Former DIA Director: ISIS Is a Learning Organization That Adapts Rapidly

Felicia Schwartz

December 3, 2014

Michael Flynn: Islamic State Adapts to U.S. Strategy Targeting Its Leaders

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn speaks at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council on Tuesday.Ralph Alswang for The Wall Street Journal

Islamic State has organized itself to adapt to the U.S. strategy of targeting the group’s leaders, a former defense intelligence chief said Tuesday.

Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s annual CEO Council meeting, Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who stepped down from his post as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in August, said Islamic State is “a learning organization” that pays close attention to its failures and successes.

“We’ve always sort of gone after the leaders, and they knew that right out front,” Mr. Flynn said. In response, the group has nurtured smaller leadership teams and has created “a very good infrastructure.”

Mr. Flynn was joined by Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former U.S. Commander in Afghanistan who was fired in 2010 after he and his aides made disparaging comments about Obama administration officials in a Rolling Stone article.

Looking back on the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. McChrystal said, “we didn’t do due diligence before we went in,” and failed to nurture experts to aid the U.S. effort there. He said during World War II the military trained thousands of service members to speak Japanese, while the number of military personnel who speak Pashtun could be assembled on the stage he was speaking from.

With Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel set to resign once his successor is confirmed, Mr. McChrystal urged President Barack Obama and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to focus on interpersonal relationships on the National Security Council as the group continues to build strategies in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I’d tell them to get three cases of beer and go white water rafting,” he said, adding that teambuilding activities could help senior leaders make cohesive decisions. Mr. Hagel’s predecessors have criticized the White House for micromanaging the Pentagon.

Now that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is winding down and the U.S. troop presence is set to draw down to 10,000, Mr. Flynn said the next couple of years there are probably going to be “a bit status quo…It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is going to “step up a little bit,” but the effort will also require confidence on the part of the international community.