• The Metaverse Offers a Future Full of Potential – for Terrorists and Extremists, Too

    The metaverse is an immersive virtual reality version of the internet where people can interact with digital objects and digital representations of themselves and others, and can move more or less freely from one virtual environment to another. As terrorism researchers, we see a potential dark side to the metaverse. Although it is still under construction, its evolution promises new ways for extremists to exert influence through fear, threat and coercion. Considering our research on malevolent creativity and innovation, there is potential for the metaverse to become a new domain for terrorist activity.

  • What Prevention and Treatment of Substance Dependence Can Tell Us About Addressing Violent Extremism

    Hate, violence, and their co-occurrence—violent extremism—represent increasing threats to society. Experts say that in order to deal effectively with extremism, there is a need for new approaches and frameworks that go beyond the counterterrorism approach that has dominated the battle against global jihadism. They suggest is applying a public health model to understand and counter violent extremism. Specifically, research shows that there is a striking resemblance between attachment to violent extremism and addiction.

  • A Year After January 6, Is Accelerationism the New Terrorist Threat?

    Far-right extremists are attempting to incite an insurrection to hasten the downfall of what they see as a deeply corrupt U.S. government. Some could resort to deadly acts of terrorism.

  • The “Sore Loser Effect”: Rejecting Election Results Can Destabilize Democracy and Drive Terrorism

    Acceptance of electoral defeat, something political scientists call “loser’s consent,” is essential for stability and order in democracies. The refusal by a candidate or a party to accept defeat a potentially dangerous situation for the United States. New research shows that when politicians refuse to accept a free and fair democratic election’s outcome, and instead choose to promote a popular narrative of a stolen or dirty election, they place their people in physical danger. Popular tolerance for terrorism grows, and so does terrorist activity itself.

  • China’s Nuclear Buildup is About More Than Nukes

    U.S.-China nuclear and strategic stability will be tested in the coming year after a series of revelations in 2021 about Beijing’s nuclear program. Jacob Stokes writes that “The U.S.-China nuclear and strategic relationship has entered a new stage.” He adds: “Pursuing nuclear and strategic stability between the United States and China will likely prove harder than ever — but it is perhaps more important than ever, too.”

  • Mass Shooting in Denver

    Lyndon McLeod, who killed five people in Denver on 27 December, subscribed to a variety of right-wing beliefs, but remarks in his social media posts, novels and interviews signal his place in the broader misogynistic ecosystem — the “manosphere.” McLeod adhered to a smaller subset of the manosphere that focuses on hyper-masculinity. Typically, advocates of hypermasculinity believe themselves to be “alpha males” and are frustrated they are not given the respect, deference or position in society they believe they are due. Adherents believe a degeneration of modern society has allowed weak “beta males” and women to usurp power from the “alphas.”

  • Examining the Denver Shooter’s Ideological Views

    On 27 December 2021, Lyndon McLeod shot and killed five individuals in Denver, Colorado before being shot and killed by a Denver police officer. Matthew Kriner, H. E. Upchurch and W. Aaron write that “Evidence suggests McLeod was deeply influenced by the misogynistic pro-masculinity culture which pervades the alt-right’s so-called manosphere.” Describing himself and his fellow extremists on his social media blog, McLeod wrote: “There are certain men who maybe only represent[s] a small percentage of men – maybe only 10-15% – but who have a disproportionate impact on the world when they get even with their enemies.”

  • In 2021, the Police Took a Page Out of the NSA’s Playbook: 2021 in Review

    Dragnet searches were once thought to be just the province of the NSA, but they are now easier than ever for domestic law enforcement to conduct as well. With increasing frequency, law enforcement has been using unconstitutional, suspicionless digital dragnet searches in an attempt to identify unknown suspects in criminal cases.

  • Follow the Money: Bringing IS Extremists to Justice

    Financing terror, chemical weapons, forensics and digital archives: The ex-German prosecutor now heading the UN’s special team on crimes of the “Islamic State” explains where the search for justice will focus.

  • Autonomous Air and Ground Vehicles Swarms Take Flight in Final Field Experiment

    DARPA’s OFFSET program envisions future small-unit infantry forces employing large-scale teams of unmanned air and/or ground robots to accomplish diverse missions in complex urban environments. OFFSET specifically focused on advancements in collaborative swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming capabilities.

  • DOD Releases Report on Countering Extremist Activities

    DOD last week issued a report on addressing the challenge of extremist activities in the ranks. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that “We believe only a very few violate this oath by participating in extremist activities, but even the actions of a few can have an outsized impact on unit cohesion, morale and readiness - and the physical harm some of these activities can engender can undermine the safety of our people.”

  • Germany Responds to Putin's Weaponization of Russian Gas

    Germany is pumping Russian gas back into Poland as Gazprom cuts supply to the EU. As Russia plays its hybrid war games with an increasingly divided EU, the new front appears to be the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline.

  • Blurry Ideologies and Strange Coalitions: The Evolving Landscape of Domestic Extremism

    Students of extremism and domestic terrorism have noticed an intriguing phenomenon: the convergence of far right and far left extremists and the breakdown of old ideological walls. Far-right extremists have valorized the Unabomber and praised the Taliban; a re-launched white supremacist group announced a new “Bolshevik focus” calling for the liquidation of the capitalist class; a growing ecofascist youth subculture joins with extreme racists in a call for the creation of a white ethnostate. “These trends highlight the strange and unanticipated ways in which domestic violent extremism scenes in the United States are fragmenting and reassembling,” they write.

  • What Will Taiwan Do If China Invades?

    China claims sovereignty over the self-ruled island 160 kilometers away and has not dropped the threat of force, if needed, to capture it. The two sides have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s. The specter of a war has captured attention since mid-2020 when the People’s Liberation Army began almost daily military aircraft flyovers over a sea west of the island, which experts said is China’s attempt to normalize its military operations near Taiwan.

  • Moral Echo Chambers on Social Media May Boost Radicalization: Study

    As Congress continues to investigate the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, psychologists are examining how online communities can foster radical thoughts and intentions. A new study finds that that social media echo chambers can create a strong bond and increase the likelihood of radicalization.