Although intelligence has long been vital to counterterrorism, the practice of counterterrorism intelligence has received only limited attention. Because of this gap, scholars and policymakers risk misunderstanding the role, strengths, and weaknesses of counterterrorism intelligence. This chapter helps fill this void. It surveys the roles of intelligence in overseas and domestic counterterrorism and unpacks the most relevant forms of intelligence to counterterrorism collection and analysis, including signals intelligence, liaison relationships, document exploitation, and interrogation. The chapter proceeds to review intelligence analysis, the relationship to policymakers, and common challenges, all of which distinguish counterterrorism intelligence from other forms. It concludes by calling for increased recognition of the unique role of counterterrorism intelligence, including among proponents of reform. Counterterrorism intelligence has been successful in many ways, and consistent resourcing from government and the technology industry, along with increased public awareness of the inevitable shortcomings of counterterrorism intelligence, may help keep it so.

This chapter focuses on eight plausible geopolitical game changers that could reshape the terrorism and counterterrorism landscape. None of these are inevitable, or even necessarily likely, but they are plausible enough that counterterrorism analysts and government officials should consider their implications when designing programs for the future. The game changers include (1) the collapse of another Muslim-majority and a resulting civil war; (2) a more substantial U.S. military withdrawal from the greater Middle East; (3) an increase in terrorism abroad driven by China's mistreatment of its Muslim population and its growing global role; (4) the reemergence of left-wing violence; (5) an increase in Russian sponsorship of terrorism; (6) a rise in Palestinian international terrorism; (7) a contested election in the United States where the leader plays on anti-government fears; and (8) a U.S. military campaign against Iran. Effective counterterrorism will be vital for keeping the danger limited. Policing, intelligence liaison, and other instruments are necessary to disrupt terrorist networks and limit their overall capacity. So too is gaining the support of technology and financial companies as well as civil society to ensure that terrorists cannot easily recruit, communicate, raise money, or gain broader support.

China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are deepening their security cooperation and, as a result, pose a growing challenge to the United States and its allies. These countries see the United States and its allies as a threat, have aggressive aims, and believe that the Western liberal order detracts from their stability and hinders their regional objectives. Although the depth of their relations is not as robust as that enjoyed by their Western rivals, their growing cooperation is a significant development in the global balance of power and has major implications for the West. US and allied planners must recognise that they cannot focus on only one adversary, such as China, and that a crisis in one part of the world is increasingly less likely to stay isolated, as each power may receive weapons, economic support and other assistance from others during a crisis.

Too often the terrorist threat is judged by lives lost, but less quantifiable metrics like political impact and strategic plausibility are also vital for understanding the danger. The history of the modern white supremacist movement in the United States illustrates different dimensions of how terrorism and political violence affect a country. Changing politics led to a devastating U.S. government crackdown on various Klan and like-minded groups in the mid and late 1960s. In the years that followed, violent white supremacist groups decentralized and followed new strategies, and the internet also transformed the movement. As a result, the threat white supremacists pose changed: they no longer enforce a structurally racist political and social system in the South, but they target a wider range of enemies, conduct bloodier attacks, and embrace sedition.

When the fighting ends, Israel and Hamas both may be worse off than when it started. Hamas has inflicted tremendous pain on Israel, stalled its regional normalisation, restored its 'resistance' credentials and, for now, improved its popularity among Palestinians. Yet its military forces and infrastructure are battered, its leadership under siege and its long-term popularity uncertain. Israel has preserved deterrence vis-& agrave;-vis Hizbullah and demonstrated its military value to its new Arab Gulf partners, but it has failed to rescue most of the hostages Hamas took on 7 October 2023, and the humanitarian toll of its brutal campaign has damaged its international reputation. Iran has also gained from the diversion of international attention to Israeli killings of Palestinian civilians. With no plan for the day after in Gaza, Israel may find itself bogged down in a forever war or facing Hamas's eventual return to power. The United States should push Israel to take the steps required to install an alternative Palestinian government in Gaza.

Academic research can inform decision-makers on what actions to take or to avoid to make the world safer, more peaceful, and more equitable. There are many good works on bridging the gap between policymakers and academics but few on how scholars writing in academic journals can influence the policy process. In contrast to most policy-focused research, academic journals have long shelf lives and provide space for scholars to present heavily researched empirical evidence, theories, and analyses. Long, well-researched articles can, over time, shape the broader narrative for how to think about complex issues. Scholars also tend to be more objective and less partisan than policymakers. Despite the potential importance of academic work to the policy debate, many scholars receive little training on why and how to make policy recommendations. To remedy this problem, steps are offered to guide scholars as they begin developing policy recommendations for their articles. These include recognizing the dilemmas that policymakers themselves face, considering the audience before starting to write, identifying and using policy option menus, among others. When crafting recommendations, scholars should consider the long-term implications of their research on current policy as well as recommendations that might lead to more effective approaches. At the same time, scholars should consider the costs and limits of their recommendations.

This article examines the reasons for the rise of the Taliban and the onset of the insurgency in Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion, using counterfactual and path dependence analysis to bolster its arguments. We argue that the U.S. decision to de-Talibanize was a critical juncture, after which the rise of insurgency was far harder to prevent. The total rejection of the Taliban translated into the under-representation of Pashtuns in the Afghan government, delivering power to ethnic minorities at their expense. De-Talibanization led the United States to support strongmen to hunt the Taliban, but they were predatory, creating grievances that the Taliban exploited to recruit. Finally, de-Talibanization led many Taliban to flee to Pakistan, pushing them into the country most opposed to Afghanistan new political order. The lessons of the U.S. experience in Afghanistan suggest the necessity of a strategy for managing defeated enemies after an initial military victory.

This review article examines whether right-wing terrorism in the United States and other countries constitutes a long-lasting “wave” comparable to anarchist, jihadist, and other causes that led to extremist violence. Past waves offer many lessons for understanding, and countering, the current right-wing terrorist surge. The various right-wing movement’s uses of technology, fragmentation into numerous groups and individual actors, and potential sources of decline—especially their regular interactions with law enforcement—all have historical parallels with other terrorism eras from which we can learn. However, the media focus on the current manifestations of right-wing violence obscures the deep historical roots of the movement: its violence is hardly new or otherwise unique to today, and thus it is not realistic to expect it to fade over time as movements like anarchism did a century ago. In addition, the international ties of right-wing groups and figures, while quite real, are less extensive and consequential than those of jihadists and many other groups in the past. Perhaps the most important and most difficult issue is the overlap between extreme right-wing violence and legitimate politics. This is a vulnerability but also a tremendous source of potential power, magnifying the influence of violent extremists and making counterterrorism more difficult. Resourcing the fight against far-right violence is vital, as is harnessing the power of technology companies. Finally and most difficult, the political dynamics must change, with politicians of all stripes condemning the violent extreme even as robust, and at times contentious, ideas remain part of the public debate.

States usually support terrorist groups to weaken their rivals, silence their opponents and give themselves options they otherwise lack. By providing weapons, training, a sanctuary and other support, states can make terrorist groups more deadly, increasing their skill and survivability. At the same time, states often impose constraints on their proxies, creating many difficulties for the terrorists. Iran and other enemies of the United States and its allies have long supported terrorists, and state sponsorship is likely to play a role in any continued confrontation with Russia, which may double down on existing ties to extremists given its humiliation in Ukraine and desire for revenge on its enemies. Confronting state sponsors of terrorism is difficult, however. For democracies, applying a ‘state sponsor’ label can be a powerful rhetorical, legal and policy tool. At the same time, it can often be misused, become an empty political gesture or even backfire. The ‘state sponsor’ label is highly politicised, and long-standing sponsors like Pakistan have avoided it. Clarifying what state sponsorship is, increasing the flexibility of the designation, giving policymakers more leeway on when to impose sanctions, and otherwise knowing how to better combat a state sponsor is vital.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1 Frank G. Hoffman and Andrew Orner, “Proxy Wars and Strategic Competition,” in Assaf Moghadam, Vladimir Rauta, and Michel Wyss (eds), Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars (New York: Routledge, 2023), 428.2 Stephen Watts, et al., “Proxy Warfare in Strategic Competition,” RAND Corporation, 2023, 8, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA300/RRA307-2/RAND_RRA307-2.pdf.3 Tyrone L. Groh, Proxy War: The Least Bad Option (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 125-156.4 Robert P. Hager, “Soviet Bloc Involvement in the Salvadoran Civil War: The US State Department’s 1981 ‘White Paper’ Reconsidered,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 28, no. 4 (1995): 437–470, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45301949.5 For an excellent assessment, see Groh, The Least Bad Option.6 Andrew Mumford, “Proxy Warfare and the Future of Conflict,” RUSI Journal 158, no. 2 (2013): 40-46, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03071847.2013.787733.7 Emily B. Hager and Mark Mazzetti, “Emirates Secretly Sends Colombian Mercenaries to Yemen Fight,” New York Times, November 25, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/world/middleeast/emirates-secretly-sends-colombian-mercenaries-to-fight-in-yemen.html.8 Matthew Wiger and Kyle Atwell, “Causal Logics of Proxy Wars,” in Assaf Moghadam, Vladimir Rauta, and Michel Wyss, eds, Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars (New York: Routledge, 2023), 18.9 Michael Krepon, “The Stability-Instability Paradox, Misperception, and Escalation Control in South Asia,” Asia Dialogue, January 2005, www.theasiadialogue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/stability-instability-paradox-south-asia.pdf.10 Groh, The Least Bad Option, 211.11 Sara Plana, “Controlling Proxies: An Analytical Framework,” in Assaf Moghadam, Vladimir Rauta, and Michel Wyss, eds, Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars (New York: Routledge, 2023), 219-220.12 Michael Kofman, et al., Lessons from Russia’s Operations in Crimea and Eastern Europe (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017), 37-50.13 Jakub Przetacznik with Simona Tarpova, “Russia’s War on Ukraine: Timeline of Cyber Attacks” (Brussels: European Parliamentary Research Service, 2022), https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2022/733549/EPRS_BRI(2022)733549_EN.pdf.14 Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 123-125.15 Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Afghan National Security Forces: Afghan Corruption and the Development of an Effective Fighting Force,” Brookings, May 10, 2017, www.brookings.edu/testimonies/afghan-national-security-forces-afghan-corruption-and-the-development-of-an-effective-fighting-force/.16 Joanne Omang, “Inquiry Finds Atrocities by Nicaraguan ‘Contras,’” Washington Post, March 7, 1985, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/03/07/inquiry-finds-atrocities-by-nicaraguan-contras/c23917ec-4da1-4202-86b6-1c7e16b9c723/.17 Paul Wood, “Abominable Showman: The Rise of Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin,” Economist, June 12, 2023, www.economist.com/1843/2023/06/12/abominable-showman-the-rise-of-wagners-yevgeny-prigozhin.18 Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, “The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Islamist Militancy in South Asia," Washington Quarterly 33, no. 1 (2010): 47-59; Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 117-154.19 Mark Mazzetti, et al, “Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria,” New York Times, August 2, 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html.20 Niklas Karlén, and Vladimir Rauta, “Dealers and brokers in civil wars: why states delegate rebel support to conduit countries,” International Security 47, no. 4 (2023): 107-146, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00461.21 James Ron, “Paradigm in Distress? Primary Commodities and Civil War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 4 (2005): 443–450, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30045126.22 Erik Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).23 Daniel Byman, A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 52.24 Greg Jaffe, “Charlatan or Hero: Ahmed Chalabi’s Death and the Lessons of Iraq,” Washington Post, June 4, 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/charlatan-or-hero-ahmed-chalabis-death-and-the-lessons-of-iraq/2015/11/03/5c52398c-8259-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html.25 Raymond A. Hinnebusch, “Syrian Policy in Lebanon and the Palestinians,” Arab Studies Quarterly 8, no. 1 (1986): 1–20, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41857807.26 Watts, et al., “Proxy Warfare in Strategic Competition.”27 Karen DeYoung, “An Intellectual Battle Rages: Is the U.S. in a Proxy War with Russia?,” Washington Post, April 19, 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/18/russia-ukraine-war-us-involvement-leaked-documents/.28 Dan Murphy, “Bad Reason to Invade Iraq No. 3: ‘We Can Trust Ahmed Chalabi,’” Christian Science Monitor, March 9, 2013, www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2013/0319/Bad-reason-to-invade-Iraq-No.-3-We-can-trust-Ahmed-Chalabi.29 Thomas Juneau, “How Iran Helped Houthis Expand Their Reach,” War on the Rocks, August 23, 2021, https://warontherocks.com/2021/08/how-iran-helped-houthis-expand-their-reach/.30 Seth G. Jones et al., Competing without Fighting: China’s Strategy of Political Warfare (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2023).31 Watts, et al., “Proxy Warfare in Strategic Competition.”32 Linda Robinson, “SOF’s Evolving Role: Warfare ‘By, With, and Through’ Local Forces,” Rand Blog, May 9, 2017, https://www.rand.org/blog/2017/05/sofs-evolving-role-warfare-by-with-and-through-local.html.

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, the current status and future of al-Qaeda is a central policy question, especially as the U.S. government looks to pivot away from counterterrorism toward managing great power competition. This article presents a debate on this issue between Daniel Byman and Asfandyar Mir. Mir argues that al-Qaeda remains a significant threat, committed to fighting the United States despite pressures to alter direction. The control of al-Qaeda central over its major regional affiliates remains strong, with steady growth in capability. It also retains important allies and has major opportunities due to the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the domestic political environment, changing priorities in the United States, and great power competition. Byman, in contrast, contends that al-Qaeda suffers debilitating organizational problems, with affiliates having localized and the movement lacking a haven remotely comparable to pre-9/11 Afghanistan. In addition, improved counterterrorism keeps al-Qaeda off balance. If al-Qaeda remains a major threat, counterterrorism must remain among the United States’ major national security priorities, even if it is not the top one, and robust counterterrorism measures need to be sustained. If al-Qaeda is weak, the importance of counterterrorism in the hierarchy of U.S. foreign policy priorities can fall substantially.

White supremacists today are often violent, but they are rarely able to achieve their expansive political objectives. White supremacists face a variety of problems: they often find it difficult to recruit without being discovered; they are usually broke, and as a result cannot sustain their organizations; the decentralization of the movement makes it difficult for them to follow any strategy and leads to constant infighting; and, in most countries, law enforcement and weak popular support limit their activities. Governments are able, if they try, to fight white supremacist violence effectively. Nevertheless, they are able to kill many people, and many strands of the movement are more violent than in the past. The threat of terrorism, moreover, should be measured beyond the lives lost. White supremacists often have a more profound political and psychological impact than their numbers suggest.

Abstract: For most of the post-Reconstruction era, whites enjoyed political, social, and economic dominance in America, and lynchings and other brutality was common. When challenges arose from immigration and, especially, civil rights, white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan arose to combat them. Such groups, however, saw themselves as defenders of the social order and often worked with law enforcement or with its tacit approval. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, however, shattered white dominance. Through peaceful resistance, it transformed American politics and led to outrage against once-tolerated white supremacist violence. This, in turn, led to political pressure on the U.S. government to end the violence, and the FBI, at times working with and through state officials, began a devastating crackdown against various Klan chapters and like-minded groups. Government lawsuits and those of civil society organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center impoverished many white supremacist organizations, creating new strains on the overall movement. Together, such efforts reduced the political influence of white supremacists and would make them more radical, opposed to the order they once championed.

White supremacists have employed a variety of means to increase their influence on society and impose their hateful agenda. In the post–civil rights era, avowedly white supremacist candidates have failed in elections, especially in the United States, though some of their ideas have moved toward the mainstream. Because peaceful politics have largely failed, white supremacists have tried to foster a race war, use violence to spark an uprising, accelerate what they see as the inevitable collapse of a multiracial system, intimidate minorities, and create a separate homeland. Many white supremacists fall back on leaderless resistance, which makes violent individuals harder to identify and arrest but compounds the movement’s strategic problems. Although they fall short of their most ambitious goals, white supremacists have nevertheless proven able to shape political discourse and otherwise increase their influence in smaller ways.

This book describes the rise of the modern global white power movement, tracing its evolution from various Ku Klux Klan organizations in the pre–civil rights era in the United States, skinheads in Europe, and similar groups around the world. Drawing on attacks from New Zealand to Norway to South Carolina, the author details how the movement changed, often becoming more violent in the process. The book examines the movement’s ideas, strategies for victory, impact on politics, and use of social media. The book assesses the political influence of white supremacists: in much of the world, they are roundly rejected, but parts of their message of fear and hatred have crept into broader political discourse. The author also assesses the movement’s many vulnerabilities and how counterterrorism can exploit these through more effective law enforcement and intelligence gathering, international cooperation, and community programs. Successful counterterrorism, however, depends heavily on the right political climate for fighting hate, and white supremacists can expand their influence and conduct more deadly attacks when leaders ignore the threat but suffer huge blows when confronted.

Political Science QuarterlyVolume 136, Issue 3 p. 439-461 Original Article How to Stop Jihadist Foreign Fighters Daniel Byman, Corresponding Author Daniel Byman dlb32@georgetown.edu E-mail: dlb32@georgetown.eduSearch for more papers by this author Daniel Byman, Corresponding Author Daniel Byman dlb32@georgetown.edu E-mail: dlb32@georgetown.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 27 August 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/polq.13234Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume136, Issue3Fall 2021Pages 439-461 RelatedInformation