ISIS's Regional Campaign: November 2015

ISIS achieved significant successes in its global strategy to expand its caliphate in the Near Abroad and defeat the West in November 2015. ISIS’s directed and inspired attacks in Paris and San Bernadino demonstrated the organization’s reach in the Far Abroad. These attacks also stoked cultural polarization, another of ISIS's goals, as reflected in growing debates on refugee admission in the U.S and Europe. Meanwhile ISIS continued to expand the geographic boundaries of its Near Abroad campaign. ISIS likely plans to establish new regional affiliates in Bangladesh, Tunisia, and eventually Somalia due to its rhetorical emphasis on recruitment and attacks in those locations. ISIS will likely use its affiliates to launch additional attacks on the West. Destroying the threat posed by ISIS will become more difficult as the organization gains strategic resiliency through its regional affiliate and global radicalization campaigns.