CISAC Consulting Professor Thomas Hegghammer writes in this Lawfare Foreign Policy Essay: Calculated Caliphate that the move by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to declare itself an Islamic State with a caliphate as its leader is a "bold and unprecedented" move.

Hegghammer, director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and a leading scholar of the jihadist movement, explores the motivations, both strategic and ideological, behind the recent ISIS revelations in Iraq.