Assessing the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism

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Colin P. Clarke
@ColinPClarke
For violent extremist militia groups & 2A fanatics, any attempt to introduce gun control legislation will be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy, since so much of the internal messaging from these groups is that “Democrats want to take away your guns.”

warontherocks.com
Assessing the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism - War on the Rocks
The smoke and tear gas had barely dissipated from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when it became painfully obvious to anyone watching that the United
5:20 PM · Jun 2, 2022

https://warontherocks.com/2021/06/assessing-the-national-strategy-for-countering-domestic-terrorism/

The smoke and tear gas had barely dissipated from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when it became painfully obvious to anyone watching that the United States was ill-prepared to deal with the threat of domestic terrorism. For the past two decades, the United States has been narrowly focused on the threat posed by a specific type of terrorism — namely, Salafi-jihadist-inspired terrorism perpetrated by transnational terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. But even as the steady drumbeat of domestic terrorist attacks cascaded, driven primarily by violence perpetrated by far-right extremists, the U.S. government was caught flat-footed, unsure of how to respond.

To remedy this vulnerability, the Biden administration recently released its strategy to counter domestic terrorism, laying out a blueprint for how the U.S. government plans to respond to the growing threat. The strategy comprises four main pillars that each focus on a different aspect of the response. It contains language familiar to those working on counter-terrorism-related issues, including all the right buzzwords and boilerplate phrases: information sharing, building resilience, and preventing mobilization to violence.

The strategy is a welcome step in the right direction and comes at a critical time — the intelligence community has assessed the risk posed by domestic terrorism as “elevated” in 2021. Still, the details of the strategy illustrate both opportunities and challenges that the Biden administration will have to address in the years to come.

A Welcome Change

It must be noted that the strategy stands in stark contrast to the way in which the threat of domestic terrorism was addressed by the Trump administration, whose actions often served to inflame, and at times encourage, domestic extremists. On several occasions, President Donald Trump himself galvanized extremists and refrained from condemning acts of violence. Remarks following the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville and others encouraging the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” are just a few examples of Trump’s dog whistles. For four years, the holder of the highest political office in the United States subtly fanned the flames of organizations and ideologies that promote political violence and terrorism.

*snip*