http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/16/the-islamic-states-phase-four-failure/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Situation%20Report&utm_campaign=SitRep0417

The Islamic State’s Phase-Four Failure

• By Christopher Holshek
• April 16, 2015

Since late last year, evidence has been mounting that the Islamic State has reached a point of diminishing returns in controlling the territories it has seized and exploited. Despite a year of military successes, it’s losing popular support. The reasons for this should be all too familiar to those who followed the United States’ military-led adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan — it’s easier to campaign than govern, as the saying goes. And the complexity and scope of post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction — “phase four” in U.S. military parlance — is proving a far greater challenge for the Islamic State than perhaps was originally anticipated. And for the United States and its partners, that could spell an opportunity to not only beat back terrorist insurgencies, but prevent new, even deadlier ones from following in their footsteps.http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/16/the-islamic-states-phase-four-failure/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Situation%20Report&utm_campaign=SitRep0417