The Rebalance authors Mercy Kuo and Angie Tang engage subject-matter experts, policy practitioners and strategic thinkers for their diverse insights into the U.S. rebalance to Asia. This is a conversation with professor Audrey Kurth Cronin, director of the International Security Program at George Mason University's School of Policy, Government and International Affairs, adviser to senior U.S. policymakers and author of numerous publications, such as "How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns" and "Ending Terrorism: A Strategy for Defeating Al-Qaeda."
In Foreign Affairs (April 2015), you posited that Islamic State is not a terrorist group. Briefly explain the different goals and strategies of al-Qaida and Islamic State (IS).
IS and al-Qaida both engage in terrorism, have similar long-term goals, and were once aligned, but they differ in key ways that are vital to fighting them. Terrorist groups like al-Qaida generally have only dozens or hundreds of members, attack civilians, do not hold territory and cannot directly confront military forces. IS boasts some 30,000 fighters, holds territory in both Iraq and Syria, maintains extensive military capabilities, controls lines of communication, commands infrastructure, funds itself and engages in sophisticated military operations. It is not a "terrorist group." It's a pseudo-state led by a conventional army that also seeks to inspire acts of transnational terrorism.