since the Islamic State’s online presence began to grow rapidly in 2014, culprits claiming affiliation with the group have carried out numerous unsophisticated online attacks, such as hijacking social media accounts and defacing poorly secured websites. Online harassment of individuals, organizations and whole populations is a tactic frequently used to foster fear without any actual threat of violence. The Islamic State’s online media machine has also made claims of hacking U.S. government networks, on some occasions by posting names and personal details claimed to belong to government and military personnel. In addition to carrying out cyberattacks, whether real or fabricated, the Islamic State has more recently attempted to educate its supporters in rudimentary operational security measures when communicating over the Internet.

The Islamic State has indeed given some attention to building up its technical online capabilities and will likely continue to do so. But these capabilities have largely focused on theatrics in online media in an attempt to maintain the group’s image as an expanding threat despite losing the momentum it had in 2014, rather than presenting any significant threat to public safety. These capabilities carry even less significance on the battlefields in Iraq or Syria. Nevertheless, the Islamic State likely will continue to incorporate the use of information technology and attempt to expand its technical capabilities in cyberspace.

Social Media

For more than a decade, transnational jihadists have turned to the Internet to spread claims of terrorist attacks. However, the Islamic State has built up a particularly robust and effective online media machine that has placed its propaganda, and a glimpse into its recruitment efforts, on some of the most popular public mediums in the West, including Twitter and Facebook.

No technical sophistication is required in broadcasting social media messages, and the Islamic State’s social media presence in terms of users is tiny. In March, the Brookings Institution released a paper estimating that there were only 46,000-90,000 Islamic State Twitter accounts between October and November 2014. This is a small number compared to the number of total Twitter users: 307 million. However, this number of accounts is evidently enough to routinely elevate the Islamic State’s propaganda efforts to the level of the international media. The Islamic State’s ability to sustain an effective social media presence shows a notable degree of organizational sophistication. Maintaining this kind of presence becomes even more challenging when the group’s activities are under relentless scrutiny by international law enforcement and intelligence efforts, social media service providers and anti-Islamic State activists.

The Islamic State has leveraged this social media presence to portray itself as possessing exaggerated offensive capabilities in cyberspace. In March, the “Islamic State Hacking Division” posted a list of 100 names and personal information that the hackers claimed belonged to U.S. military personnel. The hackers said they obtained the information by compromising government databases, but the list was more likely compiled through open source research. In January, someone claiming affiliation with the Islamic State hijacked the U.S. Central Command’s Twitter account. However, social media users — particularly those sharing accounts — often take poor security measures in selecting account credentials; thus, hijacking or “hacking” accounts can often be accomplished with cheap tricks.

Communication

The Islamic State intentionally misrepresents its online capabilities in its online propaganda efforts. This feeds into the principal reason for the group’s organizational focus on online activities: drawing recruits and funding. However, because the bulk of the Islamic State’s social media presence is highly decentralized, with a significant portion spread outside of Iraq and Syria, extensive online communication is required in order to organize its propaganda efforts. The Islamic State’s means of communication are diverse — a guard against the effects of any crackdown on social media accounts. As a result, the group has recently begun efforts to at least bolster the security awareness of its broader online audience, such as recommending tools like anonymous communication service “Tor” in hopes of concealing messages.

The Islamic State has made additional efforts to educate its supporters on proper operational security, even circulating a manual on securing communications around more obscure online forums. The manual contains numerous best practices and suggestions, many of which were plagiarized from another manual. Although unlikely to ultimately thwart Western intelligence agencies’ targeted surveillance efforts, these practices could pose significant obstacles to law enforcement organizations. However, given the decentralized and dispersed nature of the Islamic State’s online presence, it is unlikely that most online supporters will heed all the advice listed in the manual.

Islamic State Hacking

Despite names associated with the Islamic State that imply offensive online capabilities, such as the “Islamic State Hacking Division” or the “Cyber Caliphate,” there is no indication that the Islamic State has any organized branch capable of carrying out cyberattacks that could inflict physical harm on individuals or cause significant financial or physical damage.

Thus far, possible Islamic State members and supporters have demonstrated little sophistication in their online offensive abilities. Website defacements are common; the wide array of websites that have been targeted over the past year, along with the use of well-known security exploits, suggests that these efforts have been simply seized opportunities rather than targeted attacks. In other words, these attacks could be carried out by a low-skilled hacker working with simple software that automatically scans a selection of targets for known vulnerabilities and relies on documented exploits to compromise vulnerable targets.

In some cases, online attacks carried out in the Islamic State’s name were not in fact carried out by the group’s supporters. In April, the French television network TV5Monde suffered several cyberattacks targeting its social media accounts, website and station. The culprits claimed to be associated with the Islamic State, but by June, French authorities believed the attackers were in fact Russian hackers posing as Islamic State militants. In a domain where attributing activity to particular actors can challenge even the most resourceful intelligence agencies, names are trivial.

The Islamic State probably is not capable of carrying out spectacular acts of cyberterrorism, such as targeting critical infrastructure. The group would welcome such capabilities, but so far its use of cyberspace principally has been psychological operations and communications. The low sophistication of its offensive online capabilities has been effective in this regard.

However, the group has clearly put emphasis on publicizing its activities in cyberspace and on recruiting somewhat skilled individuals. In October, Malaysian authorities arrested Ardit Ferizi, a hacker from Kosovo, who U.S. authorities accused of stealing personal information after compromising the network of a U.S. company. Ferizi then allegedly handed the information over to an Islamic State member, Junaid Hussain, who reportedly was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Aug. 25 in Raqqa, Syria. Ferizi had been a known hacker operating under the pseudonym of a group of Kosovar hacktivists. Hussain, likewise, was a known hacker and British national previously associated with a different hacktivist group.

There is nothing to suggest the prevalence of Islamic State supporters with backgrounds similar to Hussain’s or Ferizi’s, nor are there any indicators that Ferizi and Hussain had highly technical abilities. But their association with the Islamic State shows the group at least has the intent to recruit individuals capable of carrying out cyberattacks, and the group is likely to be able to do so again eventually.

The Islamic State’s Next Steps

As it has been for other jihadist groups, the Internet has been a powerful tool for the Islamic State. Given the Islamic State’s efforts to recruit hackers to carry out low-level cyberattacks, it seems likely the group will continue to pursue greater capabilities that will help it organize its online communications and its attempts to portray itself as a technically capable threat, though not to the point of committing catastrophic cyberattacks.

Capabilities to carry out cyberterrorism do not necessarily have to come from within the Islamic State. A thriving underground market exists where tools designed to commit cybercrimes for financial gain, such as stealing banking credentials or installing malware that holds critical information on a victim’s device hostage for ransom, can be purchased or even rented. Offensive skills for hire and exploits in popular software not publically known (referred to as “zero day” exploits) are also available, and often the buyers and sellers do not have to know each other’s identities.

Cybercrime can be a considerably profitable endeavor, potentially earning millions of dollars for the culprits. The existence of such markets means that jihadist groups like the Islamic State could gain offensive capabilities without actually recruiting a person with the necessary skills into the organization. By intersecting with existing global cybercrime networks, the Islamic State could bolster the potential funds earned through its efforts online while potentially increasing the effect of its online attacks and thus boosting its overall propaganda efforts.

Regardless of how far the Islamic State can continue to develop its online capabilities, no improvements in this area will shape its fighting abilities in and around its core territories in Iraq and Syria. Its efforts as an insurgent force largely are independent of its cyberspace activities, and this will likely be reflected in the geography of counter-Islamic State efforts. The large, decentralized pool of supporters being organized over online media and the ability to contract additional capabilities from cybercriminals means that efforts to counter the Islamic State’s online activities likely will occur in areas outside of Iraq and Syria, as was the case with Ferizi.