A new U.S. counterterrorism strategy “reads as politically performative” and could leave Americans less safe, the authors write.
Last week, U.S. law enforcement arrested an agent of Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, who allegedly planned attacks at several cities across the country.
And in Africa, a joint U.S.-Nigeriankilled a senior ISIS member, Abu Bilal al-Minuki. These operations showed the importance of strong counterterrorism efforts on the tactical level, and we applaud both. Yet all is not right in the counterterrorism world. A review of the recently released United States Counterterrorism Strategy is not exactly reassuring.
It is distinctly different than its predecessors with its novel claims, its politicization of security issues and its dearth of actual strategies that counterterrorism analysts are expressing alarm. One of the biggest changes to the counterterrorism strategy is the elevation of narco-traffickers to the realm of terrorism.
Previously countered via law-enforcement and public health agencies, the inclusion of such groups might be warranted if you squint and take the administration in good faith.rose from nearly 50,000 in 2019 to a peak of just over 81,000 in 2022 driven overwhelmingly by illicit fentanyl and the networks that traffic them. But that crisis appears to be receding with total drug overdosewith that number trending down further. Let’s also not forget that U.S. demand for drugs drives the drug trade.
There certainly is not a demand in the U.S. for anything that terrorists offer. This appears to be a policy looking for a paradigm and lines like “The borderless America created by the Biden Administration” give away the partisan theater the document engages in. Indeed, such politicization is rampant throughout the document.
Somehow language about threats from “radically pro-transgender” groups makes its way into the document despite no serious counterterrorism analyst on the planet having such a group on their radar. Sadly, that’s not the only area where the document tilts at windmills—Antifa also makes an appearance, despite many questioning whether such a group even exists. Counterterrorism is a team sport, and America depends on our allies to help keep the country safe.
Is the administration suggesting that it will task CIA case officers to collect intel on Antifa? We would be laughed out of meetings with allies. Despite the degrading of our international alliances under this administration, the document pays lip service to their value.
Our view is that while our allies in Europe might be reluctant to share intelligence on Russia with the U.S., they will still share when it comes to plots against the U.S., despite the disrespect they have received. While the counterterrorism document notes threats from left-wing extremists, quite shockingly, it says nothing of threats from right-wing groups, despite previous editions of U.S. counterterrorism strategy documents highlighting them and data demonstrating a very significant threat from these factions.
Right-wing violence has causedwas carried out by a right-wing extremist. This is seemingly outweighed by the high-profile killing of media pundit Charlie Kirk by a left-wing extremist in 2025. The removal of right-wing domestic terrorist threats is perhaps the best example of how this document is both unserious and that the U.S. government is more focused on a political agenda than keeping its citizens safe.
As Edward Bogan, a former senior CIA operations officer with vast counterterrorism experience, notes much of the document, “reads as politically performative, focused on perceived domestic threats, and concerns me if it is setting further conditions for weaponization of government power against political rivals and points of view. ” We should heed the warnings of such counterterrorism professionals. In Africa, where the most potentially dangerous terrorist sanctuaries are flourishing, the document engages in more theater and Trump idolatry.
In one of the more confusing lines of the document it claims, “We are rebuilding bilateral counterterrorism relations with African governments who had been ignored or insulted by Biden-era neocolonial policies focused on globalist left-wing cultural hegemony. ” We have no idea what the author, Sebastian Gorka, is talking about here, but it is certainly easy to find the many times The Africa section includes an extended riff on the plight of Christians in Africa, whom it calls “the most persecuted people on Earth.
” However, it doesn’t say anything about Mali, where al-Qaeda’s Sahelian branch, Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin,. It does say that the U.S. “will maintain a light military footprint and expect regional and nearby partners to accept a greater portion of the counterterrorism burden,” which is supposed to make us all feel safer. It’s worth noting that the U.S. currently has no head of its National Counterterrorism Center, which oversees all counterterrorism efforts worldwide.
Its previous head, Joseph Kent,has politicized the Bureau’s priorities, is embroiled in scandal and is widely viewed as incompetent. If the administration actually had a counterterrorism strategy, there is no one actually executing it.
Finally, counterterrorism is also not only about one approach; you can’t kill or arrest your way out of this problem. But the Trump administration has completely forsaken soft power when it comes to keeping Americans safer, with its diminishing of the U.S. Department of State and its destruction of USAID and Voice of America among the many examples of recent soft-power erosion that will make America less safe.
As former Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated, “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. ” The U.S. and the rest of the world are best served by a dispassionate counterterrorism strategy that lays out the threats it faces and offers a variety of strategies that might counter them.
It is one of the many areas of government that functions best when raised above partisan interests and focuses the best minds in national security on the essential business of keeping America safe. Sadly, this counterterrorism document does little of the sort. Americans should be concerned that we are far less safe as a result.
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