Why would ISIS rely on such brutal tactics that seem more likely to alienate the world rather than advance any strategic aims? AEI Resident Scholar Michael Rubin argues that the violent executions are not just reckless acts of brutality and reveals the deadly logic behind the Islamic State's campaign of terror.

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Transcript
I spent time with the Taliban before 9/11, and one of the biggest differences between the Taliban and the Islamic State is the Taliban was desperate for recognition by the outside world. They wanted to be recognized as the government of Afghanistan. They actually called themselves the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Islamic State is completely different. They don’t want recognition from the outside world. They don’t think that anyone beyond themselves has any legitimacy whatsoever to comment on their governance, so when it comes to alienating the outside world, that’s the mission of the Islamic State. You alienate until you manage to kill.

Certainly beheading and immolation aren’t unique to ISIS. Within the world of Islamic radicalism, we’ve always had a problem with beheading. It may seem gratuitous, but by engaging in this brutality, by posting these increasingly horrendous videos online, the Islamic State is taking the focus off others—they’re taking the focus off their military losses, and they’re taking the focus off any other group which might promote a more moderate line. In recent weeks they’ve lost the battle of Kobani, and they’ve also suffered serious setbacks against Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and the largest city held by the Islamic State. But no one’s talking about that anymore. They’re just talking about the brutality of the Islamic State, which is good for the Islamic State’s recruitment and takes the focus off the fact that they’re on retreat on the battlefield.

One of the interesting footnotes to the whole story of the video of the immolation of the Jordanian pilot was it appears that the Jordanian pilot was actually killed a month before the video was released. What appears to have been happening was that the Islamic State was trying to humiliate the Jordanians twice. In the course of the month between when we believe that the Jordanian pilot was killed and when the video was released, the Islamic State was actively trying to conduct a hostage exchange. What they wanted was an imprisoned al-Qaeda terrorist named Sajida, who was wanted for the 2005 bombing of some hotels inside of Aman, Jordan—a terrorist operation that killed more than sixty people. The Islamic State was trying to spring her. That would have been a victory for them, and then once they were sprung they were going to turn around and say, “Not only did you pay us money, not only did you release this terrorist, but we killed your guy anyway.” Osama bin Laden once said that everyone loves the strong horse, and when they’re able to humiliate a country like Jordan like this, or the United States or Japan, they’re depicting themselves as the strong horse.

The last point of the execution was to try to divide the Jordanian public from the monarchy.
The purpose of that horrific video was both to shock—which they certainly succeeded in doing. It was to draw moral equivalence suggesting that what they did to the Jordanian pilot was no different than what Allied bombers to do Syrians or Iraqis when they bomb Islamic State targets. If the Islamic State can humiliate Jordan into backing away from that Arab face, then they can depict the fight against ISIS as actually a fight of the West, of the United States and Israel, versus Islam rather than a much broader fight. What the Islamic State figured is shock Jordan enough, and the King is simply going to back down. In that they miscalculated.

The strategy behind ISIS' brutality