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AbstractConcurrent to the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq between 2006 and 2008, Sunni tribesmen in the U.S. Marine‐controlled western Anbar province of Iraq experienced an "awakening" movement, which led them to side with U.S. and coalition forces. The Sunni Awakening demonstrates that individuals will often realign because of betrayal and opportunities for advancement. It also demonstrates that individual motives can have macrolevel social consequences. Complexity theory suggests that political factions will realign based on individual considerations that then develop into macrolevel movements. Complexity theory also combines both agency (in terms of microbehaviors) and structure (in terms of initial conditions). An important concept within the complexity literature is the idea of "critical mass." Theories of self‐organization suggest that individual considerations aggregate to a point of critical mass to become macrolevel movements. In the case of Iraq, you had individuals who decided as individuals to align with the Americans, but the macrolevel Awakening movement did not gain momentum until enough individuals had joined the movement. This pattern suggests that complexity theory can be used as a framework for understanding how critical mass is achieved in realignment.

The U.S. has been battling ISIS and its forerunners for over two decades; however, ISIS continues to endure and expand. While described as a death cult by some political leaders and other key stakeholders, this assertion received little consideration in the scholarly literature. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether ISIS satisfied the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult through the application of a historical qualitative research design and meta-analysis. Based on the results, the null hypothesis that ISIS does not satisfy the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult was rejected, and the hypothesis that ISIS satisfies the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult was accepted. This outcome has significant implications regarding U.S. policy and how practitioners develop effective strategies to neutralize the threat.