Week of Monday, June 14, 2021 | Issue 38
Chelsey Addy, Extremism Team
Terrorism and Counterterrorism Challenges for the Biden Administration[1]
Date: Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Location: Washington DC, USA
Parties involved: United States (US); active domestic terrorist organizations; extremist militias
The event: The Biden Administration announced a new strategy to counter domestic terrorism through a series of changes to elevate the response to deter and detect individuals or organizations that would use violence to pursue political aims. The strategy outlines four priorities, including improving information sharing among law enforcement agencies, preventing recruitment by extremist groups, investigating such groups, and confronting the long-standing drivers of domestic terrorism.
The implications:
The Biden Administration is taking serious action on domestic terrorism, primarily from the January 6 attack on the Capitol in Washington, DC. This kind of strategy will encourage law enforcement and intelligence agencies to collaborate to prevent domestic terrorism and show terrorist groups or domestic extremist militias that the American government is serious in detecting and deterring terrorism within the country.
These four pillars that the Biden Administration wants to focus on will create a sense of renewal for law enforcement agencies engaging with terrorist organizations. Although this is a step in the right direction regarding preventing violence from extremist groups, it is likely that this new strategy will cause unwanted anger between such targeted groups that will likely incite further protests.
This kind of stance created will increase trust and strengthen relationships with other countries around the globe that have taken severe and similar action against countering terrorism, like Canada, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Pakistan. Although this specific platform taken by the US narrows on domestic terrorism, it shows that the Biden Administration is attempting to renew its promise to its citizens and global partners to stop hate and violence.
The steps that President Joe Biden has discussed outline his short-term goals regarding the threats that are imminent in protecting and fixing the current state of the country that will eventually lead into longer-term goals that will mitigate the intentions that cause this opposition in the first place.
As domestic terrorism evolves, the administration has concentrated on domestic terrorism groups, specifically anti-government militias, but did not fail to highlight that many domestic attacks have been carried out by small non-militia groups or lone wolf individuals. The federal government has included that its approach collaborates with local and state governments while including the private sector and emphasizes that citizens' civil liberties are not in danger.
[1] “President Biden” by Prechatai licensed under Creative Commons