Our picksDefeating Domestic Terror | Convertible Jet Design | Vaccine Diplomacy, and more
· Department of Homeland Security Confirms Neo-Nazi Leader Used to Work for It
· Convertible Jet Design Backed by RAF Might Just Have Wings
· DARPA Hacks Its Secure Hardware, Fends Off Most Attacks
· Nuclear Modernization under Competing Pressures
· Review of David Shimer’s 2020 book, “Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference”
· Weaponized: How Rumors about COVID-19’s Origins Led to a Narrative Arms Race
· Vaccine Diplomacy: West Falling Behind in Race for Influence
· The Essential Role of DHS in the Economic Recovery from COVID-19
· Biden Homeland Security Nullifies ICE Union Agreement
Defeating Domestic Terror Requires Confronting White Supremacy Across the Globe (Christopher Harnisch, The Hill)
The Biden administration has vowed to review and revamp America’s approach to combatting domestic terrorism. Succeeding in this endeavor will require bringing the full range of domestic counterterrorism tools to the fight. But tackling the scourge of the white supremacist, anti-Semitic terrorist threat facing the country today will also require combatting its sources of strength beyond America’s shores. The new administration’s move is the right one: the United States has experienced an unprecedented and sustained wave of terrorist attacks motivated by an ethno-supremacist ideology starting in 2015 and showing no signs of abating. 2020 alone saw 15 such terrorist plots either attempted or executed. The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol brought renewed focus on the threat. The spike in racially or ethnically motivated terrorism, or “REMT” in official government parlance, in the United States over the past half-decade represents one slice of a larger threat that emerged globally during that same period. REMT attacks around the world increased by over 300 percent from 2014-2018. Attacks have often targeted religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Jews, including a 2019 attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand that killed more than 50, a 2017 attack on a mosque in Quebec City that killed six, and a 2019 attack near a synagogue in Halle, Germany that killed two.
Department of Homeland Security Confirms Neo-Nazi Leader Used to Work for It (Ben Makuch, Vice)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed it once employed an American neo-Nazi terror leader now based in Russia after he posted what he said were letters of appreciation that DHS and the Pentagon sent him thanking him for his service. Earlier this month, Rinaldo Nazzaro, 47, founder and leader of the Base, one of the most violent American domestic terror groups in years, posted three undated letters from U.S. agencies lauding him for his service. One was from DHS—an agency tasked with thwarting terrorism in the U.S.—and two were on Marine Corps letterhead. All spoke glowingly of Nazzaro. (Cont.)
