Countering Violent Extremist Narratives

Violent Extremism Terrorism Religion

As the United States continues to fight militarily to disrupt the efforts of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, the U.S. government has slowly come to the realization that military force alone cannot defeat violent extremism. There has been increased recognition that capturing and killing all terrorists is not a realistic strategy, and that we must spend more time understanding how and why individuals are becoming terrorists. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld posed this fundamental question in an infamous 2003 memorandum, asking ‘Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us? At the time, however, there was little genuine focus in the U.S. government on determining the answer to this difficult question.