As terrorist threat changes, so should ways we combat it

This week’s calls by ISIS on social media for lone-wolf terrorist attacks outside of Syria and Iraq raises the specter of a wave of attacks like those law enforcement has confronted in Paris, Copenhagen, Dallas, and Boston. This threat coincides with elevated concern by the FBI and also raises the question of whether law enforcement’s tactics have evolved to meet the transformed threat posed by people who are inspired by organizations like al Qaeda or ISIS but who act independently of them.  Such threats are by nature more difficult to detect or deter and are, increasingly, directed at law enforcement itself. 

The threat to our nation by independent, violent extremists is the newest element to an always evolving and ever-changing threat environment, and an element our traditional counter-terrorism capabilities may be ill suited to address.

{mosads}Fourteen years after September 11th, much has changed to keep our country safer. We now have a robust counter-terrorism infrastructure weaving together our nation’s intelligence, military and law enforcement capabilities.  But it is a system designed to prevent attacks by individuals or groups acting under the control of designated foreign terrorist groups. This threat has not gone away as groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda still pose a significant risk to the US. But our infrastructure was not intended to detect and mitigate the threat posed by individuals living in the U.S. who are inspired by extremist ideology but who do not have an affiliation with foreign terrorist organizations. These individuals find resonance in the messages they view online and via sophisticated social media campaigns employed by groups like ISIS, and become willing to carry out attacks without ever interacting with other members of a terrorist group.   

In August 2011, the Obama administration released the country’s first national strategy to prevent violent extremism domestically.  The countering violent extremism (CVE) strategy focused on the principles that  “(1) communities provide the solution to violent extremism; and (2) CVE efforts are best pursued at the local level, tailored to local dynamics, where local officials continue to build relationships within their communities through established community policing and community outreach mechanisms.”  

Last summer, Rutgers University initiated a project examining mass casualty attacks in Europe and the U.S. for the purposes of identifying effective prevention strategies.  Through this effort we have worked closely with law enforcement officials, faith leaders, mental health professionals and others. We have concluded that while the language of the national strategy is sound, we believe that in practice, we have strayed from the intended approach and it is time to re-focus the implementation of the president’s strategy.  

CVE means more than outreach to the Arab-American and Muslim communities, which senior leaders at the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies have been conducting. Roundtables do not solve problems. If the discussions do not include concrete and tangible ways that authorities and community members can work together to prevent violence in a given jurisdiction, then we cannot mitigate this threat. 

Addressing this threat also means more than “countering the narrative.” We need to better understand why an increasing number of people from European nations, Canada and the U.S. are inspired by ISIS-like narratives and are willing to join the ideological cause and carry out a violent attack in furtherance of this ideology.

The federal government simply does not have the resources to conduct surveillance and investigate the expanding number of individuals who derive inspiration from groups like ISIS. More then ever, we must empower local efforts to strengthen critical partnerships between law enforcement, the communities they serve and others such as mental health professionals, educators, and faith leaders. We must create a holistic and collaborative way to detect, assess and intervene in situations where individuals may exhibit the behaviors and indicators of violent extremism as to prevent a violent attack. 

Aggressive law enforcement remains necessary to counter violent extremism, but it alone is no longer sufficient.  We must adopt an approach to CVE that recognizes the limitations of “detect and arrest” in the new threat environment; traditional law enforcement tactics must be supplemented by approaches that engage local communities and civil society to identify incipient at risk individuals and to develop other, earlier forms of intervention.

Cohen and Farmer serve on the faculty of Rutgers University’s Faith-Based Communities Security Program at the Institute for Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security. Cohen is former Acting Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis and Counter-Terrorism coordinator at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Farmer is former senior counsel for the 9/11 Commission and New Jersey State Attorney General.