The Evolving Terrorist Threat

Implications for Global Security

by Seth G. Jones, Colin P. Clarke, Peter Bergen, Ben Connable, Ryan C. Crocker, Lynn E. Davis, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Andrew R. Hoehn, Mark Mazzetti, William McCants, et al.

As ISIS loses territory in Iraq and Syria, are terrorist attacks more likely or less? How is ISIS evolving in the Middle East and globally? What about al-Qa'ida? To answer these questions, RAND convened a conference on the evolving terrorist threat, which took place on June 27, 2017, in the RAND Corporation's Washington office. RAND researchers Seth Jones, Colin Clarke, Lynn Davis, Ben Connable, Andrew Hoehn, Jack Riley, and Linda Robinson, along with experts from the larger national security community, discussed ISIS, al-Qa'ida, and other terrorist groups. Their discussions are captured in these video conference proceedings.

In the first video segment, Seth Jones, Jack Riley, and Colin Clarke, kick off the discussion, describing some of RAND's current and historic research on terrorism. In the second segment, the panelists explore changes and continuity in terrorism since 2014, looking at ISIS in a global context. In the third, they discuss ISIS within the Middle East, considering next steps for the Caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Lunchtime speaker Michael G. Vickers, former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, provides a net assessment of the campaign against ISIS and al-Qa'ida in the fourth segment. And in the final video, panelists deliberate whether the United States is succeeding against ISIS and other terrorist groups.

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This conference was sponsored by the International Security and Defense Policy Center (ISDP) in the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD) of the RAND Corporation.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation Conference proceeding series. RAND conference proceedings present a collection of papers delivered at a conference or a summary of the conference.

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