Redefining U.S. Victory over ISIS | Two Faces of the Telegram App | Cuba & Terror Designation, and more

Redefining Victory in America’s War against the Islamic State in Syria (Sam Heller, War on the Rocks)
You could be forgiven for thinking that, in Syria, the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State (ISIL) has succeeded. The militant group’s territorial “caliphate” in Syria and neighboring Iraq has been erased from the map. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. Mission accomplished, no? And yet the United States is still nowhere near the benchmark the Donald Trump administration adopted for counter-ISIL victory in Syria: the jihadist organization’s “enduring defeat.”
That’s because enduring defeat, as the Trump administration defined it, involves not only incapacitating ISIL in Syria in military and security terms, but also extensive political and social change across Syria to prevent the organization’s future return. The administration thus defined victory in such implausible-seeming terms that, for the deployment of U.S. forces in eastern Syria, there is no end in sight.

The SolarWinds Hack Doesn’t Demand a Violent Response (Elizabeth Braw, Defense One)
Major retaliation is more likely to spur escalation than improve deterrence.

SolarWinds Breach Could Reshape Cybersecurity Practices (Kara Carlson, TechExplore)
As investigations continued into the massive data breach linked to Austin-based software company SolarWinds, experts say the attack could lead to long-term changes in cybersecurity policies and procedures for government entities and private companies alike.

New Terrorism Guide Shows FBI Still Classifying Black “Extremists” as Domestic Terrorism Threat (Jana Winter, Marquise Francis and Sean D. Naylor. Yahoo News)
More than three years after the FBI came under fire for claiming “Black identity extremists” were a domestic terrorism threat, the bureau has issued a new terrorism guide that employs almost identical terminology, according to a copy of the document obtained by Yahoo News.
The FBI’s 2020 domestic terrorism reference guide on “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism” identifies two distinct sets of groups: those motivated by white supremacy and those who use “political reasons — including racism or injustice in American society” to justify violence. The examples the FBI gives for the latter group are all Black individuals or groups.
The FBI document claims that “many” of those Black racially motivated extremists “have targeted law enforcement and the US Government,” while a “small number” of them “incorporate sovereign citizen Moorish beliefs into their ideology, which involves a rejection of their US citizenship based on a combination of sovereign citizen ideology, religious beliefs, and black separatist rhetoric.”

The Telegram App Gives Voice to the Oppressed in Belarus and Russia. but Hate Groups Are Using It Too. (Michael Scollon, RFE/RL)
In a year marked by tightened restrictions and unrest, Telegram sent a clear message to authoritarian governments who tried to keep it quiet in 2020. But as the app, which has earned a reputation as a free-speech platform, looks to spread the word in Iran and China, its popularity among messengers of violence and hate remains a concern.
Telegram has emerged as an essential tool for opposition movements in places like Belarus and Iran and won a huge victory when the Russian authorities gave up on their effort to ban the app after two fruitless years during which senior officials continued to use it themselves.
But protesters and open media are not the only ones who find sanctuary in a tool like Telegram. Terrorists, hate groups, and purveyors of gore also see the benefits of encrypted group chats that can reach large audiences without censorship.