"LITERATURE REVIEW: WHY THE U.S. POLICY APPROACH TO COUNTERTERRORISMWON?T ELIMINATE THE ISIS CRISISby[Name][Institution name] CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEWThe evolution and prevalence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the MiddleEast have been in the making for some time, and should not come as a surprise. However, thedeclaration of the Islamic State – or the Caliphate – in June 2014 rejuvenated the interest ofmainstream scholarly, analytical, and government institutions, triggering a significant researchinterest in the group. Mostly, the group?s foray and the associated aggression and violence haveenabled the organization to advance to the forefront of attention and reportage of global mediainstitutions, spanning across social networks, television networks, and academic discourseacross the world. Evidently, since the ignition of this interest in the group, the global newsoutlets and analytical reports rushed to publish the actions, origins, and gradual development ofthe group into a major regional force. Similarly, a number of media and research entities havefocused on clarifying the connections of the organization to Al Qaeda, a terrorist organizationthat is more recognizable to the research and policy analysis entities in the West.Noteworthy is that comparatively less scholarship emphasizes on the Al Qaeda- associated groups (AQAs) themselves. However, at the center of studies on AQAs rest thebroad inquiry into whether the AQAs are assimilated by the transnational extremist ideology,transforming into mere franchises to the Al Qaeda group. Similarly, some scholarship hasargued that these groups tend to assimilate the Al Qaeda ideology and brand, using theassociated benefits to foster and support their insular struggles. As part of the broader study onISIS, both scholars and analysts, using a qualitative approach, have suggested an array of prosand cons of terrorist groups associating with Al Qaeda. Their findings would later add to thenarrative of the development and evolution of ISIS – based on the intuition that a group1 becomes more effective and deadly after connecting with a more experienced, well-organized,and well-equipped terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda.Over time, terrorism has evolved into an active theme for studies in several areas such aseconomics, security, political science, and social among many other related domains, especiallytoward the end of the 1960s. While most of these studies were based off on historical andtheoretical approaches to studying terrorism, their findings and conclusions would later becomemore realistic especially due to the absence of any credible, usable research data on insurgencyand academic theories on terrorist behavior and actions. Pioneer researchers such as Wilkinson(1986) and Crenshaw (1981) focused more on the definition of terrorism, the motivations forterrorism, the differences between terrorist crusades, and the strategies used by terroristorganizations. With time, the acquisition of terrorism event data and analysis reports fosteredthe increasingly systematic approach to scholarship on terrorism. Gradually, the state of thescholarship on terrorism eventually became rather broad. Yet this does not imply that precedingstudies on terrorism have been insufficient, but the amount of material being produced bycontemporary literature is rather overwhelming.Nonetheless, building a robust understanding of the ISIS narrative, as well as the roleand efficiency of antiterrorism policies targeting the group requires a critical review of thecurrent state of the literature on a broad span of themes. These may range from terrorism andthe ideologies and organization of the group to the efficiency of foreign policies targeting thegroup. The most comprehensive, current literature on the origins, ideologies, goals, and currentpractices of AQAs – including ISIS – emerges from a plethora of well-researched and detailedreports from terrorism policy based think tanks. Some of the common entities are the AmericanEnterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the RAND Corporation,2 the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the Center for Foreign Relations, and theCongressional Research Service (CRS).Notably, these sources of the scholarship on the performance of counterterrorismpolicies and strategies against ISIS seem to converge and diverge on several themes. The mostnotable points of divergence include the theoretical approach used by the researchers; thedefinition of terrorism; the relationship between religion and terrorism; and how Islaminfluences the ideologies and behavior of ISIS. Moreover, the scholarship diverges on theperformance of foreign policies against the Islamist group, as well as on the factors responsiblefor the progressive development of the Islamic State into a regional phenomenon.While most of the mainstream scholarship focuses on the origin and evolution of theterrorist group into the current multifaceted, dynamic organization that it has become, aconsiderable amount of literature has focused on the efficiency of counterterrorism policies inthe Middle East, especially those targeting ISIS. Gaining an in-depth understanding of theavailable literature on insurgency is quite intimidating since the potential scholarship is rathervast and increasingly rapidly (Council on Foreign Relations 2013). Therefore, to assist inproviding an essential framework for understanding this literature, this literature review adds tothe current state of the scholarship on the efficiency of counterterrorism efforts in the MiddleEast with a particular focus on the performance of U.S. counterterrorism policies against ISIS.This section begins with a review of the theoretical frameworks used in the preceding scholarlywork on terrorism, reviews of literature on terrorism, the definitions of terrorism, and theefficiency of counterterrorism policies against ISIS.Theoretical FrameworkAs the ISIS phenomenon continues to permeate mainstream media and the public3 "