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U.S. Domestic Terrorism Is Increasingly Motivated by Partisan Politics
One of the most alarming trends in terrorism is the growth in anti-government extremism. “The heightened risk of terrorist attacks motivated by partisan beliefs does not just endanger individual lives but also threatens the democratic process itself, casting a shadow over open discourse and discouraging civic engagement,” Riley McCabe writes.
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Downsides of China’s Port Investments Go Beyond Immediate Security Risks
Chinese companies own or operate at least one port on every continent. These investments present more than immediate security concerns; they position China to fully exploit the economic potential of ports at the expense of other countries.
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Ranked Choice Voting Faces Cloudy Future After Election Setbacks
Voters in 5 states rejected the voting system, while DC voters approved it. The rejection clouds the future of an idea that had seen strong momentum in recent years.
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Misinformation Really Does Spread Like a Virus, Suggest Mathematical Models Drawn from Epidemiology
When it comes to misinformation, “going viral” appears to be more than a simple catchphrase. Scientists have found a close analogy between the spread of misinformation and the spread of viruses: how misinformation gets around can be effectively described using mathematical models designed to simulate the spread of pathogens.
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An Immigration Debate Worth Having
The best immigration policy is one that helps developing countries hold on to their best.
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The Past, Present, and Future of Homeland Defense
Homeland defense issues my be referred to as seams of ambiguity which doesn’t clearly define itself as either a defense or a law enforcement issue, and our adversaries have discovered the seam and they’re playing along that seam. And that’s what thrusts us into the gray areas that we’ve been talking about for at least two decades now.
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Failure in the Sahel
There may be an element of schadenfreude in watching Russia fail in the Sahel in a major play against Western interests and get caught in a mess, from which it can only extricate itself with a loss of face. But the problem is that the result of this failure has been to turn the Sahel into a center for extremist violence that risks spreading further.
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Philippines Bolsters Maritime Claims Despite China Pressure
Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has signed two new maritime laws to protect Manila’s disputed territory: the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act.
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Suspected Chinese Hack of U.S. Telecoms Reveals Broader Plot
A hack of U.S. telecommunications systems linked to China that initially appeared to focus on the American presidential campaigns goes much deeper, according to investigators, and is likely part of a vast effort by Beijing to spy on the United States.
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The Effectiveness of U.S. Economic Policies Regarding China Pursued from 2017 to 2024
Although U.S.-China trade tensions have waxed and waned for decades, they have remained persistently high since 2017. A new report assesses the effectiveness of more-restrictive U.S. economic policies adopted toward China and pursued between 2017 and 2024.
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Stopping the Bomb
When one country learns that another country is trying to make a nuclear weapon, what options does it have to stop the other country from achieving that goal? While the query may be straightforward, answers are anything but. One scholar identifies a suite of strategies states use to prevent other nations from developing nuclear weapons.
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How the Far Right Is Evolving and Growing in Canada
Historically, Canada has always had a few active far-right groups, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and Nazis and fascists before the Second World War. But that was then. Now, the far right has a different strategy.
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Hezbollah, Hamas Down but Not Out, U.S. Says
Israel’s war against Hezbollah and Hamas, while inflicting considerable damage, has yet to strike a crippling blow to either of the Iran-backed terror groups, according to a top U.S. counterterrorism official.
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Shia Militarism Upstages Salafi Jihadism in West Asia
It is curious to note that the ‘jihadist’ tag is almost exclusively given to violent Sunni extremists. In fact, the Arabic term of “muqawama” (resistance) is now replacing jihad across West Asia. Deriving its resonance from the Shia ideology of resistance against the ‘oppression’ of Islam’s larger Sunni community, the term is now getting applied to rising pan-Islamist opposition towards the US-Israeli sway over the region.
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Extremist Ideology Is Hard to Pin Down
When it comes to extremist motivations for political violence, their varied sources and the role of mental health make it difficult to attribute a root cause and who might have been responsible for leading them down that road. Benjamin Allison writes that thelack of ideological clarity among those who commit acts of political violence is not uncommon.
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More headlines
The long view
Kinetic Operations Bring Authoritarian Violence to Democratic Streets
Foreign interference in democracies has a multifaceted toolkit. In addition to information manipulation, the tactical tools authoritarian actors use to undermine democracy include cyber operations, economic coercion, malign finance, and civil society subversion.
Patriots’ Day: How Far-Right Groups Hijack History and Patriotic Symbols to Advance Their Cause, According to an Expert on Extremism
Extremist groups have attempted to change the meaning of freedom and liberty embedded in Patriots’ Day — a commemoration of the battles of Lexington and Concord – to serve their far-right rhetoric, recruitment, and radicalization. Understanding how patriotic symbols can be exploited offers important insights into how historical narratives may be manipulated, potentially leading to harmful consequences in American society.
Trump Aims to Shut Down State Climate Policies
President Donald Trump has launched an all-out legal attack on states’ authority to set climate change policy. Climate-focused state leaders say his administration has no legal basis to unravel their efforts.
Vaccine Integrity Project Says New FDA Rules on COVID-19 Vaccines Show Lack of Consensus, Clarity
Sidestepping both the FDA’s own Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two Trump-appointed FDA leaders penned an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to announce new, more restrictive, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Critics say that not seeking broad input into the new policy, which would help FDA to understand its implications, feasibility, and the potential for unintended consequences, amounts to policy by proclamation.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”