Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad. Daniel Byman, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019. 

In 2014, stories of young, twenty-somethings leaving behind their comfortable lives in Western countries for the Islamic State (IS) dominated the news cycle. Using sophisticated and compelling recruiting techniques, the Islamic State convinced thousands of foreigners to travel to Syria and join the fight for the caliphate. Although the use foreign fighters might seem like a new phenomenon for terrorist groups, it can be traced back through the history of global jihad. Its modern-day beginnings are found with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. In his book, Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad, Daniel Byman explains the importance, history, and evolving roles of foreign fighters in political violence, while identifying opportunities for governments to break the recruitment cycles of these individuals.

Byman begins Road Warriors by highlighting the importance of studying foreign fighters for scholars of security and policy makers alike, noting the “large and growing” danger they pose to the West.[1] The author, a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, provides definitions of key terms, including foreign fighter and jihad’ He addresses the complexities in defining a foreign fighter and acknowledges that in Arabic the word jihad does not naturally have a violent or aggressive connotation.

“[Jihad]’s linguistic origin is tied to the word “striving,” typically in the path of God. Many Muslims embrace this idea as an individual’s struggle to act his or her best self in the face of our baser instincts: to care for loved ones, to be kind to strangers, and otherwise be good. This book however employs an alternative, more violent definition that an array of terrorist groups use: jihadist fights in the name of God.”[2]

The definitions are of benefit to the readers, because they allow the audience, regardless of background, to begin Road Warriors with the same baseline understanding of what will be discussed in the coming pages. The ensuing nine chapters work chronologically through the history of jihad, as we have come to understand the term. Byman begins with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and ends with the Islamic State. Each chapter is organized in a similar fashion, beginning with the radicalization story of a singular foreign fighter followed by history of the group he joined and information on the conflict itself. The next two chapters focus on trends found in foreign fighters from Europe and the United States, respectively. Finally, the book concludes with policy recommendations to halt foreign fighter flow.

In reference to Road Warrior’s scope, Byman’s book provides a wealth of information on foreign fighters. For those who have seen Black Crows, the Saudi Ramadan anti-ISIS television program, Road Warriors will be an especially intriguing read.[3] The overarching themes found in Road Warriors include the evolution of jihadi recruiting strategies, propaganda, training foreign fighters both in and out of country, the effects associated with the ease or difficulty with which foreign fighters travel to the conflict, and the cyclical nature of the foreign fighter problem. Byman discusses the foreign fighter phenomenon as it pertains to the West and the West’s relationship to the issue. As his audience is primarily American and European, the breadth and depth of the book is logical. However, the scope of Road Warriors could be improved with additional information on foreign fighters traveling from other parts of the globe.

The connections Byman draws between the different conflicts and players makes a daunting web of jihad significantly easier to understand,

As a resource for students and scholars of security studies, this book’s structure is superb. The information is presented in a clear, organized, and concise way. However, the work is not entirely academic. By beginning each chapter with individual foreign fighter stories, Byman explains how foreign conflicts appeared attractive to otherwise ordinary individuals, helping his readers understand why individuals like Omar Shafik Hammami or Mohammed Emzawi would leave behind a comfortable life for jihad. These anecdotes are especially helpful for those readers with no knowledge of the region, as Byman includes regional histories and summaries of Western attitudes. To further assist readers not familiar with the human terrain and geography of the region, the addition of a map could have been very beneficial. The connections Byman draws between the different conflicts and players makes a daunting web of jihad significantly easier to understand, without sacrificing details that an expert in the field would find intriguing.

The casual reader might find Road Warriors’ pace and organization dry reading. To truly digest all the information in Byman’s book, a strong background in either the Islamic world or terrorism/security is an asset. This is far more textbook in style than a fast-paced novel. This choice seems intentional considering the vast amount of information Byman squeezes into the book. He does, however, scatter a few witty and even sarcastic zingers throughout the book, a stimulating reprieve from an otherwise serious subject matter.

Road Warriors has clear policy implications for a problem that will not disappear anytime soon. The author’s foreign fighter production process—radicalize, decide to fight, travel to the foreign country, train and fight, return to home country, and plot against home country or recruit others—highlights reasons the dangers of foreign fighters extend past the four-phase radicalization framework used by the New York Police Department’s phases of radicalization: pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination, and jihadization.[4] Byman argues governments have opportunities to disrupt foreign fighter flows after an individual considers going to fight and before an attack is executed or the fighter radicalizes others.

The Islamic State was able to attract over 40,000 foreign fighters, many of whom recruited friends from their hometowns once they arrived in Syria. Although the conflict in Syria is deescalating, this book provides scholars and policy makers an excellent reference point and guide to manage future foreign fighter problems. Byman builds off of Hegghammer’s argument that foreign fighters pose serious threats if they return and decided to attack, because veteran fighters are more deadly and effective in achieving their ends.[5] New social media platforms and technological innovations only make recruiting easier and more efficient for future terrorist organizations. If there is one thing to be learned from Byman’s book, it is that jihadist foreign fighters will remain a serious consideration for tomorrow’s counter-terrorism challenge. As he observes, “For now, governments must assume the movement will endure, try to counter it, and limit the damage that can be done by foreign fighters and the terrorists they inspire.”[6]                     

Daniel Byman’s Road Warriors is a timely piece on the history and evolution of foreign fighters’ role in jihad. Readers will walk away from this book with a better understanding of the severity of the threat of foreign fighters, as well as how the rise of the Islamic State was possible to begin with. Foreign fighter flow to jihadi conflicts is evidence of the way the modern, globalized world fans conflict beyond its regional nucleus. This book will appeal to serious scholars for its analytical argument. But anyone looking for insights into the future of foreign fighter security threats that the western world will face need look no further than Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad.

Margaret Dene is a graduate student at Harvard University.  She graduated from William and Mary in 2018 and studied in Amman, Jordan as a 2018-2019 Boren Scholar.  She wrote this review while conducting research at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University.  This review reflects her own views and not those of the Department of Defense.

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Header Image: Fighters in Syria (AFP)

Notes:

[1] Daniel Byman, Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019, 8.

[2] Ibid, 7.

[3] Ben Hubbard, “Arab TV Series Dramatizes Life Under ISIS,” The New York Times, May 16, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/world/middleeast/isis-ramadan-tv-drama.html.

[4] Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Blatt, “Radicalization in the West: the Homegrown Threat,” New York Police Department, August 30, 2007, 19, at https://seths.blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf.

[5] Thomas Hegghammer, "Should I stay or should I go? Explaining variation in Western jihadists' choice between domestic and foreign fighting." American Political Science Review 107, no. 1 (2013): 11.

[6] Byman, Road Warriors, 268.