The defeat of ISIS is one of the most vital concerns in U.S. intelligence operations and foreign policy. Here, a current event case study presentation focuses on the cooperation of U.S. government systems with other countries in the war against ISIS. This research is unique, just like OSINT, in that everything that will be examined is related to the basics of OSINT. Furthermore, it details the constraints of OSINT and groups the information or data it cannot collect.
Circumstances
The battle against ISIS is locally conducted in the Middle East is local, where ISIS has firm roots and has led to a lot of violence. The area is by political instability, erupting tensions, and complex alliances, so the fight against ISIS becomes more complicated.. The U.S., as the leading player in the fight against terrorism, develops alliances with numerous countries and wars against ISIS to make this struggle successful.
As the example here, the particular nature of ISIS also matters in the context of the situation study. ISIS briefly embodies a cause for nonstate actors to pursue the ambit of leveling inequalities and filling the gaps to have maximum power in the land. Their Fundamentalist ideology, cruel practices, and many more foreign fighters make them not just an imminent threat to the Middle East but also worldwide. The coalition of the United States and its people is intent on straining ISIS, beating its infrastructure, and seizing all its avenues to retardate its propaganda. Consider, for instance, a military operation led by the United States and its partners to thwart ISIS plans shortly after or an initiative to collaborate and share information between the concerned parties to trace and block ISIS plots. During the event, aspects such as mission purpose, the parties that were involved, the kind of information shared, and the outcomes or the results could be important issues to consider. It would allow conclusions about the level of support and the importance of OSINT to decision-making.
Analyzing the matters connected with this case study is a process that deserves attention to the real intent and purposes of the United States in its fight against ISIS. The USA aims to eliminate ISIS decomposition and prevent failure, hence, safety in the entire world. Partner collaboration is vital in working towards those objectives since it provides a reasonable basis for exercising intelligence, accumulating capability, and organizing military operations.
Another of these last aspects is the international context, the specific milieu in which the conflict against ISIS is essential. Among these are the region’s other complex actors, including but not limited to Russia, Iran, and NATO, who could have separate intentions and plans for the areaUltimately, it is vital to understand different people and their connections to find collaboration opportunities when fighting ISIS.
Potential for Action
Action regarding U.S. involvement in the allies’ struggle against ISIS can either follow some plans or abide by specific strategies that could be useful for this case. With the emergence of open-source intelligence (OSINT), the American government and its allies have gained excellent sovereign opportunities, which can help them make suitable and appropriate judgments and formulate proper policies.. This portion will examine the opportunity for action in the overall timeframe of ISIS elimination and the role of each method in it.
Diplomatic Initiatives
The U.S. and other international partners might seek to launch a diplomatic process to create joint efforts among countries toward the ISIS combat. It may entail participation in conversations with regional and global stakeholders to build intellectual groups, set up shared goals, and work on collective strategies. OSINT would interpret diplomatic channels, means of negotiations, and the steadfast commitment of all the actors and identify opportunities to achieve the consensus and reconciliation to end conflicts. OSINT can reveal information about countries’ diplomatic actions, foreign ministers’ statements, and the policies adopted during the ISIS combat. Moreover, it can be essential to analyze diplomacy’s role and how it affects counterterrorism efforts.
Military Operations
Another likely conduct is, instead, a military mission designed to disrupt and dismantle ISIS’s power and resources. This option might involve precise airstrikes, special operations, and provisions for internal forces dealing with terrorist groups.. Using OSINT, analysts can monitor military activity, examine force deployments and their results, and evaluate the operation’s outcomes.. Satellite images, online reports, and updates from local sources can provide the needed intelligence about the true and natural essence and effectiveness of military operations. These, in turn, can help decision-makers modify strategies, tactics, and the overall implications of military engagements.
Intelligence Sharing
The cooperation of intelligence-bearing agencies of the USA and other countries and the coalition of the countries involved will play the most crucial role in countering the ISIS threat. OSINT may simplify the obtaining, analyzing, and dispersing of intelligence data coming from multiple organizations, such as governments, international organizations, local populations, and civil societies. OSINT facilitates the interchange of information and generates threat assessment and trend identification, granting a broader and more coherent picture of the changing nature of this new threat environment. OSINT can be used to study cooperation dynamics, the peculiarities of data-sharing functionality, and the significance of shared information in shaping response tactics.
Capacity Building
Partnering with regional powers in capacity building while strengthening local community involvement also represents an alternative approach to the challenge posed by ISIS. OSINT helps assess the influence of training programs, allocate resources, and assess the impact of capacity-building techniques on the ground. By tracking social, economic, and political developments, OSINT can provide clues about the stability of capacity-building efforts, the empowerment of local actors, and the destination for long-term stabilities in conflict-affected areas.
Ultimately, a detailed analysis of the possible response actions will lay out each option’s pros, cons, and consequences for the decision-makers. These complete understandings can inform policy decisions on collaborative work with partners and the creation of a collective response to the multifaceted threats of ISIS and its affiliates.. Noteworthy, OSINT operations can be tactically less but instant in their participation.
Possible Actions Consequences
The impact of the determined actions in the attempt to defeat ISIS might be tremendously different due to the chosen specific action. Informing an interested party and avoiding non-wished adverse outcomes demands an adequate and ethical assessment of these impacts so that beneficial effects are not unwantedly sacrificed at the expense of detrimental ones.
ISIS: As one feasible option, the U.S. and its partners can increase the conduct of military strikes. It could involve executing air strikes, supporting the land offensive, or providing aid in the form of knowledge and equipment to the local military. It will have an immediate short-term impact on reducing the capabilities of ISIS fighters and installing weapons. On the one hand, we should accept that more complex social consequences might arise from this situation. Potential intensification of military actions could entail strikes on the civilian population and ruining the existing basic infrastructure of communities, which could negatively affect local people. It may cause dislike or anger with the U.S. and its allies, a sudden surge of support that might later be seen as a stepping stone for extremist doctrine and terrorist recruitment.Additionally, the consequent response and unwanted collateral damage from different sections have the potential to make the peacekeeping mission more challenging.
Besides, the only solution is to include allied states in orchestrating diplomatic action. It can delve into cooperation with state institutions to reveal the source of grievances favoring extremist organizations’ activities. The initial consequences might involve the local authorities, who are likely to cooperate with the unit and increase joint efforts against ISIS. It’s necessary to consider the long-term picture as well.. A political approach submitted to such trades and concessions often accuses the stubborn cousin notoriety that its only direct impact will result in regional incites. Additionally, beyond diplomacy, the whole set of various root causes of extremism may need to be covered, and only some ways out may be found.
Intelligence exchange and enhancing the institution’s capacity are possible actions that substantially affect the eradication of ISIS. An augmented level of mutual intelligence exchange amongst the cohorts will continuously strengthen the presentational process of counterterrorism activities and operational coordination. It allows the army to penetrate the enemy’s territory and ports more deeply and accomplish objectives precisely and accurately. From the point of view of maintaining anti-terrorism efforts for a more extended period, capacity building, such as training and imparting support to local security forces, can be encouraged. Nonetheless, weighing these decisions’ informal risks and invisible side effects is necessary. Sharing highly classified information can lead to this risk, for instance, if it gets into the wrong person by mistake or proves successful. Still, the operations are compromised, which fails. Besides, developing the strength of local security forces may cost a lot of money and time, and the outcome could be more concrete.
OSINT Role in Decision-Making
OSINT, in turn, grants the decision-making process a massive bundle of data, which may help understand the current event and develop concomitant policies. Simultaneously, one of the most vital features of OSINT is that it can be accessed from virtually all sorts of sources, specifically public web pages, social media platforms, news articles, academic journals, and even government reports. Elimination of ISIS is one of the most significant challenges that we are facing nowadays.In such a situation, decision-makers can employ OSINT as a source of information about the group activities, capabilities, recruitment methods, and theories it espouses.
Social media monitoring is a handy OSINT tool mainly applied to this area. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group uses social media for propaganda, recruiting, and communicating with their supporters worldwide. Through maintaining the review of the social media platforms, decision-makers are surrounded with information about the propaganda of ISIS and deliver rules that relate to recruitment of the group and methods that ISIS employs.
Also, understanding the strength and complexity of a brand’s online presence can be done simply through its presence. Such information is beneficial for creating competent programs to counter propaganda, initiate the identification of threats, and, consequently, develop action plans for those who could become members of terrorist groups. OSINT relies significantly on using news media reports as a significant intelligence resource. The journalists who deal with fighting against ISIS can have an opportunity to be near the natural ambiance of the place and to speak with the sources they find there. It is of great value to them as they use their information in their own story. The local and regional levels of policymaking can use news articles in their analysis to understand the bigger picture of the dynamics, evaluate the military success, and detect the threats and risks that might appear. In turn, the media reports give opinions and views of stakeholders all involved in the conflict, which help to grasp how geopolitics is struggling to shift.
Research publications and reports of different research institutions can also play a significant role. Scholars and researchers frequently research to determine what causes the conflict to persist, as they may sometimes highlight the genesis, ideology, and strategies of the ISIS group. Media agencies can enlighten decision-makers on the factors that aggravate terrorism, the complexities of countering radicalization, and practical solutions to mollify communal conflictTherefore, policymakers can use academic research to develop a situation-specific and informed point of view on the issue.
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) can also be applicable to generate geospatial data through the analysis of satellite imagery. The governing authorities can benefit from satellite imagery when they try to track ISIS fighters on the move, spot training camps or safe houses, or analyze the outcomes of the armed operations. In addition to this localization, satellite images can also be essential to determine and evaluate the strategic importance of critical infrastructure like oil refineries and communication networks, which might be targets for ISIS.
However, there are a variety of implications, which are not simple but complex, in terms of going against ISIS to conquer its military goals. Setting the right course with benefits in the concise run and dangers in the future requires careful planning. An approach should be integrated and interdisciplinary, which shall subsume the fields of military, diplomacy, intelligence, and capacity building and which, as a whole, is considered likely to produce the best results. Hence, collecting the relevant data and determining which actions have an effect is highly important for improving strategies and evaluating them based on their efficiency in delivering the desired outcomes without any negative consequences or worsening situations.
OSINT Limitations
OSINT, or open-source intelligence representation, is a critical resource that can be used to acquire information and make good decisions. While it is essential to acknowledge the limitations of OSINT and comprehend the type of information or intelligence it cannot furnish, there is a need to make the most of the wide range of information that OSINT can provide. They entail:
- Inability to access classified or sensitive data: OSINT mainly focuses on publicly disclosed sources of information. It does not have the authority to access secret or sensational data that would be vital in comprehending some details regarding the current event. For instance, familial relations in the media about closed sources like classified government files or intercepted communications might be deeper but inaccessible through OSINT.
- Limited perspectives: OSINT capitalizes on different levels of sources, including news articles, social media, and public documents. However, it must be that such sources usually demonstrate only partialness or tend to have a bias. Depending only on OSINT will ultimately give an accurate picture of the event. Still, more is needed to sufficiently provide all the views on the situation and render the root cause of the issue.
- Potential for misinformation: In the open-source intelligence environment, the trend is not only that of disinformation and misinformationIn the age of fake news, users must filter the information from different data sources by assessing their credibility and reliability. The spread of false or incorrect information leads to inaccurate and inappropriate looks and decisions.
- Lack of real-time information: Public information OSINT sometimes lucks in giving the news, and it doesn’t provide real-time, but this is its weak point. In highly dynamic settings, for example, during military campaigns and political crises, the necessary and sufficient OSINT information will most probably not be ready for decision-making in time at all, which potentially might affect the outcome of the decision-making process.
- Incomplete picture: On the other hand, OSINT serves analytical purposes connected to ongoing events, though it needs to consider a comprehensive all-the-round approach to the situation. There is a chance that it could exactly pin-point certain aspects and will go past the other imagery. To get a full-scale and complete view of the all-encompassing variety of information OSINT provides, you could incorporate various intelligence sources, such as human intelligence (HUMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), or geospatial intelligence (GEOINT).
In this case, the relations make OSINT a valuable tool for inquiry and analysis of current events, but it is expected to be challenging. Understanding the said restrictions is essential for management, in addition to the analysis.. Besides that, the decision-makers should use other intelligence sources to see the overall picture of the current events. The officers focusing on OSINT must give a comprehensive presentation covering all the OSINT disciplines. Otherwise, the need for balance in decisions can happen.
Conclusion
In the end, this case study of the current event brings about superb clarification of the value of the United States ally in the fight against terrorism and ISIS until now. Policymakers can make the right choices while thinking about the consequences of the action, decision, and process that can counteract ISIS efficiently. Though the information provided by OSINT is helpful, it should be kept in mind that OSINT itself needs to be more comprehensive, and hence, to understand the bigger picture, it is necessary to use multiple intelligence resources. Analysis might help them prop up their strategy one more piece, contribute to international efforts against terrorism, and provide stability.
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