Publications & Media

Greece Is the Weak Spot in Post-Caliphate European Counterterrorism
This article was originally published by The National Interest. Greece has been dubbed the “soft underbelly” of the European Union for terrorists looking to infiltrate the continent. The Islamic State’s territorial caliphate was crushed nearly a year ago when the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS liberated Baghouz, the militant group’s last sliver of territory in Syria. […]

Virtual Plotters. Drones. Weaponized AI?: Violent Non-State Actors as Deadly Early Adopters
Despite the austere environments in which violent non-state actors (VNSAs) often operate, they rely heavily on modern technologies in their operations. As new technologies emerge, or old technologies change and improve, VNSAs may attempt to adopt them to enhance their operations or expand the range of their activities. Adoption of new technologies is driven by […]

How to Win Friends and Wage Jihad
This article was originally published by Foreign Affairs. In its 2018 National Defense Strategy, the Trump administration announced that “inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism,” is the United States’ main national security challenge. The world’s oldest global jihadist group, al Qaeda, seems to have similar priorities. Although the group has not produced a strategic document on […]

Analysis: New pattern of Iran-backed assassinations abroad?
This article was originally published by the Long War Journal. Following a series of macabre murders of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s political opponents abroad in the 1980s and 1990s, observers have long believed that the country abandoned its practice of extraterritorial assassination of Iranian citizens. But incidents in three different European countries, which European […]

The Demographics of Southeast Asian Jihadism
Shortly after sunrise on July 31, soldiers at a military checkpoint outside Lamitan City in the Philippines’ Basilan province were hailed over to inspect a white 10-seat van suspected of bearing an improvised explosive device. Moments later, the bomb in the vehicle detonated, killing at least 10 people. Among the dead were four civilians, including women […]