TRADE, THE WoT AND GOLF:

These blows have significantly lowered the amount of capital ISIS has on hand -- the militants announced in January that fighters in Iraq and Syria would be suffering from a 50% pay cut across the board. 

"These issues suggest that as an entity that is determined to hold onto territory, the Islamic State is not sustainable," Jacob Shapiro, an expert on ISIS and a Princeton University politics professor, told WaPo. 

Indeed, the pay cuts and battlefield losses have led to higher instances of both "for-profit militants" in ISIS's ranks looking "for better deals" with other factions, as well as a decrease in the number of foreign fighters flowing into the group's ranks, Vera Mironova, an expert at Harvard University's Belfer Center, told WaPo. 

This decline in replenishing foreign fighters has cut the ability of ISIS to operate as effectively. ISIS is also further hampered by Turkey's decision to more tightly patrol its southern border, which has limited the ability for potential recruits to flow into Syria.

Ankara and the US are also in talks to train a Sunni Arab paramilitary force that would function on the Syrian side of the border in an effort to fully disrupt ISIS's ability to bring in supplies and fighters. 

Such setbacks are ripe for causing unrest amongst the various factions operating within the militant organization. ISIS already suffers from deep divisions between foreign and local fighters within its organization, and a series of continued losses is likely to only further increase tensions among the competing forces in the group. 

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