U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan speaks during a news conference in Guatemala City, Guatemala August 1, 2019. REUTERS/Luis Echeverria
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan speaks during a news conference in Guatemala City, Guatemala August 1, 2019. REUTERS/Luis Echeverria
Acting US Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan unveiled
on September 20 the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “Strategic
Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence.” For the first
time, a formal Trump administration departmental strategy explicitly calls out white
supremacism as “one
of the most potent forces driving domestic terrorism.” In most other
respects, the strategic framework did not break new ground. DHS’s real
challenge will be whether its new counterterrorism (CT) framework will get the
resources and political support DHS needs from the White House and the
Congress.
Here are five key takeaways from the new DHS CT strategy:
This is the first departmental strategic framework in the Trump administration to call out white supremacism as a major domestic terrorism threat.
DHS’s real challenge will be whether its new counterterrorism (CT) framework will get the resources and political support DHS needs from the White House and the Congress.
In May and June, officials from DHS, the FBI, and Department of Justice (DOJ) testified before
subcommittees on the Hill about domestic terrorism and white supremacism, but this
DHS framework is the first detailed strategic acknowledgement of the
significance of the white supremacist terrorism threat.
The key issue is whether the White House and the Congress will support and resource this strategic framework.
The DHS framework lays out four goals, but the
framework makes clear at several points that DHS will need more specificity and
additional resources, including for
grants to states and localities, to achieve its CT goals. DHS did not request
additional funds for community grants in time for its FY 2020 budget request,
and earlier this year, Congressional Democrats held
up an out-of-cycle DHS request for funding for community grants, citing concerns
over how the Trump administration would spend the money.
Goals of the DHS Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence
Goal 1: Understand the evolving terrorism
and targeted violence threat environment and support partners in the homeland
security enterprise through this specialized knowledge.
Goal 2: Prevent terrorists and other
hostile actors from entering the United States, and deny them the opportunity
to exploit the nation’s trade, immigration, and domestic and international
travel systems.
Goal 3: Prevent terrorism and targeted
violence.
Goal 4: Enhance US infrastructure protections and community preparedness.
McAleenan acknowledged to an audience on September 20 that DHS is
working on an implementation plan to provide the
required specificity. He said DHS was surging personnel to the domestic
terrorism threat, but DHS recognizes such a surge is not sustainable. “We need
to more fully resource this effort,” McAleenan said.
McAleenan indicated the possibility of renewing the request for
funding for the Office of Targeted Violence
and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP), which would administer grants called for in the framework
for state and local governments. In a question and answer session afterwards,
the senior official performing the duties of the under secretary for Policy
said that DHS was an appropriations cycle behind where they wanted to be. Current
work is directed at getting the resources for this strategic framework into the
FY 2021 budget that will start October 1, 2020—in other words, though he did
not say it, a little more than a month before the November 3, 2020 presidential
election.
The DHS CT strategic framework was written by professionals, for professionals.
In tone and in substance, the new DHS CT strategic framework
matches the White
House National Strategy for Counterterrorism, which was released on October
4, 2018. Both strategies were written by counterterrorism professionals, not
political appointees. Both speak dispassionately about the current terrorism threats
to the United States, with the DHS CT framework including references
to the attacks, many by white supremacists, that occurred after the
National Strategy was released. This included the October 27, 2018 killing of eleven Jewish worshippers at the Tree
of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the killing of one worshipper at
the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California in April 2019; and the killing of twenty-two
shoppers at a Walmart on August 3, 2019, in El Paso, Texas.
The fourteen objectives in the DHS CT framework include a number of points that will appeal
to CT professionals inside and outside government. For example, DHS will:
Develop
“prevention frameworks with SLTT [state, local, tribal, and
territorial] partners to enhance their ability to identify and respond to
individuals at risk of mobilizing to violence.”
Goal 1 of the framework is
directed at improving DHS’s understanding of the threat environment. Primary
responsibility is likely to fall on the DHS Office of Intelligence &
Analysis to develop a draft of the annual threat assessment, and to increase
information sharing with state and local governments.
Goal 2, preventing terrorists from entering the United States and denying them
the opportunity to exploit the nation’s trade, travel, and immigration systems,
represents the largest and most traditional part of DHS’s CT mission. Here, the
strategy calls for evolution, not revolution. DHS will try to increase CT capabilities
of foreign partners, increase its support for the new National Vetting Center,
and build on United Nations Security Council Resolution 2396’s requirement for
all UN member states to establish airline passenger information systems, use
biometrics, and establish terrorist watchlists. Security Council Resolution
2396 (Dec. 2017) still represents the Trump administration’s greatest
diplomatic achievement in counterterrorism to date.
Goal 3 is the first detailed
description of DHS’s plans for “terrorism
prevention,” referring to the programs known in the Obama administration as
“countering violent extremism.” The CT framework combines terrorism prevention
with a new focus on “targeted violence,”
which refers to any type of attack against specific groups of civilians,
regardless of specific motivation.
Goal
4, enhancing infrastructure
protection and community preparedness, focuses on the defensive side of
DHS’s CT activities. These activities have become increasingly important
because of the recognition that small-scale terrorist attacks are nearly
unpreventable, such as active shooters or someone who would drive a truck at
high speed through pedestrians, as happened in New York City on October 31,
2017.
The strategic framework calls out the need to protect American democracy from foreign disinformation that could result in violence here in the United States.
While these efforts had limited effectiveness, and US
countermeasures have improved since 2016, foreign adversaries—especially
Russia, China, and Iran—have
improved their efforts since 2016. Additionally, to the extent that governments
that carry out disinformation operations publicly disavow responsibility for
their actions, as Russia did after the 2016 election, it means those actions are
often carried out by non-state actors. Depending on the harm inflicted, this
could meet the definition of terrorism
under the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
For DHS, countering foreign influence in democratic
processes through disinformation operations should be an “all hands on deck” activity.
DHS’s CT professionals can contribute to this effort, and should be looking for
opportunities to disrupt disinformation operations regardless of their source.
The framework should be commended for including this point.
Two words are striking by their absence or near-absence in
the DHS CT strategic framework.
First, “wall.” The word “wall” does not appear in the
DHS CT strategic framework. Building a physical barrier on the southwest border
will have to be justified—or not—based on its contribution to immigration
enforcement, counternarcotics, or some other law enforcement purpose. Not
counterterrorism.
DHS is also deeply involved in defending against Iran cyber
attacks, which DHS in the Obama administration considered to be terrorist
acts because the cyber attacks were carried out by non-state actors—thus coming
within the definition of state-sponsored terrorism. DHS carries out a wide
range of other actions—including screening travelers and prospective Iranian students, and counterproliferation
enforcement—to prevent Iranian-sponsored terrorism. DHS deserves credit for
its actions to counter Iranian efforts to spread its influence in the United
States.
Thomas S. Warrick is a nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council. Warrick was the DHS deputy assistant secretary for Counterterrorism Policy until June 14, 2019. He was involved in the development of the strategic framework’s goals, but most of the text was written after he left the Department.
The precision of the aerial attack on Abqaiq, whether it originated in Iran or outside it, shows both a willingness to target strategic critical infrastructure and a capability for extreme precision.
What’s growing clearer with each day is that the United States and its allies will likely have to contend with extremist, Islamist terrorism for perhaps decades to come.
The new strategic framework is the first in the Trump administration to call out white supremacism as a major domestic terrorism threat but will need support from the White House and Congress to succeed.
