Various armed groups with unpronounceable names have been fighting in the Middle East for decades. They have their successes and defeats, but their activities remain within the framework of local realities. But last year, something happened that many political scientists and analysts feared. The world of radical Islam has given birth to a phenomenon so powerful and terrifying that Western civilization has shuddered. The Islamic State organization (also known as ISIS) already controls vast territories in Syria and Iraq. Its units are fighting in Libya, Nigeria and Egypt. They promise to bring war to Central Asia and Afghanistan. They don’t even care about NATO. The best military minds of our time will tell the reader what the secret of ISIS’s victories is and how they threaten Russia. For the first time in Russian. Atlantico interview with Alexandre Del Valle, French geopolitician, professor of international relations at the University of Metz