Morocco exports more than just drugs to Europe; it also exports terrorists. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Salah Abdeslam, and Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui have more in common than a criminal past. All are of Moroccan ethnicity. More than thirteen hundred Moroccans have joined ISIS, along with several hundred ethnic Moroccans from Western Europe, mainly from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. During a research trip to Morocco in the winter of 2017, I saw a country on high alert. And with good reason. The chief of Morocco’s counterterrorism service warned in April 2016 that his unit had broken up twenty-five ISIS plots in Morocco in the last year alone, one involving mustard gas. Morocco’s vital tourism industry, which draws thousands of Westerners to the country each year, is a primary target.

Presumably, the United States and its partners will prevail in their campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. But will the loss of the caliphate mean the end of ISIS-inspired or -directed terrorism? The answer is likely to be no. Already, the physical caliphate is being replaced by a digital one where virtual plotters recruit and plan in the security and anonymity of cyberspace. But the blood will flow in the real world, in the rail stations, airports, cafés, and theaters of the West. The global jihadist movement has proven itself uncannily adaptable. The West must adapt, too. And quickly. Otherwise, it will be left to ISIS and its inevitable offspring to determine the quality and security of our lives in “the new normal.”