West Africa has experienced an increasing number of national security challenges over the past two decades. Violent extremism, political instability, transnational organized crime, and maritime insecurity have created complex threats that undermine governance, economic development, and regional stability. According to the United Nations Africa Renewal, instability in the Sahel has become one of the most pressing security concerns on the African continent, with escalating violence and growing humanitarian consequences. Countries such as Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have faced persistent security crises that require coordinated responses at both national and regional levels; issues that the world should be paying attention to.

One of the most serious security challenges in the region is the rise of violent extremist organizations operating in the Sahel. Groups affiliated with global jihadist movements have expanded their activities across national borders, transforming local conflicts into regional security threats. The Boko Haram insurgency in northeastern Nigeria is a prominent example. Since its emergence in the early 2000s, Boko Haram has conducted numerous attacks targeting civilians, government institutions, and security forces. The conflict has resulted in thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions of people. The insurgency has destabilized large parts of the Lake Chad Basin and continues to pose a significant threat to regional stability.

The spread of extremist violence is not limited to Nigeria. Countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso have experienced rapid increases in militant attacks over the past decade. Armed groups have exploited weak state presence in rural areas, limited economic opportunities, and political grievances among marginalized communities. In many cases, extremist organizations present themselves as alternative authorities capable of providing protection and financial support to local populations. Militant organizations in the Sahel increasingly operate across national borders, making regional coordination essential for effective counterterrorism responses.

Political instability has further complicated the security environment in West Africa. In recent years, several countries in the region have experienced military coups, including Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Niger. These political disruptions often occur in contexts where governments struggle to address security threats and economic challenges. Military interventions in politics can weaken democratic institutions and create governance gaps that extremist groups may exploit. Governance failures and security crises have contributed significantly to the resurgence of military coups in parts of Africa.

Another important dimension of insecurity in West Africa involves organized transnational crime. Criminal networks operating across the region engage in activities such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and arms smuggling. West Africa has become a major transit hub for cocaine shipments traveling from Latin America to European markets. Weak border controls and limited law enforcement capacity make it difficult for governments to combat these illicit networks effectively. Organized criminal networks in the region frequently intersect with extremist groups, enabling the trafficking of weapons and illicit commodities across borders.

Maritime insecurity also represents a growing challenge for coastal states in West Africa. The Gulf of Guinea has become one of the most dangerous maritime regions in the world due to piracy and armed robbery at sea. Criminal groups often target oil tankers and commercial vessels, stealing valuable cargo, and disrupting international shipping routes. These activities have significant economic consequences for regional trade and energy production. The International Maritime Organization has identified the Gulf of Guinea as a major global hotspot for maritime piracy and maritime crime.

Several structural factors contribute to the persistence of security threats in West Africa. Elevated levels of poverty and youth unemployment create conditions that extremist groups and criminal networks can exploit for recruitment. Many young people lack access to education and stable employment opportunities, making them vulnerable to financial incentives offered by militant organizations. The United Nations Development Program highlights how socio-economic marginalization and limited state services contribute to instability in fragile regions.

Climate change has also intensified competition over natural resources in the Sahel region. Desertification and declining rainfall have reduced agricultural productivity, leading to conflicts between farming and pastoralist communities. These local disputes can escalate into broader security challenges when armed groups become involved. The World Bank has emphasized that environmental pressures and climate variability are increasingly linked to conflict dynamics in the Sahel.

Addressing national security threats in West Africa requires a comprehensive strategy that combines military responses with governance reforms and socio-economic development. Governments must strengthen democratic institutions and improve transparency to build public trust and reduce political instability. Effective governance is essential for preventing the conditions that allow extremist groups to expand their influence.

Regional cooperation is also critical for managing transnational threats. Organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States play a key role in coordinating peacekeeping missions and promoting political stability. Joint military operations and intelligence-sharing initiatives can improve the ability of governments to respond to cross-border insurgencies.

Economic development programs should be prioritized in regions most affected by insecurity. Investments in education, infrastructure, and job creation can help address the underlying socio-economic drivers of violence. Providing young people with economic opportunities reduces the likelihood that they will join extremist groups or criminal networks.

West Africa’s security challenges are complex and interconnected. However, through stronger governance, regional cooperation, and sustainable economic development, governments and regional organizations can significantly improve the prospects for long-term peace and stability in the region.

Huseini Kamara is a researcher with academic interests in national security, terrorism studies, and regional security dynamics in West Africa. His previous publication examined the role of artificial intelligence in ECG interpretation. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Rising Security Threats in West Africa and Regional Responses was originally published on Global Security Review.

AI has improved intelligence operations in developing nations, but it has also created a new intelligence gap due to disjointed technological implementation, political exploitation of surveillance, reliance on foreign suppliers, and insufficient integration between HUMINT and AI-driven systems. Pakistan and India have large human resources and developing technological ecosystems, but institutional fragmentation and political agendas prevent the development of integrated, modern intelligence frameworks.

The problems that South Asian intelligence services are having are part of a larger global transformation. AI is now a segment of intelligence operation in the US, China, Israel, and some European countries. This includes automated translation, pattern-of-life analysis, algorithmic triage of intercepted data, commercial satellite imagery analytics, and cyber-enabled anomaly detection. China’s surveillance state uses AI-powered facial recognition, behavior prediction, and nationwide data fusion to show what a fully integrated intelligence model looks like. The U.S. is pushing for automated signals intelligence (SIGINT) processing and predictive analysis in all its intelligence agencies in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). As shown in studies of its military AI systems, Israel uses AI in real-time targeting and ISR fusion.

Developing countries are just as vulnerable to cyber-attacks, terrorism, and false information, but they do not have the institutional frameworks that let AI grow. This global gap is what makes the changes in intelligence in Pakistan and India so important for strategy. Pakistan and India have both spent resources on AI-enabled surveillance systems like ID databases, CCTV networks, predictive policing tools, interception systems, and cyber technologies that come from other countries. The NADRA database and Safe City projects in Pakistan give a lot of biometric and real-time data. India has made the Central Monitoring System (CMS) and the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) to connect databases between state agencies. The ministry, military, police, and intelligence systems are separate. Legacy bureaucracies promote compartmentalization over integration. AI needs centralized databases, clean data, agency cooperation, and agreed analysis criteria. These requirements are missing; hence, AI systems exhibit limited and inconsistent intelligence. Agencies are collecting more data than ever but lack the framework to analyze it.

Pakistan and India still value HUMINT for intelligence. It is crucial for counterterrorism, political spying, and regional operations. HUMINT alone can’t compete with hybrid enemies who use AI-driven processing. Strategically, China’s integrated military and civilian AI ecosystem is advantageous. Developing states are stuck between two sources of intelligence: First is a legacy HUMINT system with deep networks and second is an AI ecosystem that is fragmented and not fully developed, so it cannot support strategic analysis. In cross-border threat assessments, cyber invasions, and emerging non-traditional security issues like information warfare, this mismatch causes delays, blind spots, and analytical distortions.

In both Pakistan and India, AI-enabled surveillance has been used more for political purposes than for improving strategic intelligence. Amnesty International reported that India’s use of Pegasus spyware targeted journalists, activists, and political opponents. Pakistan has been criticized for using automated social media monitoring and political profiling, which often focuses on threats from within the country rather than threats from other countries. When surveillance tools are used to control political competition within a party, two things happen. First, institutional resources prioritize domestic control over strategic analysis. Second, technology investments strengthen policing instead of updating intelligence. This challenges national security by making it harder for the intelligence system to predict cyberattacks, regional crises, and threats from outside the country.

South Asia has a lot of foreign AI and cyber infrastructure. Pakistan employs Chinese surveillance equipment (Hikvision, Huawei), while India uses Israeli, US, and European and American forensics platforms. This increases structural risks, including data exfiltration and espionage due to entrenched vulnerabilities, strategic reliance on foreign updates, and weakened sovereignty over vital intelligence activities.

Two traditional rivals, nuclear-weapon states, are weakened by this reliance. AI-powered surveillance systems increase digital access points for assault. Big national data repositories attract attackers. Pakistan has had multiple government system hacks, and India has had large breaches that compromised critical infrastructure and government information.  Failures in the past were largely caused by human error, but in the AI era, bias in algorithms, data manipulation, hostile and automated cyberattacks, and misclassification can lead to erroneous operational decisions. These dangers make the strategy unstable.

Increasing intelligence gaps between Pakistan and India jeopardize national and regional security. More likely to misjudge opponents: In fast-moving crises, agencies may miss signals, misjudge threats, or misread trends without AI–HUMINT fusion. Cross-border escalation risks rise; poor intelligence integration in nuclearized environments may aggravate misperceptions during crises like the 2019 Pulwama–Balakot incident or the May 2025 standoff. Cyber attacks expose national secrets. Easy-to-get digital network intelligence can have fatal repercussions. China-asymmetric strategic competition: China is decades ahead in intelligence upgrading, and Pakistan and India may fall further. Domestic AI reduces institutional capacity: political survival trumps strategic intelligence.

In summary, countries that do not update their intelligence risk being caught off guard, making mistakes, and becoming more vulnerable. The myths of shadows, secrecy, and huge people networks that fueled emerging country intelligence organizations are gone. AI has highlighted bureaucratic opacity’s long-hidden structural flaws: dysfunctional systems, politicized surveillance, reliance on foreign technology, and a lack of HUMINT-AI integration. Thus, Pakistan and India’s new intelligence divide is not about data or resources. It is about institutions’ failure to transition from analogue intelligence to AI-connected ecosystems. State and non-state adversaries that accelerate this transformation will benefit.

In nuclearized, crisis-prone South Asia, small misunderstandings could lead to massive wars. Pakistan and India need more than AI tools to stay competitive strategically. They need data architectures that work together, technical specialists, protocols to prevent politicians from abusing their authority, and strategic AI–HUMINT fusion.

Dr. Tahir Mahmood Azad is currently a research scholar at the Department of Politics & International Relations, the University of Reading, UK.  Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

The Intelligence Illusion: How AI is Exposing Strategic Vulnerabilities in the Developing World was originally published on Global Security Review.

Great care was taken to secure the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons following the collapse of the state for this very purpose. The Obama administration later held four nuclear security summits to inspire international cooperation for increasing physical security at nuclear facilities. Today, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Material Management and Minimization leads the effort to convert the fuel in various international civilian reactors from weapons-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU) to less risky low enriched uranium (LEU).

Despite these successes, it remains difficult to definitively discern whether specific action prevented and deterred nuclear terrorism or if other factors are at play for why such an event never materialized. It is a fact that no terrorist group has yet successfully pursued a strategy to develop a nuclear device. Yet, it may very well be the case that no group has ever legitimately tried. Terrorism as a strategy of targeted political violence may be largely incompatible with the consequences of acquiring and detonating an improvised nuclear device.

In 2004, US President George W. Bush received unanimous support from the UN for a resolution calling on countries to enact stronger controls to block terrorists from acquiring biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Since then, American policy turned away from the global war on terror and back to the strategic competition found in the Cold War. The fourth International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS) held in May 2024 was the first of its kind to conclude without a ministerial declaration. Yet, the risk of nuclear terrorism has arguably not grown despite a shift in national security priorities.

In a 2019 piece written for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, authors Christopher McIntosh and Ian Storey argue that there are four main options for a terrorist group that acquires a nuclear weapon: blackmail, opacity, latency, and dormancy. These options fall on a spectrum from overt threats of nuclear use to keeping the existence of a nuclear device a secret until its detonation. In all of these strategies, however, deterring a nuclear attack is possible as the outcome for use is the same: guaranteed massive retaliation from state governments.

As outlined by Keith Payne in a National Institute of Public Policy report, some scholars incorrectly assume that terrorist groups are undeterrable because they are irrational and possess no territory to hold at risk for assured retaliation. Terrorism is a fundamentally local endeavor and maintaining the support from the surrounding populations is key to preserving the cause. A deterrence by punishment scenario therefore also involves inciting local communities to turn on the terrorists they harbor.

Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” The key word is “premeditated” and supports the argument that groups employing terrorism are indeed rational actors, with their decisions about organizational structure, monitoring of funds, and selection of recruits providing evidence to support this statement. As with any rational actor, deterrence is possible.

A deterrence-by-denial strategy, although more difficult, is also legitimate. Ensuring states make it as difficult as possible for groups to acquire material aims to deter groups from even trying. Convincing states to do this may then require assured retaliation from other states. Perhaps there is a reason why former Secretary of Defense William Perry’s fears of North Korea selling plutonium to the highest bidder never materialized. For a regime already well-familiar with the international community’s condemnation of its nuclear program, giving others another reason to take out its nuclear facilities by selling material to a group would be strategically unwise.

However, for a nuclear peer of the United States, such as Russia, holding it responsible for lax security is more difficult. In 2011, a Moldovan lawyer was caught attempting to sell HEU on the black market. Forensic analysis confirmed the material very likely originated from Russia. This is not the first time weapon-usable nuclear material has gone missing from Russia. Still, Russia, like any other state, is motivated to prevent nuclear terrorism within its borders; the likeliest place for such an attack to happen is near the facility where material goes missing.

In physicist Michael Levi’s opinion, deterrence credibility is better served with certain attribution following an attack. Going further than assessing a relationship between a state program and a terrorist group, nuclear forensics attempts to identify exactly which country interdicted material originated. At best, a state would be forced to admit poor security practices that led to the theft of material. If used in a terror device, this excuse may not hold up to international scrutiny with any community affected still demanding its pound of flesh.

Neither a strategy of deterrence by punishment or by denial requires the level of explicit policy that was seen in the early 2000s. While not unhelpful, it is rather the continued existence of nuclear-armed states with massive conventional superiority over terror groups that may be the most successful tool in combating the risk of nuclear terrorism. Deterrence against nuclear terrorism, for now, is holding.

Alexis Schlotterback is a Senior Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed are the author’s own. 

Deterring Nuclear Terrorism in the Era of Great Power Competition was originally published on Global Security Review.

By mid-June 2025, after years of preparation, the Israelis, in one fell swoop, destroyed half of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, destroyed some nuclear facilities, and assassinated Iran’s leading nuclear scientists and the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Then on June 23, 2025, a pre-dawn bombing raid ordered by US President Donald Trump took out of commission the hard-to-crack nuclear facilities of Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.

Beyond adding to Israel’s capabilities with American B2 bombers loaded with GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrators, bunkers busters, the bombing cemented American leadership in dealing with the Iran problem. A review of joint Israel-US capabilities helps explain how deterrence in the region is returning and what to expect next.

Since the October 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis by Hamas, an Iranian proxy, Israeli intelligence and military units, all backed by superior defense technology, methodically destroyed Iranian capabilities and supporters. Iran’s “Ring of Fire” utterly failed to achieve Iran’s strategic aims.

Israeli and American space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance enabled early warning, target verification, and battle damage assessment. Israel relied on a precision-strike doctrine that is supported by systems like the Ofek, AMOS, and Eros-B space assets. Israel maintained surveillance for dominance above Iranian military and nuclear infrastructures. Iran merely linked its space program to the IRGC.

With multi-layer sensor fusion, Israel integrates Eitan unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), ELW-2090 airborne warning and control systems, and ground-based radars like the EL/M-2080 Green Pine with satellite data into a national and regional situational awareness (SA) web, shaping strikes and missile defense prioritization. Space-derived situational awareness enables real-time assessment of missile launches, UAV swarm attacks, or asymmetric maritime threats by Iran and proxies operating from the Red Sea or Persian Gulf.

Cyber intelligence, signal intelligence (SIGINT), and electronic warfare form another layer. In the conflict, Israel command, control, communications, and computer (C4) systems pit Unit 8200 against IRGC affiliated cyber units.

Israel’s missile shield includes Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow-2/Arrow-3. They combine to create a web of coverage. Arrow’s high-altitude, long-range interceptors tackle Iranian ballistic missiles such as Fattah, Shahab, and Sejil. Iron Beam laser defense, under development, aims to address low-cost, high-volume threats like UAVs and small rockets.

Israeli capabilities for missile defense, early warning, C4, and interoperability are integrated with US Central Command and the systems of the Gulf States. The US supports Arrow and David’s Sling. Aegis ballistic missile defense and terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) systems in the region share radar feeds. American space-based infra-red system satellites provide missile-launch detection.

Bahrain hosts the US Navy and supports regional C4ISR, and has growing maritime security ties with Israel. The US expanded its Saudi Arabian basing in Tabuk to feed into the regional missile defense picture. The United Arab Emirates enables THAAD, Patriot (PAC-3), radar integration, and air picture sharing with the US and Israel. Jordan, the United Kingdom, and France also contribute to defensive actions during missile and drone attacks.

Iranian targets and their proxies have nowhere to hide. The US Space Force’s Space Operations Command Mission Delta 4 identifies and tracks threats. It did so during the April 2024 and October 2024 Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel. Operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to share intelligence, Mission Delta 4 ensures no missile launch ever catches America or her allies and partners by surprise.

A space-enabled Israel, integrated with Gulf State operations, eliminated Iranian air defenses, triggered covert operations inside Iran, and launched targeted bombings and assassinations. The American bombing topped these other efforts. Israel, as the military strong horse, irreversibly altered the regional balance of power, possibly ushering in the demise of a threatening Iranian Shia hegemony—an objective shared by Sunni Arab Gulf States.

Regime change was never a stated war aim but was an anticipated consequence if it occurred. It did not. The surviving Shia Islamist leadership and IRGC are now engaged in repression and remain capable of inflicting much suffering on both the region and Iranians.

It is unclear to which extent proxies such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Shia militias can still attack Israel and American assets in the region. Military outcomes, though, are not the sole factors defining the Iranian endgame. The Iranian taqiyya-driven regime and its Shia hegemony ideology are down, but not out. Their nefarious ideological influence can persist around the Gulf, as far as Yemen and Africa, and beyond.

Considering the cost of inaction and a failure to reinstate deterrence, eradicating a threat to the homeland, Middle East bases, and Gulf allies means the effort was worth it. If the conflict drags on, the costs will rise. Disruption of maritime traffic and oil markets could bring its predictable cohort of economic disruptions. Terrorism around the globe is déjà vu.

In the words of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, “Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us.” Depending on the roles the new Syrian leadership and a resurgent Türkiye play, the Iranian endgame may take different forms.

Yes, President Trump decisively played the hand he was dealt. But there are many more moves left in this game. The best moves may be still to come.

Christophe Bosquillon is a senior fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. He has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Deterring Iran: The Art of No Deal was originally published on Global Security Review.

One thing is clear: Pakistan’s nuclear capability is solely focused on India. Claims to the contrary misrepresent Pakistan’s doctrinal posture while creating unfounded geostrategic fears.

Unlike North Korea or Russia, Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine is India-focused and regionally confined. Even when it became a nuclear power, it was not the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in South Asia. Pakistan’s missile inventory includes the Shaheen, Ghauri, Ababeel, and other series of missiles. They are all short- or medium-range missile systems to counter Indian nuclear capabilities. Even Pakistan’s multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV)–capable medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), the Ababeel, has a range of 2,200 km and is a response to India’s ballistic missile defense system.

Moreover, Pakistan’s Shaheen III land-based MRBM has a range of 2,750 to cover Indian far-off strategic bases in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. These missile ranges are not even close to the ICBM threshold of at least 5,500 km.

Unlike nuclear weapon states that have ICBMs, Pakistan does not possess the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability, terrestrial or space-based, needed to accurately launch nuclear weapons half-way across the planet. India, not Pakistan, is working on not just ICBMs, but also the global ISR infrastructure to effectively employ such weapons. India has not only tested the Agni-V, which has a range of 8,000+ km but is also developing the Agni-VI with a 12,000 km range. The K-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), with intercontinental strike capability, is also in development.

It is alarming to note that the deployment of K-5 SLBMs on expansive ocean patrols can enable India to target Europe, Russia, Israel, and American Pacific territories. Such Indian military and nuclear buildup are not consistent with India’s policy of credible minimum deterrence (CMD).

Currently, India is accelerating the deployment of 52 military satellites for ISR. These satellites will support ICBM employment and anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons capabilities.

Indian naval nuclear projection also indicates that it will develop military bases abroad in accord with its ambitions to be a blue-water navy. India is developing overseas military facilities across the Indian Ocean region, including in the Seychelles, Tajikistan, Oman, the Maldives, and Mauritius. India also has signed logistic support agreements (LSAs) with states for mutual logistic support at ports and bases. These agreements also include ISR agreements with Australia, France, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the US, and Vietnam.

Pakistan’s strategic culture and historic interests reflect a deep concern with losing a conflict against India. This is because Pakistan does not have the geography that allows for a defense in depth against an attacking Indian Army. Thus, both conventional and nuclear forces are designed to deter and defeat that specific threat.

Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine is defined by the logic of CMD. Its full-spectrum deterrence (FSD) posture also falls under CMD at all levels of threat, including tactical, operational, and strategic. The development of an ICBM is inconsistent with every aspect of Pakistani military thinking and action.

Pakistan already fields the capabilities needed to strike any target in India. Pakistan has no ambitions regarding global power projection. From a Pakistani perspective, building nuclear weapons for the sake of coercing or striking the United States only makes the relationship with the United States worse and invites American intervention in Pakistan.

When Vipin Narang and Pranay Vaddi, Indian Americans, published an article in Foreign Affairs in which they suggested Pakistan is building an ICBM whose target is the United States, they engaged in blatant information warfare. Their assertion is unfounded.

India’s shift from deterrence-by-denial to a more aggressive nuclear posture, including deterrence by compellence and punishment, certainly has Pakistan concerned. This change is tolerated by the United States because India is seen as a counterweight to China in Asia.

It is important for Americans to learn a critical lesson from the 2020 China-India crisis; India is unlikely to fight with the US against China if a war comes. China is the second-largest trade partner of India after the US with total trade reaching $127.7 billion in 2024–2025. There is ample reason for India to do what it has always done, play both sides.

Admittedly, Pakistan has a problem with terrorism and a difficult time effectively controlling terrorists operating from the Afghan border region, which grew worse when Pakistan partnered with the US to fight the War on Terror. Pakistan is now the second most negatively affected country when it comes to terrorism.

Over recent years, Islamabad alone lost 80,000 civilian and security personnel to the menace of terrorism. India has also been involved in terror activities in Pakistan, irrefutable evidence of Indian involvement was provided to UN Secretary-General.

Keep in mind, the vast majority of Pakistanis want to live in a country that looks like the United States, not one that looks like Afghanistan or China—when it comes to democracy, economic prosperity, freedom, and stability. Pakistanis want increased economic trade and development with the United States, not nuclear war.

As India expands its capabilities, Pakistan is likely to follow India’s lead. This is, however, done for the purpose of ensuring India cannot launch a disarming strike against Pakistan. Platforms like SSBNs may be necessary as Pakistan is compelled to diversify, not globalize, its range of nuclear weapons.

If the US is sincere in its desire to create stability in South Asia, encouraging India to cease building nuclear weapons that are a direct threat to Pakistan would be helpful. The US can also invest in arms control dialogue and crisis communication in South Asia. President Trump played a key role in ending the most recent conflict. He also ended the Twelve Day War between Iran and Israel. Given his concern for preventing war, President Trump can play a critical role in South Asia.

Pakistan has partnered with the United States since its independence from India. It was a partner during the Cold War when India was not and worked closely with the United States for two decades during the conflict in Afghanistan. Admittedly, Pakistan faces some internal challenges, but educated Pakistanis want nothing more than a good relationship with the United States.

Anum A. Khan is an Associate Director at the Centre for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad, a Youth Leader Fund (YLF) Mentor with the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), and Project Associate of The Third Nuclear Age Project.

Pakistan Is Not Building an ICBM to Attack America was originally published on Global Security Review.

Since January 20, Trump administration officials have announced an end to US participation in NATO military exercises; floated plans to relinquish NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander post (held by an American since NATO’s founding); proposed withdrawing 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe; threatened the sovereignty of NATO ally Canada; raised the prospect of using force to seize Greenland (a territory of NATO ally Denmark); derided “freeloading” Europeans; said of Vladimir Putin that America “should take him at his word”; torpedoed NATO’s unanimous declaration to “never recognize Russia’s illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea”; and suggested America’s NATO allies would not “come and protect us” in a time of crisis. This follows Trump’s 2024 invitation to Putin’s henchmen to “do whatever the hell they want” to allies failing to meet NATO’s defense-spending requirements; 2018 threat to withdraw from NATO; and a 2016 declaration that he would defend NATO members under attack only if they had “fulfilled their obligations to us.” Add it all up, and Trump’s view of NATO diverges dramatically from that of what was once known as the “Grand Old Party.”

For instance, as he took the reins as NATO’s first military commander, General Dwight Eisenhower—a future Republican president—called NATO “the last remaining chance for the survival of Western civilization.” President Richard Nixon viewed NATO as “a moral force.” President Gerald Ford believed NATO “protected the free world from the threat of aggression.”

President George H. W. Bush called NATO “an insurance policy.” Indeed, for America, NATO insures against the worst scenario: another European conflict triggering another global war. For the rest of NATO, the alliance is a security guarantee backed by the United States. Without that guarantee, there is no security in Europe, as history has a way of reminding those on the outside looking in, from Cold War Hungary to post–Cold War Ukraine.

President George W. Bush called NATO “the essential foundation of transatlantic security.” This essay did not forget President Ronald Reagan. However, many of those who claim Reagan’s mantle forget that he was an unwavering NATO advocate—during and after the Cold War. Rather than dismissing NATO as “obsolete,” Reagan called NATO “the core of America’s foreign policy and of America’s own security.” Rather than alarming NATO allies, Reagan reassured them by echoing the words of the North Atlantic Treaty: “If you are threatened, we’re threatened…. An attack on you is an attack on us.”

Rather than distorting NATO into a transactional protection racket, Reagan championed NATO as a “community of democratic states” and “a bond which has served us so well.”

Reagan never questioned NATO’s relevance, never browbeat NATO laggards, never threatened withdrawing from NATO, and never raised doubts about America’s commitment to NATO. Instead, Reagan championed NATO as “an antidote to chaos,” “a living commitment of the nations of the West to the defense of democracy and individual liberty.”

Importantly, Reagan did not think NATO’s mission was over when the Berlin Wall fell. In fact, he endorsed NATO’s continued growth. “Room must be made in NATO for the democracies of Central and Eastern Europe,” he declared after the Cold War thawed. And even after Moscow began walking the path of reform, Reagan cautioned, “We cannot afford to forget that we are dealing with a political system, a political culture and a political history going back many decades, even centuries…. We must stick with the strategy of strength.” In short, Reagan shrewdly saw NATO as a hedge against a Russia that might revert to revanchism—which is exactly what has happened.

Putin’s Russia violated nuclear treaties, conventional-weapons treaties, and its own pledge to “respect the independence…sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine”; warned NATO member Poland that its western territories were “a gift from Stalin”; dismembered NATO aspirants Georgia and Ukraine; countenanced and/or conducted cyberattacks against American energy infrastructure; interfered in elections throughout NATO’s membership roster; conducted sabotage operations across NATO’s footprint (including American targets); threatened use of nuclear weapons; aided and funded attacks against American forces; provided targeting data to support Houthi attacks against allied ships; and made “massive investments in its defense sector” (according to Trump’s own intelligence officials). In light of all of that—and the Kremlin’s long history of deceit—Reagan would never “take Putin at his word.”

GOP presidents, and their democrat counterparts, supported NATO because they recognized that NATO serves America’s interests. For 40 years, NATO helped deter Moscow and prevent the Cold War from turning hot. But that is just a fraction of how NATO has served America’s interests.

Thirteen current NATO allies deployed troops to assist America in defending South Korea. NATO militaries, infrastructure, and decades of interoperability served as the nucleus for the coalition that ejected Iraq from Kuwait, with NATO allies deploying thousands of troops to assist America.

The only time NATO’s all-for-one collective-defense clause was invoked was after September 11, 2001, when NATO allies rushed aircraft and personnel to this side of the Atlantic to guard America’s skies. NATO then bled with America in the Sisyphean campaign that followed, with 455 Brits, 158 Canadians, 86 French, 54 Germans, 48 Italians, 43 Danes, and 40 Poles dying in Afghanistan. When America withdrew from Afghanistan—20 years after the attacks on America’s capital, America’s military headquarters, America’s largest city—74 percent of the foreign troops deployed in the country that spawned 9/11 were not Americans. The vast majority were NATO allies. Trump is apparently unaware of this history.

In Operation Iraqi Freedom, 16 NATO allies sent troops when America asked for help. Hundreds of NATO troops—Brits, Italians, Poles, Bulgarians, Latvians, Danes, Dutch, Romanians, Hungarians, Czechs—died in Iraq, as did 18 soldiers from Ukraine, a country that is not a NATO ally but certainly acts like one.

In the post Iraqi freedom years, seven NATO members conducted airstrikes against the ISIS caliphate. Again, NATO was there.

Far from “freeloading,” NATO allies Britain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain are supporting operations in the Red Sea. Likewise, British, French, Italian, Spanish, and Canadian assets are promoting freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific.

European nations sent more aid to Ukraine than the US. Britain and France are organizing a peacekeeping force for postwar Ukraine.

NATO has eight battlegroups defending its most at-risk members along the eastern flank. Only one is American-led.

Britain leads the battlegroup in Estonia, supported by Denmark, France, and Iceland. Britain is committing resources to defend NATO’s northern flank. And the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales just commenced a globe-spanning mission—the largest deployment of British naval airpower in a quarter-century.

Germany leads the battlegroup in Lithuania, backed by Belgium, Czechia, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway. Germany is building permanent bases in Lithuania for 4,800 German troops. Germany is spearheading a continentwide missile shield. And Germany’s parliament recently approved a massive defense-infrastructure fund.

Canada leads the battlegroup in Latvia, supported by 10 other NATO allies. France leads NATO’s battlegroup in Romania. Pouring almost 5 percent of GDP into defense, Poland fields NATO’s third-largest military. Sweden is quadrupling production of anti-tank weapons.

What NATO is doing and deterring underscores something General James Mattis observed almost a decade ago, “If we did not have NATO today, we would need to create it.”

This begs the questions: what if we did not have NATO? What if these first hundred days mark the last days of history’s greatest alliance for peace?

NATO is designed not to wage war, but to deter war. If there is any doubt about NATO’s collective-defense guarantee—and these first hundred days have created enormous doubts—Putin could be tempted to do in the Baltics what he has done in Ukraine. That would force NATO to blink or fire back. And that would lead to terrible outcomes. The former means the collapse of NATO—and with it, the entire US-led alliance system. The latter means great power war.

The best way to prevent such dire outcomes is through deterrent military strength, clarity of intent, and certainty of cause and effect. Trump’s words and actions have undermined all of these.

What the transactional Trump administration fails to recognize is that by undermining NATO, it is undermining America’s security. If a cyberattack or EMP blast or bioweapon paralyzes America; if ISIS or al Qaeda or some other terror group unleashes something worse than 9/11 or 10/7; if Moscow blinds America’s constellation of satellites; if Beijing moves against Taiwan; or if Pyongyang restarts the long-paused Korean War, America will call for help.

A post-NATO Europe may be unable or unwilling to answer.

Alan Dowd leads the Sagamore Institute Center for America’s Purpose.

FYI to the GOP on NATO was originally published on Global Security Review.

ICBM EAR Report for 22 Feb 2025 was originally published on Global Security Review.

President Trump’s foreign policy will primarily focus outside South Asia and engage countries with a lens toward their relationship with China. Drawing on his known foreign policy orientation, Trump 2.0 is poised to keep India on a high strategic pedestal in the broader framework of Indo-Pacific strategy.

Pakistan is unlikely to play a major foreign policy role for the Trump administration. Thus, it is pertinent for the Pakistani diplomatic community to find areas of convergence with the Trump administration. Policy options must be exercised in a way to constructively approach strategic divergencies between the two states.

America’s engagement with the Global South is likely going to decline as an “America First” approach calls for reducing international engagement towards all but a handful of countries. Critics may characterize President Trump’s foreign policy approach as short term and transactional, but this sells the president short. A policy of “minilateralism” is not shortsighted but may allow him to focus on more pressing domestic issues in the United States. This redirection of focus is, however, bad news for global agendas like climate change and multilateral cooperation.

There is a broader consensus in the Trump team, based on a strategic imperative to counter China in the Asia-Pacific, that leaves less room for lower priorities. Thus, the trade and tariff wars between China and the US may have second-order effects for countries like Pakistan.

President Trump’s advisers are likely to approach China as an adversary and will view Pakistan with some caution, perceiving it as an ally of Beijing. The Trump administration may seek to intensify the competition with China and up the ante for countries who are onboard with Chinese infrastructure and development projects, such as Pakistan, which could be a potential victim of a new Great Game.

An era of conditional trade agreements between Pakistan and the United States appears imminent and is characterized by a departure from preferential trade practices. Instead, the US is likely to prioritize market-driven agreements, emphasizing economic pragmatism over diplomatic goodwill. To enhance bilateral trade relations, Pakistan could strategically leverage its geopolitical significance and pursue a proactive approach to addressing American concerns, without compromising its national strategic interests.

This would necessitate credible efforts to combat terrorism and contribute to stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan. Such measures could foster greater mutual confidence and pave the way for more constructive economic engagement between the two nations.

American attempts to make India its strategic surrogate in the Asia-Pacific will embolden Indian hegemonic ambitions. Intense security collaboration between the US and India at bilateral and multilateral defense groups like the Quad could disrupt the regional strategic stability calculus in South Asia.

Pakistan’s economic woes may not allow it to sustain the brunt of a growing Indian strategic modernization in the long run. This will impact strategic stability in the region.
Retrospective analysis of the first Trump administration suggests that American cooperation with Pakistan, in the realms of climate change and clean energy, will be relegated as more pressing geostrategic issues take precedence. Moreover, the dwindling economy of Pakistan may find the Trump administration far less sympathetic as far as economic aid and loan packages are concerned. The first Trump administration was less sensitive to Pakistan’s core interest, like Kashmir, and more demanding of Pakistan in its Afghanistan conundrum.
The US State Department under Trump will likely pursue a limited set of priorities, especially in the security and counterterrorism realms. US-Pakistan relations are traditionally marked by events in Afghanistan. This was true from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the war on terror. With the reduction of American engagement in Afghanistan, Pakistan finds itself entangled in an increasingly intricate security matrix amid deteriorating relations with the Taliban and increasing terrorism in Pakistan.

Shifting the onus onto Pakistan for an American policy debacle was a convenient strategy of the Biden administration. Pakistan may find the new administration more aggressive in its demands for stabilizing Afghanistan. The “do more” mantra will not go over well with Pakistan anymore and will require a more practical approach on the part of the US.
On the flip side, President Trump’s personality-centered diplomatic overtures, rather than institutionalized mechanisms, are not good for Pakistan. President Trump engaged with Imran Khan constructively, but he is no longer in office. Criticism could come from Trump’s team regarding the crackdown on Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) movement. State Department and Pentagon engagement with Pakistan’s diplomatic corps and security establishment will depend on the whims of Trump rather than an ongoing policy framework. The absence of mutual interests between the US and Pakistan remains a hurdle.

These are interesting times for the diplomats of Pakistan. On the one hand, they will try to resist President Trump’s pressure-based strategy toward Pakistan. On the other hand, they will try to convince State Department officials to pursue more practical approaches to the US-Pakistan relationship. How hard this proves is yet to be determined.
Either way, Pakistan will face a more conditional and transactional relationship with the US. It will hinge on security concerns rather than economic issues. Being close to China diplomatically and strategically opens a unique window of opportunity for Pakistan. It can play the role of a bridge between China and the US, as it has done historically, should the Trump administration seek it out.

Muhammad Haseeb Riaz is a Research Assistant at Center for International Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

The Future of US-Pakistan Relations was originally published on Global Security Review.

Based on the latest EAR Report, these are the critical points on global security, upcoming events, and the ongoing discourse on nuclear deterrence, modernization, and geopolitical strategy for 2025.

Quotes of the Week

• Xi Jinping (China): “No one can stop the historical trend” of China’s “reunification” with Taiwan.”
• U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg (South Korea): Reaffirmed the U.S.-South Korean alliance amidst geopolitical tensions.
• DPRK Kim Jong Un: Committed to implementing the “toughest” anti-American policy while criticizing the U.S.-South Korea-Japan security partnership.
• Antony Blinken (U.S. Secretary of State): Highlighted Russia’s intentions to share advanced space technology with North Korea.
• NATO Official: Warned of unconventional Russian attacks causing substantial casualties.

Upcoming 2025 Seminar Events

1. January 10, 2025, 10:00 AM: Robert Soofer & Mark Massa on “The Case for Homeland Missile Defense.”
2. January 31, 2025, 10:00 AM: Shoshana Bryen & Ilan Berman on “Middle East Update and the Iranian Nuclear Threat.”
3. February 14, 2025, 10:00 AM: Stephen Blank & Mark Schneider on “Russian Intentions with Its Growing Nuclear Forces.”
4. February 28, 2025, 10:00 AM: Hon. Madelyn Creedon & Hon. Frank Miller on “Assessment and Update of the Posture Commission.”
5. March 14, 2025, 10:00 AM: Gordon Chang & Rick Fisher on “The Chinese Nuclear Threat & Implications for US Security.”

Nuclear Derangement Syndrome

• Criticism of nuclear deterrence is gaining momentum, focusing on framing nuclear weapons as both unnecessary and dangerous.
• The Union of Concerned Scientists highlights essays opposing nuclear modernization, which are countered with arguments emphasizing deterrence as essential for stability.
• The critique overlooks the strategic necessity of nuclear weapons in preventing large-scale conflicts and ensuring global security.

The Biden-Trump Arms Race

• Criticism: The Biden and Trump administrations’ claims of an arms race are exaggerated. They focus on necessary modernization within New START limits.
• Reality: Modernization efforts (Columbia submarines, Sentinel ICBMs, B21 bombers) align with treaty commitments, aiming for readiness by 2042.
• Key Concern: Rising nuclear capabilities of Russia and China surpass New START limits, demanding U.S. responses to maintain strategic balance.
• Counterarguments: Opponents argue modernization fuels an arms race, while proponents emphasize deterrence and technological edge against adversaries.

Download the full report.

ICBM EAR Report Jan, 3 2025 was originally published on Global Security Review.

Instability and American Aid

Pakistan is not a stable country. There are concerns that the state may disintegrate. Its military and ISI are infiltrated by individuals linked to terrorist groups. Without focused American engagement, Pakistan’s instability could lead to either the theft of a nuclear weapon by terrorists or the sabotage of a nuclear facility. Moreover, a long-running territorial dispute over Kashmir and cross-border terrorism could easily escalate into a conflict or nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan gets a free ride. Between 1948 and 2016, it received over $78.3 billion in US military and economic support. In return, it is duplicitous. Over half of this aid was allocated to counterterrorism efforts, yet Pakistan’s military and the ISI continue supporting the Taliban and other extremists. The US annually provides Pakistan $2 billion in military and economic aid without proper oversight. Of this amount, $100 million is allocated to the Strategic Plans Division to help Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal. Despite this assistance, Pakistan provides safe haven to dozens of terrorist organizations and their leadership. Its military’s continued support for them increases the risk of a catastrophic nuclear attack by a proxy.

The Case for a Joint US-Pakistan Task Force

A joint US-Pakistan task force is necessary to enforce oversight, strengthen strategic ties, and provide a direct US role in securing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. A formal framework will mitigate the risks of mismanagement or unauthorized access and maintain control over critical aspects of nuclear security. It will enhance collaboration between military and intelligence agencies, enabling both sides to identify and respond to emerging threats while leveraging their combined expertise in human intelligence and counterterrorism.

A joint task force will also enhance nuclear security through specialized training. American experts in nuclear security and cyber defense can provide essential training to Pakistani forces, strengthening their operational readiness and capability to protect nuclear sites. Both nations conduct regular nuclear security drills—often referred to as “Armageddon tests” to assess vulnerabilities at nuclear sites. These drills help identify personnel weaknesses and prevent potential security breaches.

Deterrence, Sovereignty, and Regional Tensions

The presence of US military personnel in Pakistan will also serve as a powerful deterrent to terrorist organizations. US support in securing nuclear facilities reduces the probability of terrorist attempts to infiltrate and breach nuclear facilities or execute large-scale attacks. This cooperation also signals the seriousness of nuclear security in the region to potential adversaries.

Establishing an American military presence in Pakistan could be perceived as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. However, US involvement would be limited to advisory, intelligence, and technical support roles. This role would enable Pakistan to retain full control over its nuclear assets and security operations.

A US military presence in Pakistan could also escalate regional tensions—particularly with India. The two states have irreconcilable differences when it comes to Kashmir, and both sides believe they should control all of Kashmir, not just one part of it. An attack on civilians or military forces on either side of the line of control in Kashmir could easily escalate into a major conflict. However, the US can use diplomatic channels to ensure regional actors, including India, are aware of the task force’s defensive nature. The task force aims to secure nuclear sites and combat terrorism, not alter the region’s strategic balance.

Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe

The world cannot afford nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. By establishing a Joint US-Pakistan task force, the US both protects global security and reaffirms its leadership in the fight against nuclear terrorism. This partnership strengthens nuclear safeguard, prevents nuclear theft, and stabilizes the region. The US must act now to ensure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are protected. Together, we can turn a potential crisis into a collaborative success. The time to act is now for a safer and more stable world.

Timor Nawabi is currently pursuing a master’s degree in security policy studies with a concentration in Science and Technology, focusing mainly on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.

Why a Joint US-Pakistan Counterterrorism Task Force Is Necessary was originally published on Global Security Review.

Hezbollah, now attempting to fend off Israel’s September 30 ground operation, is simultaneously working to adapt its own approach to technology, and, if history is any indicator of the future, the terror group will likely continue as it has, answering Israel’s high-tech efforts with ironically harder to trace low-tech options. That Hezbollah was even using pagers was to avoid cellular detection. And as they adapt, their communications will likely go even more analog, perhaps communicating only through couriers, as Osama Bin Laden was known to do, or using physical handwritten notes and dead drops, as militant Italian anarchist groups did in the early 2000s.

While the idea of a terrorist group obtaining a more technologically advanced arsenal, such as nuclear or chemical weapons, or instituting a mass cyberattack is daunting, it is not exactly uncommon due to expense and required expertise. What is far more likely is that Hezbollah and other terrorist groups will downgrade methods, opting for cheaper and easier to implement weapons and methods which are more than capable of lethal outcomes.

Time and time again, society has seen heavy damage wrought on person and property via methods that seem relatively primitive.

In 2021, the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas increased their use of incendiary balloons when attacking Israel, causing more than 20 fires in southern Israel, straining civilian and IDF emergency service resources, and burning upward of 10,000 acres of farmland over the preceding three years. These “balloons are easily constructed and require little setup to launch compared to rockets, which are expensive and time-consuming to produce” but are still incredibly effective.

In 2013, a US power plant in California was victim of an as yet unsolved shooting attack, damaging multiple transformers. Surprisingly set up with little to no security, the plant’s perimeter was breached and approximately 100 rounds of high-powered rifle ammunition were fired into 17 transformers before police arrived. The damage was severe enough that to avoid blackouts across Silicon Valley power had to be diverted from other areas during the months-long repair.

While these incidents are high profile, given the critical infrastructure connections, they did not result in any fatalities. However, that is not always the goal of terrorists and is hardly the reality for other common low-tech methods. Shootings, bombings, and melee attacks continue to make up the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks. Research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that from 2015 to 2020,  85 percent of terror attacks employed one of these methods, with 12 percent being unrealized threats, 2 percent other, and 1 percent vehicle ramming.

The numbers are remarkably similar for lethal attacks in 2023 according to the 2024 Global Terrorism Index published by Vision of Humanity. Out of the 50 most lethal terrorist attacks, only one, an incident in the Homs Province of Syria, featuring an explosive-laden unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) targeting a military graduation ceremony which killed 89 people, could be thought of as a high-tech weapon. The other 49 were made up of 43 armed assaults, five bombings, and one explosive projectile.

As terrorist groups get backed into a corner by high-tech counter methods like the Israeli pager attack, it is increasingly likely they will rely on time-proven simple methods. The world may even see them adapting and learning from accidents such as the September 2024 car crash into a gas pipeline in Texas which caused an explosion or the 2017 Hamburg, Germany, airport evacuation which resulted from the accidental discharge of a simple, lipstick-sized can of pepper spray. While these were both accidents, one can imagine the economic and fear-induced impact if a terrorist group were to try to replicate the outcomes.

There are, of course, outliers to the terrorist use of low-tech methods. There is the terrorist cult Aum Shinrikyo’s launch of the notorious Tokyo Sarin gas attack in 1995 or drone attacks along the lines of  2023’s drone attack in Syria, as well as other groups’ potential use of commercial drones. But today’s would-be terrorist is likely not resorting to high-tech weapon or communication devices, and more often than not, going for something easy and/or available. To borrow from Chistopher Nolan’s Joker in the Dark Knight, items like “dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline [are] cheap” and are going to comprise the bulk of the future threats from terrorist groups.

Justin Leopold-Cohen is a homeland security analyst in Washington, DC. He has written widely on national and international security issues for outlets including Small Wars Journal, the Wavell Room, and Inkstick Media. Any views expressed in the article are his own and not representative of, or endorsed by, any organization or government.

Counter Terror’s High-tech to Low-tech Backfire was originally published on Global Security Review.

The brainwashing of youths, monopoly over illicit drug production, sheltering and supporting global terrorist groups, weaponization of poverty, and recruitment of refugees has brought Afghanistan to the verge of an imminent explosion, with consequences that may prove more consequential than those of September 11, 2001. Understanding what the Taliban is doing deserves further explanation.

Brainwashing the Youth

The Taliban’s focus on educating Afghan youth in religious schools (madrasa), which serve as training centers for militants and suicide bombers, poses an immediate and long-term threat to the region and the West. Through relentless brainwashing, these madrasas create a generation of children and teenagers steeped in radicalism. Young recruits are taught that martyrdom and suicide attacks are not only honorable but also necessary.

What makes this particularly worrisome is the sheer scale. Tens of thousands of young minds are being primed for violence, and this army of youths will be deployed somewhere. The consequences for neighboring countries and the West, which are already struggling with radicalization, could be catastrophic. As Roza Otenbayeva, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said to the UN Security Council, “The Taliban do not allow any monitoring of these schools and we don’t know what they teach there.”

According to the Taliban Ministry of Education, at least 17,300 madrasas are officially active across Afghanistan. Meanwhile, according to an order issued by the Taliban on June 20, 2022, three to 10 jihadi schools, with a capacity of 500–1,000 students each, are being built in every district of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has 408 districts, and the construction of three to 10 new jihadi schools per district could quickly turn the country into the center of global terrorism.

Safe Haven for Terrorist Groups

Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, is once again a haven for international terrorist groups. The Taliban’s victory emboldened and empowered extremist groups, providing them with the space to reorganize, train, and plan. Groups such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) now operate freely inside Afghanistan. Taliban ties with these terrorist groups are not superficial. They are rooted in common ideology, long-term political interests, and, most importantly, many Taliban leaders have long-standing family ties with the leaders of these groups.

According to a report in Hasht-e-Subh, the Taliban are building well-equipped bases with residential houses for the Al-Qaeda network and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan in Ghazni province. Likewise, UN reports, especially the July 2024 report, are proof of this claim. The United Nations says Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, is a “safe haven” for groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. This network of relationships ensures that the Taliban will continue to cooperate with these groups in their collective efforts to destabilize the region, expand influence, and export terror globally, creating a security disaster with devastating global consequences.

Drug Monopoly

Although the Taliban officially banned the cultivation and trafficking of narcotics, it has monopolized the industry. By limiting the supply, the Taliban is driving up the price of drugs, making the trade more profitable for themselves and their affiliates. As noted in the July 2024 UN Security Council report, it is still too early to assess the full impact of the poppy cultivation ban. However, senior Taliban officials oppose the ban. Poppy farmers lose while the Taliban profits. The report states, “Due to poppy stockpiles, the drug trade in Afghanistan remains significant.”

The world’s lack of attention to this development risks creating an underground drug economy, further empowering the Taliban and their allied terrorist groups—undermining security and stability in Afghanistan and the region. As the Taliban’s drug empire expands, terrorist groups will increasingly benefit.

Weaponization of Poverty

One of the most dangerous strategies used by the Taliban is the deliberate impoverishment of the Afghan people. By doing this, they pursue two goals.

First, they plunge a large portion of the population into extreme poverty and eliminate opportunities for education, employment, and basic survival. This makes it easier to recruit people into their ranks and allied terrorist groups.

Second, the Taliban’s control over local resources and their monopoly on illicit trade provides ample financial incentives for those willing to fight for them. In this way, poverty becomes a weapon and fuels rebellion and radicalism.

Recruitment of Deported Asylum Seekers

The Taliban encourages the deportation of Afghan refugees by secretly cooperating with some countries, particularly those in the region. This is a policy that is of strategic importance to the regime.

Many deported Afghans, returning to the land where they find no means of survival, are easily recruited by the Taliban and allied terrorist groups. Deportation is vital for the Taliban, as it ensures a steady stream of disillusioned and frustrated individuals who become pawns in their larger scheme.

Many countries fail to grasp the significance of this issue and view it superficially. Deporting immigrants, especially from Western countries, fuels anti-Western sentiments among the population, making them susceptible to serving terrorist groups.

Time Is Running Out

If the world continues to ignore the dire situation in Afghanistan, the consequences will soon prove irreparable. The brainwashing of the nation’s youth, Taliban drug running, safe havens for terrorists, the weaponization of poverty, and the recruitment of refugees will soon impact Afghanistan’s neighbors and the West. Afghanistan’s neighbors, Pakistan, Iran, Central Asia, and India, will suffer the most, but the impact will not be limited to the region. Countries far beyond, especially in the West, will be in the crosshairs of these repercussions.

The American withdrawal from Afghanistan was a serious miscalculation. The Biden administration, particularly Jake Sullivan, believes that drones and aerial surveillance can control the situation. This reflects a strategic mistake reminiscent of America’s approach during the Cold War. Ultimately, that mistaken view contributed to the rise of international terrorism and the attacks of September 11, 2001. Abandoning the Afghan people once again will prove catastrophic, especially the West.

As an Afghan, I urge the West to pay attention and ensure that the Afghanistan that led to 9/11 does not become the same Afghanistan of the near future. It may be a landlocked country in Central Asia, but Afghanistan has already proved that it can cause great harm when left to its own devises.

The author is an Afghan who, for reasons of safety, is unnamed.

The Coming Disaster in Afghanistan was originally published on Global Security Review.

It is straightforward to see that beyond the deterrent or “last defense” aspect of possessing a nuclear arsenal these weapons are one tool among other strategic options. It is the duty of a military planner to plan for outcomes with the instruments that adversaries possess, however distasteful those weapons (nuclear weapons). It does not require reams of classified intelligence nor deep policy experience to recognize the appeal of a nuclear weapon to achieve winning outcomes. Even the technical specifications of specific weapons, their delivery method, and the effects achieved by their use can take a second seat to the appealing utility of their use in the mind of a foe.

A brief look at two kinds of adversary is instructive. First, there is the ideologically driven actor who seeks to remake the international state system and its associated norms, behaviors, and morals. Second, there is a leader or state-party that seeks to climb politically, economically, and cultural-informationally within the extant Western-built international system.

For the antagonist motivated by an ideology whose primary ambition is the destruction of contemporary norms or who desires to trigger a millenarian kind of resorting, whether secular or religious, a nuclear weapon heralds to fellow adherents the breaking of the status quo by the offer of a new, radicalized future. To achieve such an outcome a nuclear weapon targeted at a populated area, especially a political capital or major religious center, would offer the radical damage and chaos sought.

The size of the nuclear device need not be large. The purpose is to tear down a targeted society by inflicting as many casualties as possible and to wreck the symbols and sinews that symbolized the victims’ way of life and station in the international order. There is no doubt many terrorist organizations that would leap at the chance to exploit a nuclear weapon in this fashion. And there are state challengers who no doubt see the same appeal. The only risk to such leaders is the repercussions they may face. But to the radicalized actor, the repercussions are just another aspect of martyrdom—religious or ideological. One imagines that such a scenario has not occurred more due to lack of opportunity than to a lack of desire.

A nuclear weapon fired by a state’s armed forces is even more likely to occur if for no other reason than governments possess the world’s nuclear arms. State arsenals and their delivery systems continue to proliferate in both number and capability, thus expanding the scenarios for weapons use. The danger of the “mutually assured destruction” problem that occupied many deterrence thinkers during the Cold War is still a threat, but the logic of employment success points towards battlefield use.

A nuclear weapon that struck a key military target could decisively alter the course of a battle and a campaign by inflicting damage at a scale that conventional weapons can only achieve over much longer periods of time. The historical record informs us that winning quickly is a tremendous advantage for an adversary.

The one sure way to suffer a military defeat by the US and any American-led coalition is to wait for American joint and combined forces to deploy, assemble, and wage a maneuver campaign. If the Normandy landings of World War II are too distant, then the overwhelming success of the United States in the Gulf War (1991) is a more recent reminder of the fate of any adversary that simply waits for the United States to come to them. The war in Ukraine is an ongoing example of the grinding, almost interminable, result of fighting when early wins do not occur. Despite the many technological advances that modern armed forces possess, speed in multi-domain operations is still decisive, and elusive.

America’s adversaries are certainly aware that speed matters. Alongside the imperatives of increasing range and the convergence of lethal effects, the rapid way a nuclear weapon can alter battlefield geometries and the correlation of forces gives so called “battlefield nukes” tremendous appeal. There are many creative ways to benefit from a nuclear weapon, not just on land, but also in the maritime and air domains. Sealing an area off from maneuver; denying communications, targeting, and surveillance systems; destroying logistical nodes and stockpiles; damaging vehicles and equipment; and inflicting casualties on the adversary are all additional ways nuclear weapons are useful. This is not to mention the escalatory advantage of skipping rungs on the escalation ladder, thereby intimidating America’s partners and neutral states—foreclosing incremental steps from American policymakers.

Simply put, nuclear weapons present an urgent operational challenge to the joint force of the United States and its military partners. Whether the scenario is in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or globally, the United States must imagine that adversaries are thinking about, and at least gaming if not planning, nuclear weapons use to achieve their objectives.

Americans must admit that there is a problem and stop hiding behind sincere wishes that nuclear weapons are never used again. The logic of their employment demands that the nation act on the facts as they are. Nuclear weapons are present. They are plentiful. It is also almost certainly only a matter of time before an adversary exploits American reticence to prepare for their use. It is time to prepare for that day.

Major General (Ret.) Bradley T. Gericke, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

The Operational Logic of Nuclear Weapons Use by an Adversary was originally published on Global Security Review.

Unfortunately, this is but one example of a growing trend of authoritarian regimes taking high-profile American detainees to achieve diplomatic ends, as it is an increasingly utilized approach by countries like Iran and China as well. But while this is a foreign policy reality that Americans may increasingly need to come to grips with, many may not be aware that there are also emerging tensions between the United States and United Kingdom over extradition related matters. A key treaty that assists in battling terrorism may hang in the balance.

The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty of 2003 in many ways represents a culmination of the mutual respect and cooperation that exists between these two great nations. Established in the wake of the September 11^thterrorist attacks, it has proven invaluable in ensuring that terrorists and other dangerous criminals are brought to justice and has been effective in protecting national security interests on both sides of the Atlantic.

However, recent attempts by the United States to expand the treaty’s scope to include white-collar criminal matters have raised concerns about its potential misuse and the broader national security implications. The ongoing legal battle over the extradition of Dr. Mike Lynch to the United States, in particular, highlights the potential risks of misusing the treaty in ways that could ultimately undermine this productive working relationship.

Dr. Lynch, a British citizen and tech entrepreneur known by some as ‘Britain’s Bill Gates,’ is the former CEO of the British software company Autonomy. Subject to a years-long fraud investigation by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Dr. Lynch and other executives at Autonomy have been accused of artificially inflating the company’s revenues prior to its acquisition by Hewlett-Packard (HP). However, the case against Dr. Lynch is far from clear-cut.

A British civil court reviewed the corporate dispute and ruled in favor of HP in its claims against Lynch in January 2022. But the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) previously conducted a lengthy investigation into the matter and ultimately decided not to pursue criminal charges concluding that there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute. Moreover, there are serious concerns about the DOJ’s case. Specifically, the DOJ’s indictment of Dr. Lynch relies heavily on the testimony of former Autonomy executives who have themselves been charged with fraud and on disputed accounting practices that were approved by Autonomy’s auditors at the time.

Despite these discrepancies and the fact that this case has been litigated extensively in the British judicial system, the DOJ is still seeking to try Dr. Lynch for his alleged crimes in the United States. This has renewed calls for change by some in the U.K. that are concerned about imbalances in the extradition treaty in favor of the U.S., and who believe it is inappropriate for the U.S. to override the U.K.’s judgment.

In 2020 then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of the treaty, “I do think there are elements of that relationship that are unbalanced and I certainly think that it is worth looking at.” More recently, Tom Tugendhat, the current UK Minister for State Security, has called for the treaty to be “rebalanced.”

It is worth noting that such changes would not be unprecedented. The U.K. has already amended the treaty once, in 2013, to include a “forum provision” that has provided the U.K. with a greater license to refuse extradition requests. Diplomats and national security officials of all stripes should therefore be concerned about the lasting negative impacts that could come if the United States continues to push the limits of the treaty.

The fact of the matter is, this dispute is at its essence a civil dispute and not a matter of national security. Using the treaty to aid in the prosecution of executives involved in an international business transaction is well outside the original intent of this treaty. This could in turn undermine British willingness to cooperate with other, more serious cases such as when the treaty was successfully used in the past to extradite the likes of Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan for providing material support to terrorists, and Abu Hamza al-Masri for conspiring to establish a terrorist training camp and supporting jihad.

The United Kingdom and the United States have long enjoyed a close relationship that has been critical in maintaining global stability and promoting democratic values. With regards to such matters of international law, especially involving cases without any direct impact on national security, it is imperative that officials on both sides of the Atlantic avoid taking measures that would make it more difficult for the two countries to combat terrorism and other serious crimes.

Emerging U.S.-U.K. Tensions May Jeopardize Counterterrorism Efforts was originally published on Global Security Review.

Efforts by the United States Intelligence Community (IC) to apply Cold War strategies to new age threats and non-state actors have largely failed, leading to adaptations and evolutions within the IC to understand and address new threats in new ways. The Soviet Union and the Islamic State terror organization pose very different problems for intelligence professionals to solve. As the world moves further into the information age, the IC as a whole is evolving to meet new threats with analytical, technical, and ideological developments designed to foster the flow of information, rather than compartmentalize it into Cold War-era boxes and stovepipes.

This article outlines the differences between nation-states and non-state actors, including their structures, threats posed by them, and IC adaptations necessary for global social progress. The first step in this process is to define and differentiate nation-states and non-state actors, followed by an outline of IC approaches to each type of threat, intelligence paradigm developments, and potential enhancements to future U.S. intelligence operations.

Nation-States vs. Non-State Actors

Nation-states need structure to function in the world, while non-state actors do not. Foreign intelligence organizations of nation-states are designed to function as parts of their nation’s governmental structure in some form or way, which makes identifying them and addressing potential threats from them a verifiable process. Nation-states are also generally held accountable for the actions taken by government associated organizations and departments, which in part dictates the field of activity that any given nation-state can and will be willing to conduct at any time. International repercussions from the global community—including sanctions and/or military retaliation—are a strong deterrent for most national governments that prevents them from taking certain courses of action and from many forms of conduct.

The Russian Federation, for instance, took control of Crimea in a deception-based maneuver that resulted in virtually no combat, intentionally avoiding any conventional military retaliation from the West.¹ Chinese military expansion into the South China Sea, while creating tension in the region, does not involve war or international conflict either.² Still, when faced with being charged with cyber-attacks on the United States, the Chinese Government remains unwilling to admit that it was even conducting cyber operations,³ for fear of international repercussions—including the potential for conventional war. These examples show that while nations are willing to act, they are generally unwilling to engage in major conflict or start a war. Non-state actors do not have this problem. Instead, many thrive on the prospects of international conflict and warfare.

Non-state actors are generally defined by their lack of structure, asymmetric tactics, and unique operational procedures. Any entity not acting on behalf of or directed by a nation-state is a non-state actor, including drug cartels, terrorist organizations, hackers, sex trafficking organizations, international corporations, vigilantes, bounty hunters, and even basic criminals and individual citizens of the world. They can, therefore, only be defined in the category of not being a nation-state or directed by a nation-state, and not defined in respect to what they actually are.⁴ Some non-state actors have an organizational structure, such as corporations, and can be addressed like that of a nation-state, or targeted similarly for espionage or protection purposes. However, most non-state actors that pose threats to nation-states do not have a structure that is easily identifiable, definable, or targetable.

Operational procedures and tactics of non-state actor threats also tend to be less symmetrical than nation-states, and almost every non-state actor is unique in its specific operational procedures and techniques. Each threat must be evaluated and addressed individually for threat mitigation and/or intelligence operations because of this uniqueness. Conducting counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State, for example, cannot be based on counterterrorism operations against Hezbollah, simply due to the differences in each organization’s unique strategies, culture, location, and patterns, despite both of them being terrorist organizations. Non-state actors require a higher degree of analysis to understand each threat completely before actions are taken, unlike nation-states where threats posed are understood, partly based on comparable historical analyses, international law, the economic prosperity of the nation, and regional stability.

Nation-States and Non-State Actors: Similarities and Differences

Nation-states and non-state actors are similar in the respect that they are mainly people led by other people, so understanding the behavioral psychology of people is a useful approach to understanding either type of threat. Both require resources, including people, to present a threat. Terrorist organizations like the Islamic State rely primarily on weapons and recruiting to grow in numbers and capabilities—the larger they are, and the more weapons they have, the more significant of a threat they can potentially pose. Nation-states like Russia and China rely heavily on other resources, such as energy, food, water, and other types of wealth-creating capital. Organizational utilization of those resources also differs, as a nation-state’s resources are used mostly for ensuring economic stability for its citizens and creating capital wealth to raise international prestige and rapport. At the same time, terrorist organizations have somewhat different concerns.

Terrorist organizations’ primary concern for resource utilization is being able to kill as many people as possible with as much media attention as possible, to boost recruiting efforts, and spread their ideology across the world for purposes of regional or global domination.⁵ Public support matters to both nation-states and non-state actors as well, since increasing one’s reputation, both locally and around the world, can increase the range of actions that are acceptable to conduct. Russia’s invasion of Crimea was not retaliated against, mainly because of the way the issue was presented to the public,⁶ just as media manipulation by the Islamic State was primarily responsible for its swift expansion and success in recruiting.⁷ Both of these entities swayed public support in their favor to help achieve their goals.

Despite several similarities between nation-states and non-state actors, there are many factors that simply only apply to one or the other. International law does not regulate or affect non-state actors or their actions since they inherently cannot be a party to any international agreement or treaty for any reason. Nation-states, on the other hand, face severe repercussions by openly violating any international laws or signed treaties, or if they are caught violating either of these clandestinely. Nation-states also have massive infrastructures for large scale weaponry and economic operations as well. In contrast, hostile non-state actors do not have access to the required materials and/or facilities needed to establish such features. There are no terrorist organizations with a space program, for example.

This means that any satellite operations conducted by terrorists, be it for cell phone communications or cyber operations, must go through a nation-state’s infrastructure. Nation-states like Iran who are state sponsors of terrorism and also have a space program, therefore, create a very unique problem.⁸ Non-state actors cannot by definition have a ballistic missile program either, since this also requires an infrastructure that only a Nation-State can achieve, but they can still acquire and use such weapons through allies, theft, or the black market. If the Pakistani Taliban or the Haqqani Network, for instance, were to seize Pakistan’s missile facilities, they would immediately become the world’s first terrorist organization with nuclear Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles,⁹ which makes potential instability within the Pakistani Government of paramount international concern.¹⁰

Technological innovations generally also require a Nation-State’s infrastructure with research facilities, scientific education programs, and a lot of money, limiting this combat multiplying factor to nation-states as well. Just as with missiles, however, non-state actors may still acquire technological innovations, including medical devices, weapons, computer hardware/software, communications equipment, or espionage devices by other means. In free societies like the United States, this problem is multiplied by readily available technological innovations to the public. It has resulted in the evolution of technologically based non-state actors like the hacktivist collective, Anonymous, presenting new and unique threats to nation-states and the world.¹¹

Free societies have also provided other non-state actors, like terrorist organizations, with technological infrastructures that can be used for cyber operations and tactical social media coordination for paramilitary operations, including terrorist attacks, such as happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Paris, France. The fact remains that non-state actors, while very different in nature from nation-states, have overlapping features, and unique features, and each threat must be approached by intelligence professionals uniquely and individually to achieve success. Intelligence methods and operational tactics must evolve continuously in the face of perpetual technological and ideological evolutions around the world to maintain global stability and human freedom, and the American intelligence infrastructure represents the best hope for achieving this goal in today’s world.

Intelligence Community Adaptations: Killing the Cold War Mindset

Intelligence operations and focuses throughout the Cold War were primarily concerned with threats posed by nation-states, and in particular, the Soviet Union and its Communist allies. The intelligence infrastructure of the United States that was created and grown during this era of Nation-State threat priorities stimulated the creation of extensive analytical techniques and operations explicitly designed to counter threats from foreign nations and their organizations. While terrorism and other non-state actors existed, they were not prevalent and did not receive enough attention to warrant extensive development of Non-State Actor threat mitigation techniques until relatively recently.

Intelligence representatives developing the intelligence infrastructure that exists today can target specific organizations within specific Governments for intelligence and counterintelligence operations. The ability to understand a structured organization made this possible and facilitated expansive espionage operations, including penetration operations and counterintelligence missions, to deceive the enemy and/or deny them information. The ability to identify the enemy and define it is the primary reason this type of analysis and intelligence operation targeting nation-states is so successful. The Soviet Union was an obvious target. Its intelligence, political, economic, and military organs also were definable, and therefore targetable. Even the tactics and procedures used by the Soviet Union could be documented over time, providing a standard analytical framework to base decisions on, with known variables regarding how specific parts of the Soviet Union’s organizations function and operate. Traditional threats posed by nation-states and individuals, before the onset of the information age, pale in comparison to the threats that exist today, threats that cannot be defined, controlled, and some that simply cannot be defeated, only mitigated.

Moving from the Cold War era into the information age has changed everything and created a large number of asymmetrical threats, not just from asymmetrical non-state actors, but from nation-states as well, transforming the entire global threat landscape forever. Intelligence professionals in today’s world must deal with issues and threats that have never existed, and therefore without historical data to reference when attempting to analyze them. Technological proliferation is the primary cause of this new threat landscape, technology in nearly every area of human life that is causing third world threats to be armed with first world weapons and technologies to aid their cause.

Transnational terrorist networks conducting cyberspace operations and coordinated paramilitary attacks on civilian populations have created global fear in addition to the physical threats that exist in the world, multiplying the overall effect of any attack they conduct. Many nation-states have also adopted non-traditional techniques and weapons, creating entirely new potential combat zones in space and cyberspace. The United States IC in today’s world must address a more significant number of potential and real threats, simultaneously, than have ever existed at one time in human history, and the freedom of the entire human race is at risk.

Intelligence professionals in the information age are no longer only trying to discover the number of tanks or missiles that an adversarial foreign nation has operational at a given time. They are instead assessing a multitude of threats without historical precedence that change the entire analysis and many which act as force multipliers, including but not limited to:

• The number of supercomputers any potential adversary has access to
• The speed of an adversary’s most advanced processor
• Whether or not terrorist organizations have access to weapons of mass destruction, how they might use them, and where they could turn to get them
• Regional and global economic stability
• Human rights violations by nation-states and non-state actors
• Weaponized space assets, potential and known, and their impact(s)
• Prospects for human expansion into space, including colonization, celestial militarization, and planetary resource exploitation
• Robotics technology proliferation
• Military and intelligence-related nano-science applications
• Global and regional drug and sex trafficking operations
• Human impacts on the Earth’s natural cycles
• The radicalization of violent homicidal terrorists who gain a foothold in failed states and spread their ideology throughout cyberspace

These are just some of the things that occupy the focus of the IC today, and each one has its own unique properties and operational requirements. Individual entities and organizations within each classification also contain their own unique features and operational tactics. The evolution apparent in the IC is as complex and expansive as the evolution from a paper letter to a personal computer hard drive with a terabyte of data storage. Growth does not make something inherently more effective; however, so another focus—on intelligence procedures themselves—is also necessary for the IC to appropriately adapt to current and future threats in the world.

Intelligence Evolution in the Information Age

Many of the challenges of today have not been addressed before in history and must be analyzed and understood before they can be addressed. Some threats are similar to threats of the past, however, and understanding history can help analysts learn to analyze more effectively, through the study of human nature, warfare, and intelligence operations throughout history. Communism is an ideology, and the Kharijite ideology that spurs the majority of radical Islamic terrorists into action is also an ideology. While there are few similarities between the ideologies themselves, the practice of combating an ideology on a global scale is not new to the United States or the IC. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed from economic and social disparity. The Communist ideology lost popularity, however, due to disillusionment within its believers, not the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Even Communist China does not follow the original Marxist philosophies of early communism. It has adapted to a Capitalistic type of communism in the face of widespread disillusionment with the Communist ideology. The Kharijite ideology can be fought the same way – through intentional and extensive operations aimed at disillusioning the believers and potential believers of radical Islamism. Cyberspace and economically challenged regions in the world are the primary recruiting grounds for radical terrorist organizations, which means the IC can target these same areas to eliminate the potential for recruitment, with aggressive, offensive counterintelligence operations in cyberspace in addition to economic interventions to educate and elevate the populations of regions with economic and social disparity. Ironically, eliminating social and economic inequality in critical areas of the world could collapse radical Islamic terrorist ideologies in much the same way that increasing economic and social disparity collapsed the Soviet Union and led to the disillusionment of Communism.

Lack of education and the censorship of information are significant factors that contribute to social disparities in the world, and therefore need to be countered with information proliferation and education. Part of this requires technological proliferation to increase the ease of access for societies to information through the internet, and potentially even Government sponsorship of satellite communications and internet capabilities for nation-states that lack the potential for such a technological infrastructure by themselves. Because this increases the risk of these technological assets being used by non-state actors for other purposes, increased intelligence operations, specifically in cyberspace, must accompany these information expansions.

In addition to these longer-term strategic economic and social methods to tear down the radical Kharijite ideology that fuels the majority of global Islamic terror, enhanced paramilitary operations and covert actions are needed to simultaneously combat physical terrorist elements already established around the world. With combined international cybersecurity efforts to ensure cyberspace as a place for global information proliferation and education, along with robust offensive counterintelligence, covert action, and paramilitary efforts to combat global terrorism and other physical Non-State Actor threats, world peace has its first opportunity in recorded history to be achievable and maintained. The challenge now is for Governments and people to realize this, and act accordingly to secure the future for humanity and the world.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any U.S. government agency, including but not limited to the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, or the Marine Corps. Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of any U.S. government entity.

¹ Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, “Crimea and Russia’s Strategic Overhaul,” Parameters 44, no. 3 (2014): 81-90.

² Miroslaw Przygoda, “China – Russia, a Strategic Political and Economic Axis of the Contemporary World,” Varazdin Development and Entrepreneurship Agency (VADEA) (2015).

³ Cuihong Cai and Diego Dati, “Words Mightier than Hacks: Narratives of Cyberwar in the United States and China,” Asian Perspective 39, no. 3 (2015): 541-553.

⁴ David Moore, Sensemaking: A Structure for an Intelligence Revolution, (Washington D.C.: NDIC Press, 2011).

⁵ Andrew Terrill, “Understanding the Strengths and Vulnerabilities of ISIS.” Parameters 44, no. 3 (2014): 13-23.

⁶ Thomas Grant, “International Dispute Settlement in Response to an Unlawful Seizure of Territory: Three Mechanisms,” Chicago Journal of International Law 16, no. 1 (2015): 1-42.

⁷ Rohan Gunaratna, “A New Threat Landscape in 2015,” UNISCI Discussion Papers 37 (2015): 9-13.

⁸ Dan Dickerson, “Iran Would Strike First,” Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International 16, no. 3 (2010): 30-36.

⁹ Paul Kerr and Mary Nikitin, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues,” Current Politics and Economics of the Middle East3, no. 2 (2012): 313-351.

¹⁰ Kerr and Nikitin, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons.”

¹¹ Brian Kelly, “Investing in a Centralized Cybersecurity Infrastructure: Why “Hacktivism” Can and Should Influence Cybersecurity Reform,” Boston University Law Review 92, no. 5 (2012): 1663-1711.

From Missiles to Microchips was originally published on Global Security Review.

FTO designations can be assigned to groups if they meet three criteria under U.S. Code §1189—the group must be foreign, engaged in terrorist activity, and threaten U.S. national security. By labeling a group as an FTO, the United States creates extraterritorial criminal and civil liability for parties engaged in providing them with material support. There are currently 73 groups listed, and their status is reviewed every five years by the U.S. State Department.

Maintaining the FTO designation applies political pressure on states that interact with the IRGC—namely Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—to significantly alter their relationships or risk international pariah status. The Iranian marketplace becomes dangerous for prospective business partners, as any dealings with the country could be perceived as IRGC financing since it is state-sponsored. Designations also clarify U.S. attitudes toward international actors and let Iran know that the actions of its paramilitary organization are not tolerated by the United States, irrespective of any future diplomatic re-engagement.

FTO de-designations are less common, with the United States removing only 15 groups from the list since its inception. In most de-designation cases, the groups have been removed due to their outright disbandment, which would not be the case with a de-designation of the IRGC. Attempts to remove groups still active from the list, such as the Houthis, have had negative consequences for U.S. national security.

In February 2021, the United States removed the FTO label from the Houthis, a Yemeni Shi’ite militia group that receives direct funding from the IRGC. The purpose of this de-designation was to better provide Yemeni civilians with humanitarian aid. The designation made it difficult for human rights groups and charitable individuals to donate food, medical supplies, and money while a Saudi-led blockade effectively starved the country. However, the Houthis did not provide any concessions, and less than a year later, the group took advantage of this gesture by launching drone strikes on the United Arab Emirates.

The backlash to this attack was swift. Within the month, the Saudis and Emiratis worked together to conduct lethal airstrikes on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. The Houthis, using Iranian-supplied weapons, responded with strikes on Saudi airports and other civilian locations. The U.S. Treasury Department subsequently crafted new sanctions on the Houthis’ financial network, implicating the IRGC by name. De-designating the IRGC to return to a nuclear deal would send mixed messages from the Biden administration to the Arab world and encourage Iran to spend its newly sanctions-free assets on more excellent militia investment to counter Sunni influence.

Not only will the UAE and the Saudis feel abandoned by the United States if it takes this course of action, but Israel will also question the sincerity of the United States in its stated goal to preserve Israeli sovereignty, which Iran doesn’t recognize. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei demands that “all Muslims must fight until the annihilation of Israel,” and easing Tehran’s ability to supply its most extreme fighting force with outside money will get the regime closer to that goal.

Instead of dropping the IRGC’s FTO designation without concessions, the United States should consider publicizing the non-statutory factors involved in assigning such a designation. This action would inform the international community about the objective criteria involved in U.S. counterterrorism strategies and prevent Washington from appearing disorganized on designation issues between presidential administrations.

Iran’s recent budget and presidential cabinet appointments should inform the Biden administration that a nuclear agreement will not change Iran’s priorities to support the IRGC at the expense of the civilian population. Iran is spending more on the Guards than ever before. Removing the red tape around the IRGC as it expands its research and weapons production capacities would betray close relationships that have taken decades to build. No nuclear agreement should impact the FTO de-designation process, and past conduct by the Houthis justifies the hesitancy to cave to Iranian demands. Removing the label of terrorism should take effort on behalf of the offending party, something the Islamic Republic is unwilling to provide.

A New Nuclear Deal with Iran Shouldn’t Be Accompanied by Terrorist Legitimization was originally published on Global Security Review.

The United States provides substantial diplomatic and economic support to Pakistan. Unfortunately, this policy inadvertently enables Pakistan’s economic, political, and military support for the Taliban and other Islamic militant groups. The U.S. should move from its dubious relationship with Pakistan to a more compatible alliance: India should become America’s premier South Asian ally.

Pakistan is an unreliable and untrustworthy ally. From the Taliban’s inception in the 1990s, The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has supported them with money, training, and supplying weapons. It continues to be a significant source of financial and logistical support. In addition, the Taliban own real estate in Pakistan and receive large donations from private Pakistani citizens. The Taliban also teach their brand of Islam in numerous madrassas (Islamic Schools) all over Pakistan, a valuable tool to influence and recruit new members.

Since 2009, the U.S. government has committed over $5 billion in civilian assistance to Pakistan and over $1 billion in emergency humanitarian response. U.S. assistance includes projects supporting economic growth and bilateral trade; refugees and refugee-housing communities; law enforcement; civil society; and countering infectious diseases. In addition, the U.S. is Pakistan’s largest export destination country and has been one of Pakistan’s top investors. Examples of U.S. investments include consumer goods, energy, chemicals, agriculture, transportation, and communications. Yet, despite all the resources the U.S. has invested in helping Pakistan, Pakistan still harbors and supports the Taliban.

The U.S. should shift attention and priority to India as the premier South Asian U.S. ally. This new policy would keep economic and diplomatic ties with Pakistan but lessen them over time as the U.S. builds closer ties to India. It makes more sense for the U.S. to focus on India as the essential South Asian relationship. Both countries share a commitment to freedom, democratic principles, equal treatment of all citizens, human rights, and the rule of law.

India also shares a commitment to counterterrorism. India actively opposes the Taliban. Unlike Pakistan, India is willing to cooperate with the U.S. in counterterrorism operations against the Taliban and other militant Islamic groups.

Lastly, adopting this new policy instead of a more aggressive approach towards Pakistan would prevent a more powerful Taliban. Economic sanctions on Pakistani military and government officials with ties to the Taliban would likely be counterproductive and cause a backlash. Pakistan might even increase monetary and arms support for the Taliban. However, a growing and ever-closer U.S. relationship with India would send Pakistani officials a powerful message.

Critics argue that the U.S. neglect of Pakistan in favor of India will increase tensions in South Asia. However, tensions are already growing because of a Taliban-leaning Pakistani government. India’s relations with Pakistan are always tense. The difference is that a more robust U.S.- India relationship can bring more regional stability than keeping things status quo or pushing towards a more aggressive policy towards Pakistan. India is a more reliable partner.

Current U.S. -Pakistan policy has enabled Pakistan to support and assist the Taliban and other radical Islamic groups for the past two decades. Pakistani intelligence officials deliberately lie to CIA officials regarding Taliban whereabouts, yet still claim they are committed to fighting the War on Terror alongside the U.S. Continuing down this path with Pakistan is a dead end. It is time to chart a new course with India. A U.S. alliance with India would protect U.S. strategic interests and contribute to regional stability and peace.

India Should Become The United States Premier South Asian ally was originally published on Global Security Review.

The terms of extremism and terrorism have been used interchangeably. However, there is a crucial distinction between the terms: all terrorists are extremists, but not all extremists are terrorists. Despite the latter, a fine line separates extremists from the turning point of embracing violence—thus becoming terrorists. This is because extremism is generally regarded as “the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and respect and tolerance for different faiths and beliefs” as per the 2015 UK’s Counter-Extremism Strategy. Furthermore, extremists may resort to terrorism to coerce governments and the general public to give in to their cause.

Over the past couple of decades, extremism and terrorism were mostly associated with religious causes, especially Islamic extremism, which present a persistent threat to numerous states. Yet, the current pandemic crisis may fuel such a risk and threats from other extremism categories. This includes the right-wing, left-wing, and single-issue extremism. While clearly articulating from now why and how the case is cumbersome, government and national security leaders can relate early warning signs to counter these threats.

Some arguments are claiming that terrorist groups are currently preoccupied with protecting their members against the coronavirus. However, different incidents that took place over April 2020 points to the direct opposite. In fact, in its mid-March al-Naba newsletter, ISIS urged its followers to launch attacks in times of crisis and show no mercy.

Earlier in April, 25 soldiers in Mali were killed in a jihadist attack. On the 14th of April, in an operation where one police officer killed, Egyptian security forces exchanged fire. They eliminated seven terrorists who were part of a cell planning to conduct attacks during the Easter holiday in Egypt. Also during mid-April, the Tunisian security authorities foiled a terrorist plan to spread the coronavirus to Tunisian security forces by coughing, sneezing, and spitting.

On the 21st of April 2020, it was announced that one of Europe’s most wanted terrorists and ISIS affiliate, Abdel Majed Abdel Bary, was recently arrested by the Spanish police in Almeria where he settled in during the coronavirus lockdown. Abdel Bary reached Spain via a boat, and local newspapers indicated that he intended to return to the UK. The return intentions of Abdel Bary – who was arrested with another two persons in his apartment – remains unclear. In France, on the 27th of April, a 29-year-old Frenchman was also arrested. The man, who was not identified, has slammed his car into police cars and motorcycles, injuring three officers. It was found that the man has pledged allegiance to ISIS in a letter found in his car. A couple of days later, in a statement by the Danish authorities on the 30th of April, the police in Denmark prevented a terrorist attack with a possible “militant Islamic motive.” The arrested man was already suspected of attempting to obtain ammunition and firearms. On the 30th of April, in one of the deadliest attacks that month, ten Egyptian army personnel were killed in a terrorist attack. The incident, which included an officer, a non-commissioned officer, and eight soldiers, had an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated under their armored vehicle in Bir El-Abd in North of Sinai.

Looking at Iraq, we can see a rise in ISIL (ISIS) operations over the past few months, wherein the first three months of 2020, 566 attacks were conducted by the group in Iraq. Not only that, the group’s attacks have intensified, but the group appears to be strengthening. Given their recent attacks in Syria and Iraq, it is argued that the current pandemic has already demonstrated how durable and resilient ISIS ais In addition to that, other armed extremist groups are scaling up their targeted attacks. This can be evident by the recent assassination of Hisham al Hashimi, 47, who was fatally shot outside his house in Baghdad. Hisham was among the world’s leading security experts on ISIS and other armed groups. Iraqi officials indicated that Hisham received threats recently from Iran backed militias.

Because of the abovementioned incidents – even if they may appear minor and sporadic to some security strategists – it is worth noting that terrorist groups may take advantage of the global focus of countering the pandemic and launch attacks. Furthermore, terrorist groups may view the global pandemic crisis as an opportunity to win more recruits, supporters, sympathizers, and then strike harder than before should the right moment be presented. In this regards, Al-Qaeda suggested in its statement on the 30th of March, that non-Muslims use their time in quarantine to learn about Islam. In addition, these groups have never failed to exploit social media to advance their cause and propaganda. That said, as the pandemic continues, people are spending more time online, terrorist groups are likely to amplify their utilization of social media to further spread their dangerous rhetoric along with widely used hashtags of the terms: #Coronavirus, #COVID2019 or #COVID19 to ensure a wider audience reach for their social media posts.

Not only that, terrorist groups may use the time of the pandemic crisis to propagate their ideology or launch attacks but also use the time to reinforce their bases to remerge in a more potent form after the pandemic crisis. This can be specifically true given that most terrorist groups are taking some of the African and Middle Eastern countries like Libya, Chad, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and others as their hubs and operational base. Most of these nations are developing countries, so it is possible that while these nations’ authorities and security forces are focusing their capabilities on curbing the coronavirus spread, that terrorist groups would utilize such a window period to harness their abilities. This is particularly evident from the very recent series of terrorist attacks launched by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, killing dozens of soldiers. The attacks probably took advantage of the local authorities scaling back the number of troops on the ground due to the coronavirus pandemic. A similar expansionary approach is also seen by jihadists in the Sahel region. Thus, further confirming the threat resurgence of organized terrorist groups as a result of the pandemic crisis.

Although the terrorism threat appears to be relatively regional, it requires intergovernmental and a multinational collective counterterrorism approach. With many of the terrorist groups and affiliates adopting a horizontal structure, one group in one country might be influencing the actions of other groups in many other different countries. Not to forget lone wolf terrorism, which would only take the individual perpetrator to be radicalized by merely reading and following the propaganda and extremist ideologies widely available online.

While intergovernmental counterterrorism frameworks, cooperation, and efforts already exist, the current pandemic crisis still presents an unprecedented challenge to many countries. This includes the redirection of security forces and militaries’ actions in curbing the pandemic spread, implementing lockdowns, curfews, regulating borders entry, and supporting the national overwhelmed healthcare authorities. Though the latter is important to ensure the general public safety, security bodies mustn’t lose their focus on countering terrorism, reinforcing border security, and stepping up surveillance and intelligence activities to anticipate any risks or terrorism plots. Additionally, extremist – but nonviolent – groups should be closely monitored during the pandemic and economic crisis to counter how such groups might use the pandemic to advance their propaganda and gain more sympathy from the general public. This includes right-wing, left-wing, and single-issue extremism groups such as climate activists who turn to terrorism.

Furthermore, as the economic recession builds up, different countries may implement spending cuts and reduce budgets dedicated to national security, intelligence, military, and law enforcement concerning various security programs, including counterterrorism. Accordingly, this should not be the case at all. Even if the economic recession is currently taking its toll on all sectors, government spending, and budgets dedicated to national security, intelligence, military, and law enforcement, counterterrorism efforts should not be reduced. As extremists and terrorist groups are likely to exploit the coronavirus pandemic and post-pandemic economic crisis for their benefit and incite violence, national governments should not undermine such a dormant yet imminent threat while tackling the economic consequences of the pandemic crisis. In this respect, military, national security, intelligence, and law enforcement bodies across the world should increase, and hone their counterterrorism capabilities, intelligence sharing, and international cooperation.

COVID-19 and the Increasing Risk of Terrorism was originally published on Global Security Review.

A Finite Strategy

In game theory, there are finite and infinite games. In a finite game, the objective of the game is to win, thereby ending the game. In the infinite game, the goal is the perpetuation of the game. Since 9/11, the U.S. has implemented a finite approach to fighting terrorism. The “War on Terrorism (WoT)” archetype highlights this finite approach.

Three premises underpinned the WoT archetype: the theoretical idea that terrorism can be completely defeated, the militarization of the response to terrorism, and by extension, the overzealousness to targeted killing, especially of leaders.

As a rhetorical tactic, framing terrorism as a defeatable concept certainly helped galvanize the U.S. population and international community in the wake of the attacks. But as a theoretical approach, it is at best ill-conceived and, at worst futile. First, there is little sense to the idea of defeating terrorism completely. As scholars Arie W. Kruglanski and Shira Fishman have argued, terrorism is merely a tool.¹ As a tool, terrorism has and is used by most non-state actors²across the political violence spectrum to achieve their goals.

Therefore, conceptualizing terrorism as something that can be defeated is as illogical as declaring war on a hammer. Second, and as alluded to earlier, the WoT archetype ignores the longevity of terrorism. In other words, it frames or at least creates the perception of terrorism as a sudden and unique phenomenon that rose to prominence only after 9/11. But one can look to terrorism’s history and longevity to dismiss this claim. During the Roman Empire, the Sicarii³ used terrorism to reject Roman rule over Judea, and the etymology of the word takes us as far back to the French revolution. Moreover, David Rapport, a scholar, demonstrated how terrorism has evolved in different waves through different geopolitical contexts since the late 1800s.⁴ The point is that terrorism has been used throughout history and will almost certainly continue to be used by groups around the world for generations to come.

Because the concept has erroneously been conceived as something defeatable, the U.S. foreign policy blob assumed militarizing the response would inherently resolve the problem by overwhelming the adversary. It is not hard to see why they assumed this. The U.S military has demonstrated an ability to fight and win in multiple theatres against a variety of opponents. The U.S has been most comfortable fighting finite games such as in the Second World War, and Korea. And even, erroneously, framing infinite wars like Vietnam into finite approaches.

As such and in response to 9/11, Congress quickly enacted the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). Three Presidents since Mr. Bush have used the AUMF to start, perpetuate, and expand military-led counterterrorism (CT) operations around the world. In a closer analysis, the AUMF⁵ has been loosely interpreted to include almost any terrorist organization. And true to form, today the U.S. leads or is a partner to military-led CT operations in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan⁶, and Pakistan. The operations are as global as they are diverse in targets. The U.S. prosecutes a wide range of terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda core, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), ISIS, and affiliates in North and East Africa, Al Shabab, and others. This expansion and continuation of operations have cost the U.S. approximately 6.4 trillion dollars,⁷ according to Brown University estimates. This militarization has led in turn to overzealousness in disrupting terrorist networks through the targeted killing of leaders.

This, by extension has transformed the premise of military-led operations into statically focused campaigns. Since 2004, the U.S. military has conducted approximately 14,040 strikes in various countries, according to Bureau of Investigative Journalism data,⁸ and has formed at least two coalitions⁹ of countries to fight terrorist groups.

But as it will be demonstrated next, the finite approach has severe limitations that, at a minimum, raise the important question of why it is still the de facto strategy after almost 20 years.

A Not-So-Effective Finite Strategy

The finite framework, one built on the premise of completely defeating terrorism, has not worked. The failure of this finite strategy is not an inherent weakness of the U.S. CT capabilities. Thanks to fast innovation, competent intelligence agencies, and superior technology, the U.S. has become overtly good at finding and fixing targets. The most recent example the death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in January of this year¹⁰.

Instead, the failure is symptomatic of a finite player competing with finite methods and goals against infinite players in what is an infinite game. ISIS is the best example of this clash.¹¹ Since 2003, the U.S. and its allies have led on and off military-led CT operations against ISIS, fervently focusing on killing its top leaders. It is important to note that the U.S also led counterinsurgency operations (COIN) in 2006–2007 and from 2014–2017 — often in parallel to the CT operations — against ISIS in a response to their evolution from terrorist group to insurgency. These were narrowly successful in territorially defeating ISIS but fell short in “defeating” the group altogether. Even during COIN operations, where finite goals such as defeating ISIS territorially were achieved, the infinite strategy of the group was not sufficiently considered. This led to the continued finite approach of killing ISIS leaders. As such, in June 2006, U.S. forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,¹² the founder of AQI. Subsequent leaders, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi met the same fate in April 2010¹³, and on 27 October 2019, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in Northern Syria.¹⁴

While there should be no sympathy for dead terrorist leaders, the merit of this aspect of the finite approach is questionable when one looks at the resiliency of ISIS’s operational behavior after the death of its leaders. The decapitation approach claims to deal calamitous blows to organizations, ultimately leading to their demise by dismantling the figurehead that holds the organization together. But Audrey Kurth Cronin’s findings raise questions about this premise. Kronin found that the decapitation approach seldom works and arresting rather than killing leaders tends to be more effective in ending terrorist campaigns.¹⁵

Kronin’s findings can certainly be demonstrated when one looks at ISIS after the death of its leaders. Despite their deaths, the killings never achieved their finite goal of dismantling or ending the terrorist group. After the death of its overall founder Zarqawi and despite heavy territorial losses in, during the U.S.-led surge in 2007, ISI¹⁶ rebounded and was able to inflict extraordinary terrorist attacks throughout Iraq. From 2008–2010, the three years after the COIN operations (or Surge), over 200 people were killed per month by terrorism in Iraq.¹⁷ Before and after the death of Omar Al Baghdadi, ISI assassinated over 1345 Awakening leaders according to one estimate, ¹⁸ and launched its infamous “Breaking the Walls” campaign where it carried out 24 bombings and eight prison breaks.¹⁹ By the same extension, and since the death of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, ISIS has conducted approximately 285 attacks in Iraq, according to a review of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). Even after the death of its top leader and U.S. claims that it had dealt catastrophic and “final” blows to the organization, the organization mustered the necessary capabilities to continue their terror campaigns, remain relevant, and at times outdo what it had done in previous years. This resiliency demonstrates that the finite approach of targeted killings has been futile in its efforts to “defeat” terrorism.

The ISIS example also highlights terrorist organizations’ infinite doctrine. Part of the ability, in this case of ISIS, to continue despite the endless cycle of dead leaders is the infinite framing of its goals. While external factors helped ISIS ²⁰, the “infiniteness” of ISIS goals allowed it to turn defeats to victories as part of a longer “infinite” struggle. In the aftermath of its Iraqi territorial defeat, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi stated,

“For the Mujahideen holy warriors, the scale of victory or defeat is not dependent on a city or town being stolen or subject to that who has aerial superiority, intercontinental missiles or smart bombs…… “Oh, Caliphate soldiers… trust in God’s promise and His victory… for with hardship comes relief and a way out.”²¹

If one strips away the religiosity, what is evident in Baghdadi’s rhetoric is that deaths and loss of territory do not amount to detrimental finite loses, instead they represent loses as part of a predetermined plan (in this case formulated by God according to Baghdadi) that will “ultimately” lead them to victory. The “ultimately” is worthy of closer analysis. It is this word that represents the infinite mentality ingrained in groups like ISIS. Stated differently, it does not matter how much they lose, insofar as they continue their path, “they will ultimately” be rewarded. In this regard, ISIS is not seeking to achieve finite metrics or goals, they seek an almost abstract infinite goal that might never materialize. By this logic, the U.S. inability to recognize this, and continue with a finite military-led CT approach of maiming and bombing ISIS leaders, only played to what ISIS expected and was/is “comfortable” dealing with.

Towards an Infinite Approach

However, insufficient the finite strategy has proven to be, some argue that it has and will continue to work. They point to the lack of 9/11 like attacks, something they attribute to sustained military-led CT pressure in countries that offered haven to terrorist groups.

Indeed, the U.S. has not suffered 9/11-like attacks. But the role of military-led CT operations is surely overestimated while the vast changes to airport security, intelligence capabilities, international law enforcement cooperation, and other safety mechanisms, are underestimated.

Proponents have also not sufficiently explained why the threat of attacks, or attacks that have not materialized continue to exist. In December 2019, an al-Qaeda operative shot eleven people at a U.S. military base in Florida.²² The December 2019 al-Qaeda attack is just one of many attacks since 9/11 that have been at the lower end of the extraordinary scale, failed to materialize, or were foiled before they occurred. Moreover, al-Qaeda media continues to call for attacks against the United States, including in statements from regional al-Qaeda leaders, reflecting the network’s enduring efforts to pursue or inspire attacks in the West.²³

This is to say that if the premise of the finite approach was to “defeat terrorism,” the evidence in the sheer number of intended attacks since 9/11 dismisses this. The threat is well and alive, and the finite approach has not been sufficient in quelling or even stopping it. The recent statements by the U.S. State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, Ambassador Nathan Sales, effectively kills any debate.

When asked by the BBC, “whether this war — as originally conceived by the Bush administration — about the War on Terrorism is over?” He said, “No, the fight is very much ongoing, we’re winning the fight, but we’re continuing to fight against a determined enemy, or I should say a determined group of enemies.”²⁴

Calls to change how the U.S. conceptualizes and fights terrorism are not new. Analysts, policymakers, and the public generally recognize that a continuation of the finite approach will prolong military-led CT operations with little or no long-term solution to the threat of terrorism. What is new, however, is the shifting tectonic plates of geopolitics. And as the U.S. foreign policy blob construes a grand strategy to answer this shift, the choice presented would be at best to leave the current CT approach intact and at worst drop CT; neither are viable options for U.S. long term security interest.

Despite changing geostrategic priorities, developing and implementing an infinite CT strategy is easier said than done. Terrorism is poorly understood. This leads to criminal acts being incorrectly labeled as terrorism, effectively politicizing it. For example, in late March, the U.S. Department of Justice warned that “people who intentionally spread COVID-19 could be charged with terrorism,” arguably a stretch of interpretation.²⁵ Moreover, the political clime is such that politicians look strong in supporting military-led CT policies, and weak when they do not. When coupled with the fear terrorism generates, it is easy to see why change will be difficult.

Notwithstanding, the time to course-correct is now. An infinite strategy emphasizes a whole-of-government approach that folds finite metrics within an infinite or abstract vision. It starts with accepting terrorism can never be completely defeated; acknowledging its relatively low threat level; and it particularly means employing all aspects of national power to combat terrorism, including diplomatic, economic, military, and others.

It also means using those elements of national powers towards what the research points to as most effective in ending terrorist campaigns. Research shows that terrorist groups and their terrorism campaigns most often end when they implode from within or when splinter groups challenge the main group’s narrative. They are also particularly weak during generational shifts and when non-violent alternatives are created that facilitate underlying social movement to express their political grievances.²⁶

As such, an infinite strategy calls for a sustained and prolonged multifaceted approach. It focuses on a strong role for the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S.AID) to fund and work with marginalized groups in politically unstable countries. Their work should focus on alternative non-violent social movements. Likewise, the U.S. should increase efforts to bolster intelligence and law enforcement cooperation and create international law enforcement and intelligence task forces that are not under military purview, using military-led CT operations as complementary elements. Equally important is the need to build alternative narratives to the religious interpretations used by religious terrorist groups. An alternative narrative seeks to implode groups from within, loosening the bolts of religious interpretation these groups use to justify their actions. None of these few examples are short-term or finite, easily measured, and tangible. But this is the nature of truly fighting terrorism through an infinite strategy — the actions are not easy to measure and there are no fast wins. Instead, it’s a long, slow, and prolonged approach that will challenge groups’ infinite mentality.

In all, the time is now to change how the U.S fights terrorism. An infinite strategy will ensure the U.S. reduces its dependency on military-led CT operations and starts leveraging all realms of its national power to effectively suppress the threat. If the U.S does not correct course now, then its surely proximus to insanity: continuing to do the same thing, expecting different results.

¹ Arie W. Kruglanski & Shira Fishman (2006) The Psychology of Terrorism: “Syndrome” Versus “Tool” Perspectives, Terrorism and Political Violence, 18:2, 193–215, DOI: 10.1080/09546550600570119 ;

² Scholars in the Critical Studies of Terrorism field have argued that States can also and do use terrorism. I take the majority view and focus primarily on non-state actors who employ terrorism.

³ It’s been widely cited that the Sicarii were considered the first political violent group that used terrorism. See Stewart J. D’Alessio & Lisa Stolzenberg in (1990) Sicarii and the Rise of Terrorism, Terrorism, 13:4–5, 329–335, DOI: 10.1080/10576109008435840; as well as Donathan Taylor, Yannick Gautron. 02 Apr 2015, Pre-Modern Terrorism from The Routledge History of Terrorism Routledge

⁴ See David Rapport’s Four Waves of Modern Terrorism (2001)

⁵ The original text of the AUMF authorized the U.S. military to “ that the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” It was always mostly focused against those responsible for 9/11 i.e. AQ. It has since been broadly interpreted to mean almost any terrorist organization.

⁶ The U.S. CT operations against ISIS-K and Taliban leaders are different than the NATO-led mission that emulates elements of a counterinsurgency strategy and also of other U.S.-led missions training the ISF.

⁷ This number includes appropriated and obligated money towards 2020. Afghanistan, which as mentioned above, has three different mission sets. While the article focuses on the CT operations, the numbers account for the COIN, and broader missions.

⁸ The BIJ started to collect data since 2004, and it includes a wide range of U.S military activity, not just targeted killings. See the full methodology at thebureauinvestigates.com; the numbers are estimative and cannot be independently confirmed.

⁹ This again accounts for coalitions that were formed to defeat ISIS when it was an insurgency from 2014–2017

¹⁰ Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was the leader of Iran’s Quds forces, considered by the U.S. to be a terrorist organization. The designation might be more political than true to what terrorist groups are. Still, the Quds forces do support groups that commit acts of terrorism in line with Iran’s foreign policy objectives.

¹¹ ISIS is the most contemporary example, but the finite vs. infinite clash can also be demonstrated with AQ core and other terrorist groups.

¹² https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/middleeast/08cnd-iraq.html

¹³ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-violence-alqaeda/al-qaedas-two-top-iraq-leaders-killed-in-raid-idU.S.TRE63I3CL20100419

¹⁴ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-death-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi/

¹⁵ See How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns

¹⁶ AQI became ISIS in 2007.

¹⁷ See Brian H. Fishman in The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory

¹⁸ This estimate is from retired LTC, Craig Whiteside, cited in # 17.

¹⁹ https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-the-rise-spread-and-fall-the-islamic-state

²⁰ U.S invasion of Iraq in 2003, the subsequent withdrawal in 2011, etc.

²¹ The audio was released in August 2018 before the https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45277322

²² https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/politics/justice-department-al-qaeda-florida-naval-base-shooting.html

²³ https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR—SSCI.pdf

²⁴ Frank Gardner — BBC- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53156096

²⁵ https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/coronavirus-terrorism-justice-department/index.html

²⁶ See Martha Crenshaw, Audrey Kurth Kronin, and others.

After Almost Twenty Years, America’s “War on Terrorism” Resembles Insanity was originally published on Global Security Review.

The decentralization of the ability to disseminate information at scale poses a challenge in the event of national and global security threats and incidents like terrorism, instability in post-conflict states, natural disasters, and public health crises, such as the pandemic we are currently experiencing. In all the examples above, without exception, individuals use social media to share opinions, news, photos, and videos of the incident and its aftermath. First responders and the relevant authorities—whether defense, intelligence, national security, law enforcement, and public health agencies—require accurate information in real-time, and can use social media as a tool for such information to assist in planning and response.

While social media is already widely used by law enforcement and national security agencies as to gather and disseminate information, this author argues there is an essential need to advance the use of social media in the public sector as a source of real-time information to enhance situational awareness, crisis preparedness, and disaster response efforts.

Social media is already utilized in counter-terrorism, criminal investigations, threat forecasting, and information operations. However, social networks can be even further harnessed by public sector agencies as a continuous, real-time source of intelligence, if leveraged appropriately, particularly given that improvements in technology applications mean that any individual with a basic camera-equipped smartphone can serve as a source of on-the-ground information at the epicenter of a significant incident.

Many would argue that continuous, in-depth analysis of social media content infringes on civil liberties and is invasive to the privacy of individuals, yet such an argument exposes a double standard relating to the use of information on social networks by public sector agencies. Many social media users share content publicly, therefore, analysis of publicly-available social media content by public sector agencies wouldn’t be a violation of user privacy. In the Intelligence Community, the use of social networks as a source of intelligence falls into the OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) category.

Regardless, whether used by law enforcement, defense agencies, the intelligence community, or the general public, social media is an immeasurably powerful tool for reaching and connecting people at scale. Relevant social media content and “hashtags” trend around the globe within minutes of a crisis event—such as an act of terrorism, political violence, a natural disaster, or a public health emergency—particularly when an incident rapidly escalates and is unpredictable in nature.

It’s therefore critical that defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, as well as first responders, maintain and have access to continuous monitoring of social media trends as they develop in real-time. In high priority incidents, individuals on the scene are likely to share photographs, videos, and text updates—information of great value in a crisis. Intelligence gathered from real-time analysis of social networks would include, but not be limited to, preliminary assessments of the situation’s complexity and the response required, as well as forecasting future consequences that could arise.

Citizen journalism and “whistleblowing” over social media can also serve as a critical indicator and a warning sign of worsening situations. A recent example of this was Dr. Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who issued a warning in a message shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo on December 30th, 2019 about a “strange new virus,” which is now a pandemic impacting nearly every country in some way. In hindsight, had his post been viewed by intelligence agencies as an early warning sign, many states may have taken stricter measures earlier on to limit the impact of COVID-19.

In addition to systematic social media monitoring, automated text, and sentiment analysis of publicly shared user posts can provide crucial insights into the attitude of the general public and reactions towards an incident. This would further help first responders and security authorities when communicating with the public in an emergency, such as implementing enhanced security screening, border closures, and evacuations. Moreover, automated analysis of social media posts would assist first responders in their response factoring to avoid contributing to a public panic.

Social media in a crisis is a double-edged sword. As a crisis takes hold, a state’s adversaries are likely to take advantage of the situation and unleash a barrage of online disinformation and propaganda through social media channels in an attempt to foment public unrest. Such campaigns, usually initiated with a political agenda in mind to use the general public as unwitting proxy actors, present an additional challenge that further emphasizes the importance of maintaining continuous, real-time monitoring of publicly available user-generated social media content. Such a capability would effectively reinforce the efforts of first responders on-the-ground, and allow for public sector authorities to better mitigate the consequences of malicious disinformation campaigns.

Furthermore, continuous monitoring of social media platforms by a state’s security agencies enables those agencies to anticipate and counter unintentional misinformation. The spread of inaccurate rumors may have an adverse impact on public safety, a possible reason for the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Ghrebreysus, advocated for urgent measures to be taken to mitigate the fallout from the coronavirus “infodemic.”

Social Media’s Role in Disaster Preparedness & Crisis Management was originally published on Global Security Review.

While this undoubtedly is a major victory for the U.S. in the fight against global jihadism, it cannot be overlooked that this decapitation strike does certainly not mean ISIS that is finished. This organization has proved that it can outlast the loss of its leaders; its founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006; his successors, Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, were eliminated in 2010. Following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State has now publicly named his successor: Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.

Consequences of al-Baghdadi’s Death

Valuable intelligence was obtained during the raid. Similarly to the raid during which Osama bin Laden lost his life, through the operation that resulted in al Baghdad’s death, the U.S. forces got to obtain, presumably exceptionally valuable, intelligence. An additional bonus is that two ISIS fighters were captured alive and then taken to Iraq for interrogation. Having been rather close to al-Baghdadi, it is likely they possess some knowledge regarding the organization’s functioning and its network of sleeper cells, whose activation in the context of staging retaliatory attacks is now one of the major concerns of the anti-IS coalition member states.

There’s a risk that ISIS sleeper cells could be activated to execute retaliatory strikes. Many security experts and analysts have warned about the wave of retaliatory strikes that ISIS will carry out to avenge al-Baghdadi’s death. Though such attacks are extremely likely to happen, it may be some time between the killing and the attacks to take place. ISIS is aware that many countries have put their intelligence and security services on high alert because of the fear of retaliatory strikes. To inflict maximum damage and casualties, it is characteristic for groups like ISIS  to wait out increased protection measures and attack once the security provisions are more relaxed. It’s almost certain that retaliatory strikes have  been planned and organized even before al-Baghdadi’s death.

The world’s most wanted terrorist was brought to justice. Killing al-Baghdadi is undoubtedly a success in the fight against ISIS, but some analysts argue that its value is rather symbolic, as it is believed that the Caliph’s control over his organization was rather limited in the recent months. While that may be true, it needs to be remembered it was him who led the organization during days of its glory and territorial conquest, and him who was responsible for the death and suffering of millions of people in the process of creating and running the Caliphate. Even though he might not have had in recent months as much power and control as he used to, he was still the most wanted terrorist in the world.

President Trump has greater justification for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria. Killing al-Baghdadi provided Trump with the ammunition to defend his decision of withdrawing the U.S. troops from Syria. He can justifiably claim that the U.S. is still committed to continuing the fight against ISIS despite the withdrawal and that the American forces are not needed there on the ground to carry out effective operations against the IS. However, it must be considered that Trump’s decision has resulted in a resurgence of ISIS forces as Kurdish forces—who were guarding ISIS fighters—were forced to leave their positions to fight Turkish and Turkey-backed forces as they invaded North-eastern Syria. Reportedly, several hundred ISIS warriors escaped.

Al-Baghdadi’s death does not mean the end of ISIS

Many would want to believe that al Baghdadi’s death means the end of the struggle against ISIS and the end of the threat it has posed. This belief is, however, far from being real. Of course, losing a leader is a considerable blow to any terrorist organization, and severe damage to its image, but it needs to be acknowledged that the internal structure of the Islamic State has not been harmed much with al-Baghdadi killed.

There were people ready to take over al-Baghdadi’s role and indeed, as mentioned before, the IS has already claimed its new caliph to be Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi. Though al-Hashemi is likely to continue the work of al-Baghdadi, it is also unclear how strong his position will be and what will be the ISIS’s affiliates’ reaction to the new Caliph. Overall, however, replacing al-Baghdadi sends a message that despite the losses suffered by the terrorist group, it remains in existence and is continuing operations.

Now That Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is Dead, What Next? was originally published on Global Security Review.

Existing security measures and strategies are incapable of combating the hydra of extremism, foreign espionage, international terrorism, and serious organized crime. Drug trafficking, immigration, and containerized illegal trade, and their detrimental impact on industry and the market economy create further complexities for policymakers and law enforcement agencies.

Exacerbating domestic tensions between communities and the security apparatus has transpired through a range of strategies aimed at countering and reassessing national security threats. CONTEST and other counterterrorism laws have failed to tackle the core issue. This year, the government passed the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act, providing police officers with authorization to stop, question, search, and detain individuals entering the country from abroad. However, a wide range of human trafficking networks both within and outside the U.K. continue to pose significant challenges for British law enforcement agencies.

Britain has been subjected to a series of terrorist attacks for over 18 years. In 2005 and 2009, homegrown extremist groups targeted both government installations and public places in London. In 2013, attacks on mosques in Birmingham generated significant consternation, and in 2014, the Woolwich attack on a British army soldier cast doubt on the government’s credibility and its law enforcement mechanisms. The three attacks of 2017 increased the public’s lack of confidence in the authorities for a variety of reasons; police failed to disrupt terrorist plots, as the law and order situation deteriorated, as the media criticized the government’s lack of a strategic approach to security threats. 

Civil wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq—along with the British military’s involvement in those conflicts—contributed to the deterioration of domestic stability. The threat of extremism and terrorism expanded as radicalized elements who had joined the conflicts in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia, returned to the U.K. with new ideas and ways of thinking. Until 2018, there were more than 25,000 registered extremist and radicalized elements representing a range of sectarian groups in British in towns and cities. However, by any reasonable barometer, the level of security of the United Kingdom in 2017 was inauspicious. That year, terrorists carried out three attacks in which several civilians were killed. 

British police and intelligence agencies are undoubtedly well-trained and competent, but their ranks have dwindled.¹ Over the past two decades, police have been a less visible presence in the streets, relying on technology to provide them with visibility in towns and cities. Since 2005, intelligence collection has been mostly dependent on CCTV, mobile phones, and surveillance technology to deal with threats like foreign espionage and international terrorism. Conversely, in a majority of EU member states, human intelligence accompanied by a technical approach to national security challenges was of great importance. In the U.K.,  changes were proposed to improve the professionalism and competence of police intelligence (National Intelligence Model, Ballistic Intelligence, Special Branch, CID, cyber forces) and counter-espionage programs, but political and bureaucratic stakeholders resisted every reform package.²

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is the only oversight institution designed to improve the competence of the police force, but its efforts went unacknowledged. The commission was established in 2004 to investigate the conduct of police forces.³ On January 8, 2018, the Independent Police Complains Commission was renamed as the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).⁴  The Policing and Crime Act 2019 also introduced some changes in the system, but these changes were not implemented.⁵  The Home Office and the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) remain imperfect with limited capacity for maintaining and conducting oversight over a powerful intelligence infrastructure. Recent reforms notwithstanding, the ISC remains a weak body over which the Prime Minister and government exercise their influence. The editors of The U.K.’s Changing Democracy  noted some aspects of security sector reforms as they pertain to the ISC and surveillance operations: 

“Choreographed evidence sessions between the committee and the service heads suggest an over-cooperative, too close relationship. So too does the past willingness of the committee to very promptly exonerate the GCHQ petabytes the Snowden revelations and the charges of data collection and surveillance exceeding the agency’s remit—a clearance that occurred while the revelations were still emerging. Although the ISC criticized the lack of privacy safeguards in the Investigatory Power Bill, it did not secure major changes in the final act. Security Sector Reforms (SSR) is a complex process. Narrowly defined, it can encompass institutions and organizations established to deal with external and internal threats to the security of the state and its citizens. At a minimum, therefore, the security sector includes military and paramilitary forces, the intelligence services, national and local police services, border, customs, and coast guards. However, it is increasingly understood that SSR is broader than these institutions.”⁶ 

British intelligence agencies supported the U.S.-led War on Terror, arresting civilians and handing them over to the CIA and U.S. military for interrogation. There was some degree of public condemnation over this partnership, but neither Parliament nor political parties were in any position to criticize the security services. On 28 June 2018, the UK Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee’s torture and rendition report was sharply criticized by human right NGOs: “The report is bound to contain some revelations and criticism about the U.K.’s agencies, but even more worrying is what it won’t contain,” said Bellah Sankey, Deputy Director of Reprieve. “The committee only saw what the government allowed it to see, being denied access to individual intelligence agents and could only question senior officers who were not directly involved in alleged torture and rendition,” Sankey continued.⁷

On 03 June 2018, the Guardian reported: “Britain’s spies stand accused of continuing to share intelligence obtained under torture, in breach of official guidance. However, the Daily Mail reported Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakraborti’s anger: “The commissioner’s most recent report reveals a doubling of cases considered under the Consolidated Guidance, compared with the last three years, and an unprecedented number of acknowledged failures to apply the Guidance.”⁸ MPs found that British spies had seen detainees being mistreated at least 13 times and were told by prisoners on 25 other occasions that they were being mistreated. On another 128 occasions, they were told of mistreatment by foreign agencies.⁹ But despite having knowledge of malpractice, British intelligence agencies continued to supply questions for interrogations. The U.K. maintains a robust surveillance apparatus supporting police and security agencies in maintaining law and order.¹⁰ GCHQ—the British signals intelligence agency—operates TEMPORA, a surveillance system designed to identify foreign threats and a competent tool for combating domestic terrorism and radicalization.¹¹

The role of the Interception Communications Commissioner (IoCC) is widely discussed throughout intellectual forums in the U.K. The IoCC’s role, and oversight mandate was seen as controversial and serving to alienate citizens from the state and government. The commissioner claimed that, under Part-1, Chapter-1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000, its role was to provide independent statutory oversight over the lawful interception of communication, and also asserted that it also investigates complaints.¹² Civil society and intellectual groups don’t agree with this assessment. The functions of the Office of Surveillance Commissioners (OSC) are not so different from that of Intelligence Surveillance Commissioner (ISC). The OSC use human intelligence sources under the Police Act of 1997, as well as under Part-11 and Part-111 of the Regulations of Investigatory Power Act of 2000 (RIPA). These institutions help the state to maintain security and stability as well as provide important information to intelligence agencies. Further expanding the functions of the Intelligence Surveillance Commissioner was the Justice and Security Act of 2013.¹³

The introduction of mass surveillance programs by British and European intelligence services prompted a nationwide debate on the rights of civilians to be protected from illegitimate or warrantless collection, and analysis of their data and metadata.¹⁴ British newspapers and human rights forums published numerous reports, in which experts expressed concerns about the diminishing privacy of citizens. However, the growing concern of citizens about the right of their privacy has also been reported in print and electronic media, but their voice was never heard.

Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook continue to violate the rights of their users. They operate like intelligence agencies, collecting and noting every aspect of a user’s interactions and conversations.¹⁵ “Don’t Spy on US,” a coalition of organizations released a policy paper in September 2014 highlighting surveillance and intelligence operations and their impact on the privacy of citizens in the EU and U.K.: “In summer 2013 it was revealed that GCHQ was routinely intercepting submarine fiber-optic cables containing private communication of millions of British residents (the ‘TEMPORA’ program). The reported scale of the interception is staggering: each day, GCHQ accesses some 21 petabytes of data—the equivalent of downloading the entire British Library 192 times.”¹⁶

TEMPORA¹⁷ is a surveillance tool used by Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ). TEMPORA intercepts communications—collecting information from fiber-optic cables.¹⁸ The system is able to access the data of large amounts of internet users, including personal data, regardless of individual suspicion or targeting. Edward Snowden noted in 2016 that TEMPORA maintains two principal components: Mastering the Internet (MTI) and Global Telecoms Exploitation (GTE).¹⁹

Some intelligence experts argue that GCHQ is more effective at mass-surveillance than the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) because TEMPORA has access to all telephone and internet communications—including Facebook and email—across Europe.²⁰ TEMPORA is comprised of different components codenamed POKERFACE and the XKEYSCORE. In a 2016 television interview, Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA and GCHQ were using a new surveillance system called MUSCULAR, one of at least four other similar programs that rely on a trusted second party. The programs together are known as WINDSTOP. According to newspaper reports, over a 30-day period from December 2012 to January 2013, MUSCULAR collected 181 million records, while INCENSER, another WINDSTOP program, collected over 14 billion records over the same period. MUSCULAR can collect information without needing warrants, and also supports the NSA’s PINWALE data collection system.²¹

On July 1, 2015, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which investigates complaints of unlawful contact by the UK intelligence agencies, notified Amnesty International that the British government agencies had spied on the organization by intercepting, accessing and storing its communications.²² The IPT previously identified one of two NGOs which it found had been subjected to unlawful surveillance by the U.K. government as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) when it should have been identified as Amnesty International.²³ The other NGO which was spied on was the Legal Resources Center in South Africa.²⁴ The Investigatory Powers Tribunal said that until December 2014, GCHQ failed to provide clear enough details of how it shared data collected from mass internet surveillance. It was the IPT’s first ruling against an intelligence agency in its fifteen-year history.²⁵

The inquiry was prompted by the revelations from information leaked by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden.²⁶ The committee concluded that there was no bulk surveillance and gave a lengthy defense on it: “We have established that bulk interception cannot be used to search for and examine the communications of an individual in the U.K. unless GCHQ first obtain a specific authorization naming that individual, signed by a secretary of state.”²⁷ At the time, the government was attempting to restore control orders,²⁸ but the very concept of control orders had already failed.²⁹ Unless extremist returnees are de-radicalized at the community level, no control order can prevent them from joining the ISIS terrorist network. 

Moreover, Britain faces the threat of cyber terrorism.³⁰ While GCHQ is a top-notch intelligence agency, the U.K. is unable to counter the threat of Chinese or Russian cyber attacks unless it increases the recruitment of young information warriors.³¹ Russia maintains strong cyber forces that make use of technology the U.K. doesn’t have. The U.K. Cyber Security Strategy (2011) noted cyber threats were coming from other states that seek to conduct espionage to spy on or compromise the British government, military, industrial, and economic assets, as well as monitoring opponents of their own regimes.³² Moreover, cyber-attacks that cause environmental and financial damage will carry a 14-year prison sentence.³³ Ironically, U.K. authorities have failed to arrest a single cyber-terrorist thus far, while professional hackers continue to establish their networks in the U.K. and target state institutions with impunity.³⁴ The U.K. faces a new form of intelligence war in which its institutions are attacked from a safe distance.

Notes and references

[1] Intelligence in Vex: The EU and UK intelligence agencies are in a state of fret. Musa Khan Jalalzai. Vij Publishing, India, 2018

[2] Ibid

[3] The Independent Police Complaints Commission, https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/independent-police-complaint-commission

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] The UK’s Changing Democracy: The 2018 Democratic Audit, edited by: Patrick Dunleavy, Alice Park, and Ros Taylor. LSE Press, 2018

[7] On 28 June 2018, the UK Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee released the torture and rendition report.

[8] Daily Mail, 03 June 2018, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5800457/British-spies-accused-sharing-intelligence-obtained-torture.html

[9] The Independent, 28 June 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-torture-rendition-detainees-treatment-isc-mi5-mi6-911-war-terror-a8421856.html

[10] Intelligence in Vex: The EU and UK intelligence agencies are in a state of fret. Musa Khan Jalalzai. Vij Publishing, India, 2018

[11] Ibid

[12] Interception of communication Code of Practice Pursuant to section 71 of the ROPA Act 2000, Interception of Communications Code of Practice Pursuant to section 71 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 February 2015

[13] Ibid

[14] Intelligence in Vex: The EU and UK intelligence agencies are in a state of fret. Musa Khan Jalalzai. Vij Publishing, India, 2018

[15] Ibid

[16] Ibid

[17] Reforming Surveillance in the UK, The Don’t Spy on US campaign of various organizations that defend privacy report, September 2014, https://www.dontspyonus.org.uk/assets/files/pdfs/reports/DSOU_Reforming_surveillance.pdf

[18] Ibid

[19] Ibid; NSA Report: Liberty and Security in a Changing World, The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, Richard A. Clarke, Michael J. Morell, Geoffrey R. Stone, Cass R. Sunstein, Peter Swire, Princeton University Press, 31 Mar 2014

[20] Intelligence in Vex: The EU and UK intelligence agencies are in a state of fret. Musa Khan Jalalzai. Vij Publishing, India, 2018

[21] Ibid

[22] Press release of Privacy International: UK intelligence agencies admits unlawfully spying on Privacy International, 25 September 2018, https://privacyinternational.org/press-release/2283/press-release-uk-intelligence-agency-admits-unlawfully-spying-privacy

[23] Ibid

[24] Ibid

[25] Ibid

[26] Fact Sheet: Investigatory Power, HO News Team 17 June 2019, https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/06/17/fact-sheet-what-are-investigatory-powers/. Securing the Insecure States in Britain and Europe. Musa Khan Jalalzai, Algora new York, 2017

[27] Ibid

[28] On February 16, 2015, The Guardian reported that a man from Liverpool had been charged with attempting to obtain a chemical weapon.

[29] Daily Times, 12 September 2014

[30] Ibid, Policy Paper, 04 December 2013

[31] Amnesty International, 03 July 2015 

[32] BBC, 06 February, 2015

[33] The inquiry was prompted by the revelations from documents leaked by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden, The Guardian, 12 March 2015

[34] Ibid

Britain’s Changing Security Perceptions was originally published on Global Security Review.

The risk of extremism and consistent alienation of citizens in European countries have both expanded and diversified. Some European Union member states in the EU require security sector reforms and the replacement of old communist security and intelligence infrastructure to tackle the hydra of radicalization and extremism.

The British state has abruptly clattered down to “earth with a very hefty collision, thanks to the Brexit hydra.”¹ The country is in a profound social and financial crisis—its machinery and security infrastructure are operating on a long-established streak. Security sector reforms are needed to make the system professionalize and competent. Mr. Tom Winsor’s police reform paper and the inquiry report into the Justice system both stressed the need for professionalization of police and law enforcement agencies, but no practical implementation has occurred.

The British state is in trouble and is sliding into the unholy-mess of Brexit, and its future is going to become gloomy outside Europe due to its economic and political confrontation with the EU.² The culture of racism, hatred, social, and political discrimination intensified after the 2016 Brexit referendum.³ Second, the Brexit crisis has become a permanent headache of government and civil society, which is going to damage the special relationship between the U.K. and the United States. The 2019 leak of a U.K. National Security Council meeting, in which cooperation on 5G infrastructure with Huawei—a Chinese technology company that is alleged to have close ties with the Chinese Communist Party’s armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army—was viewed by security experts as a matter of grave concern. If the company is permitted to operate with free-reign in the U.K., the country’s relationship and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. will be deeply affected.⁴

British civil society and the country’s intelligentsia are, in large part, opposed to Brexit, citing Britain’s century-long relationship with the continent. On February 13, 2019, the Guardian newspaper reported the concerns of more than forty former Ambassadors and High Commissioners about the entanglement of Brexit and its ramifications. In a written letter to the Prime Minister May, they warned that “British influence in the world will wane if the country leaves Europe’s trading and foreign policy bloc”.⁵

These all-embracing developments forced British Intelligence Chiefs to explain the importance of Britain’s intelligence sharing and security cooperation with the EU. On 20 June 2018, in a speech in Brussels, GCHQ Chief Jeremy Fleming’s statement was evident from his irritation about the dilapidating security crisis. He firmly demanded intelligence cooperation with the EU allies. In his speech, Fleming said; “After Brexit, the UK will continue to work with the EU. Fleming stated.⁶ On 14 May 2018, Chief of MI5, Mr. Andrew Parker consistently demanded cooperation with the EU intelligence agencies: “In today’s world, we need that shared strength more than ever. I can say confidently that the way we work together has prevented loss of life in the EU.”⁷ These statements were clear signs of irritation.⁸ 

The Prime Minister did not bring to bear the concerns of intelligence Chiefs about the consequences of Brexit. In the aftermath of these critiques, the government introduced the National Security Capability Review (2018),⁹ to tackle national security challenges, but the growing influence of extremist forces across the country¹⁰, cast doubt on the credibility and highlighted the weak approach of the May government to national security. The first major strategic failure of the review is that it did not elucidate the security road-map: “This lack of strategic clarity has been highlighted by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS), the main parliamentary body scrutinizing its implementation.”¹¹ The country’s National Security Strategy also missed the boat to keep momentum with emerging threats and didn’t adequately respond to the exponentially growing threat of radicalization.¹² 

In its 04 June 2018 version, the U.K. Counter-Terrorism Strategy highlighted many vulnerabilities, citing the proliferation of jihadism, and a growing number of terror networks across the country, which prompted negative perceptions about its operational effectiveness, and popularity.¹³, However, several new amendments were added to the National Security Strategy, Strategic Defense and Security Review, and Cyber Security Strategy, to make effective law enforcement and intelligence infrastructure against radicalized forces, lone wolves and foreign espionage, but these amendments are not a proper panacea to the looming security crisis—more work is needed to make police and security agencies effective.¹⁴ 

From January to June 2019, more than 100 people in England were killed, and 100 more were injured in different incidents, but the police and law enforcement agencies have no security plan to address the concerns of communities. Interestingly, no single Muslim was found behind these attacks, while British Home Secretary Sajid Javed shamelessly linked terrorism to Islam. His recent verboseness against Islam appeared in a recent report of Christian Today newspaper: “Islam has been responsible for terrorist attacks in Britain…….“it is ‘lazy’ and ‘wrong’ to suggest terror has nothing to do with Islam. But I think it is absolutely fair to say that there is a special burden on Muslim Communities because whether we like or not these terrorists call themselves Muslims, the newspaper reported.¹⁵ The Home Secretary acted irresponsibly and did not take into account the concerns of Muslim communities.

Adding insult to injury is the country’s Snoopers Charter Surveillance (SCS) and the government’s war on civilian privacy. Liberty, a British human rights organization recently highlighted the powers of the Snoopers Charter Surveillance and data collection methods that were causing communities irksomeness: “When the U.K. government passed a law allowing the mass collection of data from all U.K. citizens…..The Investigatory Power Act, more popularly known as the ‘Snoopers’ Charter,’ allow for the indiscriminate collection of data”.¹⁶ The police has now practically started using the Snooper Charter Surveillance on a borough-level to monitor communities and their activities day-by-day.  

Recently, Liberty and Privacy International called on local communities to report the negative impacts of this consternating and offensive surveillance of local policing authorities, to the Police and Crime Commissioner. The way local police stations using modern surveillance technologies in streets and markets have put our privacy at risk. From car surveillance to mobile phone and drone technologies, the police forces have an unparalleled view into the lives of ordinary British citizens.

Individual liberty and human rights groups recently warned that excessive and offensive use of surveillance tools by the police might alienate communities from the state and government: “From facial recognition in streets to monitoring social media and mobile phones, the police are not open and honest about what tech they use, where they use it, who they use it against and what laws allow them to do so. However, surveillance tech is being used without the public knowledge or consent, on the ground that 95% percent civilians know nothing about the evolving and changing operational mechanism of police surveillance in cities, towns, and streets”.¹⁷

More worrisome is the unauthorized surveillance in which South Asian intelligence agencies are using their spies against their political opponents. They are cruising in cities and towns with impunity, and receive their salaries through a third person, or from their embassies.

This author has personally experienced eaves-dropping many times in high streets and shopping plazas in London.¹⁸ Foreign terrorist fighters present a significant threat to the national security and critical infrastructure of the country. Since 2014, we have seen large numbers of radicalized individuals traveling to Iraq and Syria, while Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), and Intelligence and Security Committee are showing their performance on papers in their annual reports. In reality, the state’s response has been feeble since the emergence of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.¹⁹ Intelligence wars between foreign entities on British soil is making thing worse. The security relationship with the EU community remains in flux, while internal political disagreement and deteriorating law and order are prompting a brain drain within civil society and intellectual forums.²⁰ 

EU resentment towards the U.K. raises several concerns—particularly the attitudes of France and Germany. In a knee-jerk reaction to U.K. electronic surveillance operations on its soil, Germany immediately canceled a Cold-War era agreement with U.K.²¹ In 2013, Germany, France, and Spain summoned U.K. Ambassadors to explain the country’s motive behind its intelligence collection practices. To distract from this and in an effort to disguise its own weaknesses, the British government published a security document, underlining the threat of 20 foreign intelligence agencies to the U.K.²² This was to prove that Germany and France were also spying on Britain.²³ 

British counter-extremism and counter-intelligence capabilities are broken. British law enforcement agencies face a multifaceted crisis, including the lack of a common operational mechanism, and a lackluster technical approach to domestic security.²⁴ The U.K. National Security Council also lacks the professional capacity to implement policy properly. Since the U.K. voted to leave the EU in 2016; huge questions surrounding its place in the international community were left unanswered. Prime Minister Theresa May sacked her Defense Minister, Gavin Williamson over the leaks of security secrets of the discussion of National Security Council about the Chinese Huawei crisis. This act of the Prime Minister proved that many things were not going in the right direction within her government.²⁵ Iinar research paper underlining crucial aspects of the NSC and its significance to national security, Institute for Government research associates Dr. Joe Devanny and Josh Harris assert that:

“The NSC is a relatively new committee, but it is only the latest iteration of over a century of Prime-Ministerial efforts to coordinate national security issues from the center. To date, there have been few sustained attempts to examine the NSC and its performance. Four and a half years on different Prime Ministers choose to approach the issue, structure, and appointment of senior advisors in different ways. It is important that the center of government can accommodate each Prime Minister’s preferred way of working. Few Prime Ministers now take office with much experience of National Security issues, and National Security coordination is rarely a key them in general election campaign. But no Prime Minister needs to reinvent the wheel once in office; their predecessors have grappled with similar problems of coordination for over a century.”²⁶

There are a number of national security and law enforcement agencies performing different stabilization roles in the country. However, if one examines their cycle of information, analysis, and operational mechanism, one can conclude that, without the introduction of meaningful security sector reforms, they will be unable to respond to looming national security challenges.²⁷

[1] Britain’s Brexit Armageddon, Tyler Durden, 15 May 2019

[2] Intelligence in Vex, Musa Khan Jalalzai, introduction pages 

[3] Whether it’s Brexit or Bremain, the UK is in long-term economic decline, David Brown, South China Morning Post, 28 May 2018 https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3012428/uk-leadership-race-can-hong-kong-born-rory-stewart-beat-us-born 

[4] The decline and fall of Britain, Brian Cloughley, 09 December 2016 https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/09/the-decline-and-fall-of-britain/, and also, Brexit Is Killing the Special Relationship: Britain’s partnership with the United States always depended on its usefulness—and that’s starting to fall off a cliff. BY STEPHEN PADUANO, Foreign Policy MAY 2, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/02/brexit-is-killing-the-special-relationship/

[5] National Security Capability Review another missed opportunity? Celia Mckeon Open Democracy 23 March 2018    

[6] National Security Capability Review: A changing security environment: Government response to the committee’s first report, 2017-19

[7] Intelligence in Vex, Musa Khan Jalalzai, introduction pages

[8] Brexit, BBC News, 20 June 2018. 

[9] Sajid Javed: What has the new home secretary said about faith? Harry Farley, Christian Today, 30 April 2018

[10] Intelligence in Vex, Musa Khan Jalalzai.

[11] Guardian newspaper, 13 May 2018

[12] BBC 24 June 2016

[13] National Security Capability Review, March 2018

[14] The Guardian newspaper 04 November 2015

[15] Fixing the EU intelligence Crisis, Musa Khan Jalalzai, New York, 2017

[16] Stand up to police spying, Liberty and Human Organization, https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/stand-police-spying

[17] Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report 2017-18, January 2019, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/776111/Intelligence_and_Security_Committee_Annual_Report

[18] The National Security Council: National Security at the center of government, Dr. Joe Devanny, Josh Harris, Institute for Government report.

[19] The Guardian Newspaper, 11 October 2017

[20] BBC, 28 April 2018

[21] Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), BBC, 05 November 2015

[22] Intelligence in Vex. Musa Khan Jalalzai, VIJ Publishing, India, 2018

[23] Intelligence in Vex, Musa Khan Jalalzai.

[24] Ibid

[25] Ibid

[26] BBC, 01 May 2019

[27] The National Security Council: National Security at the center of government, Dr. Joe Devanny, Josh Harris, Institute for Government report. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/NSC%20final_0.pdf

The Shifting Dynamics of Britain’s National Security Threats was originally published on Global Security Review.

NPA tactics of dispersal, concentration, and shifting can be viewed from two perspectives: in line with their activities or ideological, political, and organizational (IPO) efforts as well as about that of the enemy, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). To conduct extortion and other malign activities, NPA territorial platoons break up into squads to cover the area of the platoon within the guerrilla zone (GZ) with each squad having an assigned number of 10 barrios at an average.

The SDG (Sentro de Grabidad, which serves as a “rallying point of all other NPA units engaged in military or mass works in the guerrilla front”) disperses with its squads only deployed in a shorter distance from a relative center conducting the same activities. Both platoons consolidate during conferences, training, and assessment exercises. Shifting is done when a platoon transfers to a different area within the same guerrilla front (GF) or to a different front to participate in a new mission or for a more specific reason, like augmenting the forces of the neighboring GF.

The NPA has also been externally linked with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) where financial aid is being used to entice both members of the Lumad ethnicity and others to dig in. Yunit Milisyang Bayan (MBs), a highly acclaimed foothold of NPA, has driven a lot of Lumads to take part in the revolution from the ground. As an organized group, they are being armed by NPA themselves to become rogue members of NPA units. For instance, Surigao’s ALCADEV (Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural Development) secures foreign funding from Europe for a hidden agenda—instilling the belief that the government cannot help them, the only groups that can are CPP cadres disguised as teachers, management committees, and even politicians. As usual, with the support of legal fronts, the issue of confronting this will die down in the process because of the protection and bias of various interest groups in favor with NPA. Legal fronts are composed of the following: the Makabayan bloc—Bayan, Anakbayan, Karapatan, Anakpawis, Act Teachers, Gabriela, and all other related groups.

In the aftermath of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte‘s 2017 State of the Nation Address (SONA), the CPP-NPA exploited the President’s controversial statement that Lumad schools were being run and manipulated by CPP-NPA. According to Armed Forces of the Philippines ‘official website, the CPP-NPA employed an institutionalized self-imposed ‘Taktikang Bakwit’ as a well-versed orchestra of rhetoric directed at the President. Conversely, the Kalumbay Lumad Alliance in Northern Mindanao led by Datu Jomorito Goaynon involved itself the investigation of alleged abuses and violations allegedly committed by army troops under 4ID and the PNP as well in Bukidnon, Surigao, and Agusan Provinces August 15, 2017.

According to a 2017 report by Luke Lischin, sixty-four percent of recorded incidents were armed assaults involving the exchange of small arms fire (at a minimum) between the NPA and other actors, 19 percent were attacks on facilities or infrastructure such as mining sites, plantations, and vehicles, while the remaining incidents entailed abductions, arrests, and assassinations/executions.

Further, the CPP-NPA has also initiated a socio-politico strategy of linkage. The Save Our Schools Network (SOS Network) is essentially an extension of the communist party working to subversively influence target populations by using powerful institutions and personalities in their disinformation operations, masked by the appearance of charitable work. This influence campaign supports the efforts of militants, which routinely violate the CARHRIHL (Comprehensive Agreement for the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law).

In part, the rejection of activism as a concept stems from a belief that a sufficient amount of change has already been made. In connection therewith, many lives of promising students recruited into the organization ended too soon and too tragically because they crossed the path to armed struggle. We can see that rebel life was being romanticized by insurgents, adding that in truth, it was a portal to a life of suffering, violence, and crime. Thus, activism and membership in specific organizations could lead to a violent fate. This way of thinking emerges when people frame the righting of great historical wrongs as concessions that one group has personally made, in largesse bestowed in some ongoing negotiation (i.e., peace talks) for which there must be a quid pro quo.

In assessing prominent Communist politicians in government and their prospects for gaining power in a legislative manner, particularly now that national elections are nearing, one could arguably make the case that it would take years to accomplish such a goal. The CPP’s aim has always been to overthrow any individual in a leadership position. Such actions were initiated by during the administrations of three former Presidents—Joseph Ejercito Estrada, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

The CPP-NPA successfully ousted former President Estrada in January 2001 through the Erap Resign Movement but failed to oust both Presidents Gloria Arroyo and Noynoy Aquino through their Oust Arroyo campaign in 2006, and Kilusang Talsik in 2013. The CPP-NPA is currently engaged in the Oust Duterte Movement under a “Grand Coalition,” and are also working on other anti-Duterte initiatives—the Coalition For Justice (CFJ) and the Tindig Pilipinas.

The Coalition For Justice (CFJ) is composed of a group of judges led by former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, the Evangelical Church led by Pastor Caloy Dino, and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) with Attorney Susan Villanueva as the lead personalities. Meanwhile, Tindig Pilipinas is composed of the rejectionist (RJ) group, Liberal Party and Magdalo Group with Senator Antonio Trillanes, Congressman Gary C Alejano (who campaigned for a Senate seat), Aleta Tolentino, and Ricky Garchitorena as the lead personalities.

Moreover, now that the national election will happen in the same month when Marawi Siege erupted despite its liberation from the hands of Maute-ISIS inspired terrorists, rumors, hearsays, and atrocious commentaries have been circulating to dissuade the people from believing Government’s efforts regarding Marawi rehabilitation. Recently, members of the House Makabayan bloc filed a Resolution 1973 seeking an investigation into the human rights situation and the status of reconstruction in the Islamic City of Marawi.

The resolution was spearheaded by ACT-Teachers  Reps. Antonio Tinio and Frances Castro, Gabriela Reps. Emmi de Jesus and Arlene Brosas, Bayan Muna Rep.  Carlos   Zarate,  Anakpawis  Rep.  Ariel  Casilao,   and   Kabataan Rep. Sarah Elago specifically asked the House committees on human rights and Muslim affairs to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on reports of human rights violations in Marawi and   other   grave   concerns   of   the   local   people   on   the   government’s   post-siege rehabilitation   plans   in   Marawi.   Meanwhile,   Amnesty   International,   in its report on November 2017 said that the Philippine security forces violated the prohibition on the use of torture and other ill-treatment of people in their custody, adding that most of the violations were carried out against civilians who were escaping from the besieged lakeside town and seeking military protection.

In one case, Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate cited an alleged Armed Forces of the Philippine’s (AFP) anomaly wherein the P192.5  million Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (PAMANA) program in Maguindanao is unconstitutional and promoted corruption. Zarate, as is his style, jumped on the bandwagon of Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza’s recent statement that he decided to return the extra amount in exchange for a newer version of the budget resolution to be used for allocating funds going forward. They argued that the Peace Talks are a worn-out psychological warfare tactic designed to project victory while concealing the continuing failure of the AFP to suppress the popular resistance and stem the steady growth of the NPA.

Meanwhile, last year, the CPP trade union campaign was developed by the National Organization Department (NOD)—specifically the National Trade Union Bureau (NTUB)—with former DOLE Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod serving as a critical player. When PRRD declared his intentions to stop the practice of ENDO—the so-called “labor contractualization,” Secretary Bebot Bello and Undersecretary Maglunsod collaborated in coming up with the Department Order 174, which imposed workers regulations. Maglunsod, an active member of the CPP operating inside DOLE, led the national audit and inspection of all labor force situation in big companies and industries, with the dubious participation of a known CPP legal organization, the KMU.

Currently, the CPP-NPA also co-opts the grievances of Marawi residents with grave concerns and frustrations over the lack of a clear and comprehensive rehabilitation plan for internally  displaced   persons, a lack of recognition and   accountability over intelligence failures on the part of the government, inability to stem the flow of terrorist groups into Marawi, an absence of any government statement or commitment to indemnify lost lives or provide compensation for damaged property, no assurance of assistance in rebuilding damaged or destroyed mosques and madrasahs, and the apparent absence of a clear government plan for lifting martial law in Mindanao.

The CPP’s rhetoric advances their interests to position the party at all levels of the political hierarchy—from the individual level to party-list representatives. This strategy is designed to counter the government’s initiatives on charter reform and federalism. Thus, the CPP-NPA are wary over the potential to reform the country’s system of government to a more federalist structure, as this will abolish the Party-list system, which would severely affect the entire organization. This was validated by José María Canlás Sison’s statement citing that “federalism is meant to concentrate executive, legislative, and judicial powers in the hands of Duterte.”

Externally, the European Union’s funding for Communist Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), along with UN Special Rapporteur for the Indigenous People (UNSRIP) and similar EU agencies, reveal that the CPP-NPA has successfully established international alliances through front organizations—purportedly to address social ills afflicting Filipino society.

Through its International Department, infiltrating the UN and engaging the EU through “Lakbay Lumad Europe,” to achieve the eventual revival of the People’s Permanent Tribunal, the CPP-NPA intends to humiliate the Duterte administration in international arena purposely to reinforce the initiative of delegitimizing the President on the international stage. According to CNN Philippines, the CPP-NPA is on EU’s list of terrorist organizations, yet the government’s motion to label communist rebels as terrorists is still pending before a local court.

Among the listed Philippine NGOs were the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV); IBON Foundation; Karapatan; Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation, Inc.; the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines; the Salugpungan Ta’tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center, Inc.; the Alliance of Health Workers; the Kilusang Mayo Uno; Gabriela; and ACT. Meanwhile, the ALCADEV and Salugpungan are identified as CPP-NPA alternative learning centers and schools.

In response, the National Security Adviser and Vice Chairman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTFELCAC) Hermogenes Esperon formally wrote to the European Union (EU) to “immediately cease” funding to groups serving as legal fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army. In a letter to Gilles De Kerchove, EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, dated March 26, Esperon said EU funds are being used to sustain terrorist activities of the longest-lasting existing communist terrorist organization in the world—the CPP-NPA—which is listed as a terrorist group by both the United States and the EU.

On March 28, 2019, the EU received a set of documents concerning the more specific allegations by the Government. As a result, the EU issued a Press Statement stating that “since 2005 the EU considers the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army as terrorist groups, which means, among other things, that no assets can be held in EU by these organizations.”

The European Union’s commitment investigate the government’s allegations that EU funds have been donated to groups acting as legal fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing New People’s Army (NPA) is clear, as outlined in the statement. In April, it was announced that an external firm would be auditing EU grants to non-government organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines that were allegedly funneled to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA). The EU did not just commit to looking into the voluminous documents the NTF (National Task Force) has submitted; it also committed to enlisting a third-party firm to audit the funds they donated to NGOs reported having links with the CPP-NPA.

CPP-NPA and the Duterte Administration: Realpolitik in Insurgency and Terrorism was originally published on Global Security Review.

Five decades of insurgency and terrorism in the Philippines has presented a socio-political dilemma for both the government and the general public. From the perspective of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, New People’s Army (NPA), the platform espoused by the Duterte administration’s tagline of “change is coming” has been not realized until now. The NPA’s actions of late reveal a presumption of justification of its violent struggle, as protracted infighting within its ranks draws increased attention from the authorities and society at-large.

The government’s over-arching strategy is to prevent communist rebels from committing atrocities and acts of violence going forward. Increased engagement on the part of the government highlights the policy guidance of President Rodrigo Duterte, amidst conflicting internal and external factors as well as joint cooperative operations (i.e., AFP-DND’s DSSP Kapayapaan 2017 and an audit request to the European Union over the alleged funding of communist NGOs).

Even after the fiftieth anniversary of Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on December 26, 2018, there are two compelling and competing dilemmas in Philippine political climate that may or may not come to a head until the end of this year. The first is a continued push for charter change (CHA-CHA), vis-a-vis legal reformation, and a restructuring of the political system (i.e., Federalism). The second is finding a resolution over the insurgent and terrorist activities of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) through the resumption of peace talks.

The current negotiations, to date, are the longest–running peace talks since the CPP-NPA began its armed struggle. After years of guerrilla warfare, disinformation, and a strategy which is heavily influenced by communism and radical left-leaning ideology, the NPA’s seemingly newfound use of terror tactics attempts to sway the minds of many to favor the group’s cause, as well as to drive recruitment to boost its numbers.

Between January 16 and February 1, 2017—six months after Duterte was inaugurated as president—the NPA was involved in fifteen incidents, nine of which occurred on January 30. Around the same time, talks between the NDFP and GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) proceeded in Rome from January 19-25, which involved discussion of the implementation of the NDFP’s socioeconomic reform program. Though the talks were considered productive by all parties, it resulted in few concessions by either side. In particular, the GRP maintained its refusal to release 392 NDFP prisoners from custody until the issue of amnesty was fleshed out.

On January 30, 2017, the NPA broke a ceasefire with simultaneous assaults in Mati, Surigao Del Norte, Valencia City, Bukidnon, Pag-asa, Lebe, Sarangani, Union, Compostella Valley, San Isidro, Mahayahay, Hinambangan, Kitcharao, and Agusan Del Norte. Subsequently, on February 1, the NPA unilaterally called off its ceasefire, citing the failure of the GRP to release their political prisoners and generally abide by the terms of the ceasefire. In response, on February 3, Duterte withdrew the GRP from its ceasefire in response. In May 2017, President Duterte suspended peace talks with the NDFP, accusing communist rebels of attacking government forces while engaging in negotiations. Months later, on November 23, 2017, President Duterte signed Proclamation No. 360 that formally terminated the talks. Eleven days later, he issued Proclamation No. 374, declaring the CPP and the NPA to be terrorist organizations.

To counter the Duterte administration’s moves, CPP had a Second International Conference on the Indigenous Peoples in Metro Manila (July 2018). This conference intended to portray the Filipino government as having committed human rights violations. The UN High Commission and European Union acted as third-party assessors for the conference.

Despite its substantial experience with running counter-insurgency campaigns over fifty years, the Philippines remains plagued with insurgent groups. After launching numerous assaults based on purportedly effective methodologies and sound concepts, why is the government unable to defeat the CPP-NPA? Such questions that continue to linger in the minds of not only those in government but of the general public, as well.

The CPP-NPA Theater of Power

An analysis of the works of Jose Maria Sison (JOMA)—such as the Rectify Errors, Rebuild the Party! (1968), Our Urgent Tasks (between 1969 and 1975), and Specific Characteristics of our People’s War (1971)—reveals that the main difference between the new communist party founded by JOMA in 1968 to that of its precursor, the old communist party of the Lavas’ and Taruc is the former’s emphasis on the importance of a sound mass base. The works above also provide for the phasing and general direction of the revolution which calls for the adoption of stages in the development of revolution through a protracted war of encircling the cities from the countryside and by concentrating first on building a strong base and a peasant army.

Based on the said works of JOMA, the old party pushed for the immediate overthrow of the “reactionary” government by directly confronting the military. Without a stable base to launch its offensive, the former party became vulnerable to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) counter-offensive. Learning from this mistake, the new Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) of JOMA and its armed wing, the New Peoples Army (NPA) established Guerrilla Fronts (GFs) all throughout the Philippine archipelago to spread out the AFP and dissipate it away from the seat of national government in Metro Manila purposely to provide initiative and flexibility to the Party and the Army.

The CPP-NPA document Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and Carry the Revolution Forward! (1991) reveals that an ideological split in the early 1990s among the CPP-NPA’s top leaders over the general direction that the revolution shall follow resulted in a divide between the “Rejectionist” (anti-Sison) bloc and the “Reaffirmist” (pro-Sison) bloc. The “Reaffirmists” accused the “Rejectionists” of leftist adventurism and rightist opportunism that undermined the revolution. The leftist adventurists departed from the protracted war concept and pushed the revolution into the urban centers, while the rightist opportunists espoused legal and parliamentary participation as the primary means of struggle relegating the armed struggle to the backdrop.

The document, together with other CPP-NPA published documents, also called for the implementation of the “back to basics” program to correct deviations and repudiate in particular the strategic counter-offensive (SCO) concept of the “leftist adventurists.” The SCO concept had resulted in large NPA formations decimated by the AFP. Also mentioned in the document is the assertion made by JOMA that the strength of the NPA is still in no match to the AFP. He directed to break down the NPA military formations back into platoons and squads and intensify mass works to recover the lost mass base left unchecked and regained by the AFP. JOMA pointed out that the continued decline of the party’s base would isolate both the party and army, as happened to the old CPP.

An analysis of the CPP-NPA documents previously mentioned as well as to other CPP-NPA Anniversary Statements published over the past two decades would disclose that the “back to basics” program of the 1990s was designed to alter the NPA development from vertical to horizontal in order to enable the NPA platoons and squads to cover a wider area and build as many GFs as possible, necessary for the survival of the Party and the Army.

In terms of ongoing counter-insurgency methodologies, the AFP has come up with Internal Security Operations (ISO) concepts and methods to address the internal security threats. One of these is the triad concept of Civil-Military Operations (CMO), Intelligence, and Combat Operations. There has been much debate over the years as to which triad component shall prevail over the rest.

The Philippine government grappled for the right solution to the country’s communist insurgency problem, while the AFP—with a mandate to conduct ISOs—initiated several campaigns to address this primary threat to the country’s internal peace and security, with little success. The ascent to the presidency by the then Senator Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III in the 2010 national election through an overwhelming victory gave hope for a speedy resolution of armed conflicts in the country.

The Aquino administration promoted the peace process as the centerpiece of its internal security program anchored on the overarching concept of “Unified Action,” a holistic approach which emphasizes that “the AFP will focus on the military dimension, while it will be supporting and/or assisting other government agencies in the economic and political dimensions” of insurgency (AFP Strategic Intent, p. 12). As regards to ISOs, “a grand plan in dealing with internal threats, including the non-traditional actors, had been laid out through the Internal Peace and Security Plan (IPSP) (Ibid., p.10).” While it is indisputablee that the AFP’s success in all of the aforesaid mission areas is crucial, it cannot also be an overstatement that its success in ISO is as critical as ever, for in order to focus on other mission areas especially in Territorial Defense, the current internal threats must be addressed first and foremost.

Defeating the Philippine’s Communist Rebellion was originally published on Global Security Review.

The terrorist threat is likely to increase as the means and the motivations of states, groups, and people to impose harm diversify. Prolonged conflicts and the info age allow terrorists to recruit and operate on a large scale, demonstrating the evolving nature of the threat.

Terrorism kills fewer people globally than crime or disease, but the potential for new capabilities reaching the hands of people bent on apocalyptic destruction is all too real. This ultimate low-probability, high-impact event underscores the imperative of international cooperation and state attention to the issue.

Terrorists will continue to justify their violence by their very own interpretations of religion, but several underlying drivers are also in play. Within nations, the breakdown of state structures in much of the Middle East carries on to create space for extremists.

The Sunni-Shia Divide Will Fuel Ongoing Sectarianism

The ongoing proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia also is fueling Shia-Sunni sectarianism—with a few militant groups further fracturing over religious differences. Additionally, perceptions of “Western hegemony” remains a potent rallying cry for some groups, mobilized around striking the “far enemy.”

Even though the location of religiously driven terrorism will fluctuate, the rise of violent religious nationalism and the schism between Shia and Sunni are likely to worsen in the short term and may not abate by 2035.

A combination of ideologies such as Salafi-jihadism (like ISIL’s or al-Qaeda’s), in a region undergoing vast and rapid political change—against the backdrop of generations of autocratic government and economic disparities—create an ideological nexus where the likelihood of violence only increases. Militant Christianity and Islam in central Africa, militant Buddhism in Burma, and violent Hindutva in India will all continue to fuel terror and conflict.

Extremists will exploit anger and link perceived injustices with the collective identity of deepening religious affiliation in some areas of the world. Religion will become a more important source of meaning and continuity because of increasing info connectedness, the extent of state weakness in much of the developing world, and the rise of alienation due to the dislocation from traditional work in the industrialized world. Rapid change and conditions of political and economic uncertainty, if not insecurity, will encourage many individuals to embrace ideologies and identities for meaning and continuity.

The vast majority of believers will be peaceful, but those with extreme views will find like-minded followers and vulnerable recruits through info technology. Most world religions—including Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism—have exclusionary aspects of doctrine that may be exploited in this way.

Beyond religion, psychological and social factors will drive individual participation in terrorism, as well as help terrorist groups attract recruits and resources and maintain cohesion. Groups will exploit ethnic and kinship bonds, peer, social or familial networks, as well as a desire for adventure, fame, and belonging, to swell their ranks.

They will also exploit feelings of alienation that are spreading across the world as young people feel increasingly disconnected from the socio-cultural mainstream, that they are unable to take part from the political process, or lacking in certain economic or social advantages.

Advances in information technology—whether with the printing press and Gutenberg Bible in the fifteenth century or with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989—allow religious content to spread widely, in part because religions are ideas that transcend borders and are usually more influential in daily lives than state authority.

Technology may be a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it is going to facilitate communications, recruitment, logistics, and lethality. On the other hand, it is going to provide governments with strategies to identify and describe threats, if their publics let them. Technology will continue to enable non-state actors to mask their action and identity. The use of cyber tools to get down electric systems, for example, has possible mass disruption effects, a few with deadly consequences.

Communication technology also will be critical to non-state actors capability to recruit new members, fund operations, and disseminate messages. Advancements in technology will lower technological barriers to high impact, low likelihood terrorist WMD situations, and enable the proliferation of deadly, conventional weapons to terrorist groups.

Technology will further decentralize terrorist threats. Centrally controlled and hierarchical organizations like Al Qaeda could shift into widespread jihadist militancy, for example. This tendency will pose barriers to counterterrorism efforts and adjust the nature of future terrorist plots and approaches.

Non-State Actors: Terrorist Groups and Insurgencies was originally published on Global Security Review.