The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, commonly referred to as Daesh, has taken the world by storm and is exhibiting no signs of relenting. Desperate to degrade and ultimately destroy Daesh, yet afraid to mire itself in another Middle Eastern conflict, the United States is relying on a minimalist strategy through military partnerships and air support. This research contends that this fairly conventional approach is ineffective. This thesis offers an alternative strategy to counter Daesh by utilizing social network analysis (SNA) to analyze Daesh’s network and then apply principles of social movement theory (SMT) to encourage Daesh’s implosion.

Subjects: Daesh; Islamic State in Iraq and Syria; ISIS; Islamic State; IS; Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant ISIL; Social Movement Theory; SMT; Social Network Analysis; SNA; Social Media Exploitation; SME; Unconventional Warfare; UW; Irregular Warfare; IW; Abu Badr al-Baghdadi; Army Operating Concept; AOC; Human Domain Mapping; Insurgency; Collective Action