The Cipher Brief’s Bennett Seftel spoke with Michael Leiter, former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, about U.S. government efforts to counter violent extremism. Leiter says that instead of debating the name of the program, officials should focus on creating a single department charged with leading initiatives to counter violent extremism.
The Cipher Brief: In February, reports emerged that Trump administration officials were considering changing the name of the U.S. government’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program to “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.” How does this program work and what could this change mean?
Michael Leiter: It’s always hard to know what they mean with announcements like this. To even say over the past 15 years that the U.S. government has had a fully cohesive and comprehensive countering violent extremism program of any sort, whatever you call it, would probably be a stretch. The fact is, since 9/11 we’ve struggled with what it means to try to counter extremism in all its forms.
The Countering Violent Extremism program has generally been relatively disjointed and, in my view, underfunded, with each administration trying to put its own imprint on what it wants that program to be. I would say that the program has evolved, and it’s evolved in a largely non-partisan way into a view that we in fact can reduce terrorism to some extent, based on engagement with a variety of communities domestically and overseas.
The Trump Administration’s change in vernacular, in and of itself is truthfully irrelevant. I found all of the debate during the election about whether we said “Islamic terrorism” or not to be neither here nor there. It’s not going to change the outcomes one iota in my opinion.
What I fear is that the administration simply doesn’t believe in any sort of countering violent extremism program. But I may be wrong about that. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, that although they are changing the title, I hope they do bring needed cohesion, funding, and focus to what is a very real and important topic.
TCB: When we refer to the government’s Countering Violent Extremism program, are we talking about any one specific program housed in the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, or elsewhere, or all programs across a range of government agencies? Do all these programs fall under one umbrella or is there a lack of cohesion?
ML: That’s been one of the main criticisms, from those of us who have been at the heart of it and also from Congress. There is no one department responsible for countering violent extremism. Many departments and agencies are involved.
Domestically, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are on the forefront, but organizations like the Department of Education and Health and Human Services, as well as state and local governments, also need to have a hand in this effort. Internationally, the State Department is our principal arm, but the Department of Defense has a significant role, the CIA has a meaningful role, the Intelligence Community needs to support all of the policy efforts overseas, and U.S. Agency for International Development and the Office for Overseas Private Investment Corporation have roles to play. There is a huge range of government departments and agencies – both federal as well as state and local – as well as our foreign partners who, if we are going to have an effective program, must be involved. And then the question becomes, with the variety of departments and agencies, who is in fact pulling that together?
When I was the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), we certainly played a major role in that both domestically and overseas. We were doing that on behalf of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. Even then, it was difficult to herd the cats. There have been a variety of legislative attempts to further coordinate those efforts, and it is now up to this White House to figure out who is going to lead it, how they’re going to lead it, and really what it is.
TCB: Could changing the name of the U.S. government’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program to “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism” have any practical policy ramifications that could affect the way that the FBI and other agencies combat domestic terrorism?
ML: Let’s start with two important distinctions. First of all, there is a domestic component to this and there is an international component to this. We have to worry about home-grown threats and we have to help try to reduce violent extremism overseas in all of its forms to combat the threat to the U.S. and our interests. That’s the first thing.
Second, there are different types of violent extremism. That is indisputable. If you look since 9/11, with the exception of 9/11, which is a massive exception, there have been more people killed in the U.S. by non-Islamic extremists than by Islamic extremists. That does not mean that violent Islamic extremism is not a very important societal threat that we have to address.
I have to say, the name is the least of my worries. I would be very pleased if any administration spends less time worrying about what it’s called and more time worrying about how to combat it in all of its elements. We in the George W. Bush Administration called it “Countering Violent Islamic Extremists.” Then it became “Countering Violent Extremism.” The name in and of itself, didn’t matter a lick. What mattered was, did we have programs that effectively addressed all of the pieces that drove people not just to radicalization and radical ideas, whatever that might be, but drove them to violence in the name of those ideas? That’s what we’re trying to combat. This is not the thought police trying to tell people how they should view any religion or any ideology. It is an effort to make sure that people don’t move from ideological extremism into violence in that ideological name.
If, in some way, changing the name from “Countering Violent Extremism” to “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism” somehow kept the FBI or DHS from also looking at right-wing non-Islamic extremism, that would be extremely problematic. I don’t think that’s what this does.
The one thing that you have to be a little bit acutely aware of in any name change is whether that name change actually exacerbates the problem you’re trying to defeat. I don’t believe it does. We can still talk about violent Islamic extremism as a subset of extremism. And Muslim communities in the U.S. and overseas understand what we’re talking about. Violent Islamic extremism does more damage to Muslim communities that non-Muslim communities. It is a scourge for them.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that we are or that we should or can demonize a religion. That is not the point here. But we do need officials to understand those aspects of an ideology that relate to a faith so that they can effectively engage with a wide variety of people inside and outside of that faith to try to make sure that people do not turn towards violence.
TCB: There have been arguments that our counterterrorism strategy should first focus on weakening terrorist groups’ appeal through military engagements and then our counter-messaging campaign could become more effective. Is this the proper approach or should counter-messaging play an equally important role as the military component?
ML: I am a strong advocate for targeting with lethal force individuals who are already committed and out of reach of law enforcement around the globe. All of that being said, any strategy that relies purely on kinetics is doomed to failure. We absolutely, positively – and we know this from history from countless other terrorist organizations – must combine the use of force with softer power to ensure that we are not creating a new generation of violent extremists of any flavor.
Consistently, we have, through two administrations, under-resourced the elements of the U.S. government that do this. We have not had sufficient focus on making sure, whenever we use the military, covert action, or the like, that it is balanced with non-lethal means. And we have seen the repercussions of this failure. We have seen an ideological movement take hold because of our failure in part to effectively address those ideological drivers. It is a weakness of our strategy and continues to be a weakness. I hope this administration does not go down that same path.
I am fearful that some of the budget cuts that are being contemplated at the State Department and elsewhere will do just that. No less a hawk than Donald Rumsfeld wrote in 2003 about this – questioning whether we were producing more violent extremists than we were actually killing. So this is not a liberal perspective or a democratic perspective. This is a bipartisan perspective that we need an ideological effort that matches our military effort.
We also have to give, both domestically and overseas, the counterterrorism professionals the political cover to engage and not be fearful that they will be accused of coddling the enemy. That is not what this is about.
But I fear right now, we have greater nervousness about ideological engagement than we do about targeting people. Our rules of engagement that govern using lethal force are vastly more clear than our rules of engagement for countering violent Islamic extremism. Our willingness to accept collateral damage in the lethal realm is vastly more than potential collateral damage in the countering violent extremism realm because of the political third rail that this has sometimes become. That is very unfortunate and will be counterproductive in the long-run.
