World Geostrategic Insights interview with Thomas Wuchte on the consequences that could result from the takeover of Syria by leading groups with roots in al-Qaeda and IS and a history of violent extremism; on the main reasons behind the current rise and spread of violent extremism and how to counter it; on how climate change, instability caused by migration, and food shortages create conditions conducive to the spread of terrorist groups and extremist violence and how to respond accordingly; the role that religious moderation can play in resolving interstate conflicts and humanitarian crises and weakening violent extremism.
Thomas Wuchte is the founder of the Center for Multilateral Leadership, based in Washington, DC and Bangkok. He has served as executive director of the International Institute for Justice and Rule of Law, Valletta, Malta, senior managing director leading anti-terrorism efforts at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), senior adviser to the U.S. Department of State, and as an official at the U.S. Department of Defense. His focus is on empowering multilateral collaboration for emerging security challenges — working to balance resources for these new issues. The work is raising awareness among the competing interests that often overlook the conditions conducive to fragility at the expense of hard security.
Q1 – Among the coalition of Syrian rebels that toppled President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and took control of Syria are leading groups with roots in al-Qaeda and IS and a history of violent extremism. Is there a real possibility that Syria will be run by such terrorists? What consequences could result? Is a strengthening of violent radicalism in the region likely?
A1 – It would take great hubris to predict whether Syria will be run by terrorists with roots in al-Qaeda and IS. More likely it will be run by building upon what remains of the former regime and those that toppled President Bashar al-Assad’s reign. We have spent twenty post-9/11 years in this region and the results are mixed at best. I find the somewhat optimistic statement that the US doesn’t need to be involved in the Syria situation unrealistic, but it is currently a correct presentation of the political situation as there are multiple interstate conflicts to consider. Moreover, the Arab Spring has many examples of where it took a long time to re-create a functioning government. HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) is an offshoot of regional terrorism but now they will be asked to help govern the country. I think the more important question is the second one — will there be a strengthening of radicalism in the region.
Violent extremism is fueled by many reasons such as a lack of good governance. We have tried with various fora — such as the Global Counterterrorism Forum and the Global Coalition against Daesh to respond to the evolving landscape that fields terrorism. These traditional and similar security approaches, which are by invitation, have evolved into a large counterterrorism architecture in recent years because of the appropriately called “War on Terrorism”. I worry that with the current global disagreements there may be reluctance to embrace right-sized preventive diplomacy as it applies to intra- and interstate conflicts in and around Syria. There should be a forward-looking call for leadership to expand the definition of transnational and nontraditional (e.g., climate change) security challenges, framing the global counterterrorism architecture as an endemic threat and not one demanding ever more resource.
It is also important though to recall that violent extremism which spread in Europe leaves many scars because of the wave of ISIS-inspired attacks which began to spread rapidly across Western Europe and elsewhere in the mid-2010s. This was followed by the consequent far-right politics. ISIS-inspired attacks peaked between 2015 and 2017 (including, among others, the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting; 2015 Paris Bataclan attacks; 2016 Nice Bastille Day truck attack; 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack; 2017 Westminster Bridge attack; 2017 Manchester Arena bombing; 2017 Barcelona attacks). Nevertheless, isolated attacks continue to threaten global security. Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) is critical given that of the arrests made in Europe relating to ‘ISIS-inspired terrorism’ up until the pandemic – in many cases — the individuals arrested were nationals of the EU country in question.
The international community has a very long memory about what happened regarding associated designations and foreign terrorist fighters such as those of Syria. UN Security Council Resolution 2178 (2014) and its successor UN Security Council Resolution 2396 (2017) provided greater focus on measures to address terrorists traveling to foreign countries and then returning to their home countries and on relocating foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) and transnational terrorist groups. Both resolutions were, at that time, citing “the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also known as Da’esh, the Al-Nusrah Front (ANF) and other cells, affiliates, splinter groups or derivatives of ISIL, Al-Qaida or other terrorist groups…” I believe now that we are much better prepared because of the Global Counterterrorism Forum and The Global Coalition against Daesh. The question is whether these approaches continue to receive requisite support and can adjust to the resource-constrained environment as many are weary of the war on terrorism.
Q2 – According to the annual Global Terrorism Index 2024 (GTI), produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), terrorism remains a serious global threat, with total terrorism-related deaths increasing by 22 percent in 2023, the highest percentage since 2017. The four terrorist groups responsible for the most deaths in 2023 were the Islamic State (IS), Hamas, Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) and Al-Shabaab, with the Islamic State (IS) as the deadliest terrorist group in 2023, responsible for 1,636 deaths. Also of note is how the epicenter of terrorism has shifted from the Middle East to the central Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. What are the main reasons behind the current rise and spread of violent extremism? How can it be countered?
A2 – I would argue that terrorism is about risk management. Managing a risk to which our societies are particularly averse. This is, after all, the aim of terrorists – to manipulate public opinion and influence policy by instilling fear. The temptation may therefore be very high to take drastic measures, such as blanket restrictions. Governments should take the time to weigh options and consider long-term impacts, not just immediate security benefits but the broader implications on society, human rights, and cohesion.
There is no doubt that intelligence and surveillance are necessary to fight terrorism and protect the right to life. The challenge is to ensure these operations are targeted, proportionate, and non-discriminatory. Counterterrorism strategies and barriers are inevitably going to be under question if this trend of increased attacks continues. We will require concerted multilateral responses, and organizations like the UN, regional bodies, and countries will be encouraged to take further the lead. They can and should be promoting such international cooperation along with parliamentarians.
Even after the 20-year War on Terror, UN Member States are still struggling to moderate the threat as an endemic challenge. This has led to some policies which are over-militarizing foreign policy. Despite persistent cooperation in safeguarding human rights, several challenges exist. The main reason is that we have made little effort to politically resource all or part of the requirements necessary to alleviate the oft referred “conditions conducive to terrorism”:
There are political challenges — for instance, policymakers and parliamentarians may lack the political will and/or wherewithal to develop and implement measures based on the rule of law and international law.
There are multilateral constraints — for example, security sector oversight and accountability mechanisms may be non-existent; dysfunctional; corrupt; inadequately transparent, independent, or not enforceable; or may impose differing standards between various agencies.
There are structural constraints — such as under-resourcing, a lack of institutional and professional capacity or a prevailing culture of institutional non-support.
Inadequate training is also prevalent — as most collaboration for practitioners features only passing mention of regional cooperation among parliamentarians, briefly touching upon human rights conventions instead of encouraging participants to integrate human rights fully into their daily work and providing examples of how to do so.
These are all political questions solved by political leaders, but by empowering policy makers from institutional bureaucracies. All of this requires requisite empathy for the challenges in the regional or national context. My belief and hard learned experience are that one must avoid unconscious bias from the values of one’s background – and embrace the local context – and strive to stop adding new requirements ingrained within mostly Western-led capacity-building. Multilateral institutions can be further repurposed by reprioritizing their security focus toward the imminent but harder to measure threats of the future. This would include terrorism but now we must increase the paucity of funding to the areas at risk, such as Africa and the Sahel, which are woefully under-resourced to address the deep inequities that drive terrorist recruitment.
Why, because the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy builds on four pillars and gives a clear understanding of practically all fields which are to be considered, both when identifying and when tackling these terrorism challenges. But now, these robust efforts to prevent violent extremism face competing resource demands for other priorities as emergent threats like climate change rise. The first pillar is addressing systemic inequities…Pillar 1 collaboration is not “an easy” investment. However, we can change this perception.
Here is the key role which remains unfilled. This emphasis would seek ways to address as stated in UN Security Council Resolution 2178 among others: “the conditions conducive to the spread of violent extremism, which can be conducive to terrorism, including by empowering youth, families, women, religious, cultural and education leaders, and all other concerned groups of civil society and adopt tailored approaches to countering recruitment to this kind of violent extremism and promoting social inclusion and cohesion.” Up to now, most of this for 20+ years is light capacity-building without any long-term funding to empower local training. One should assess if knowledge transfer is succeeding and if we can exclusively fund at the local level within the countries at greatest risk in Africa such as the Sahel. And other regions that will arise. This will be the best way to counter the shift in risk and regions.
Q3 – How do climate change, instability caused by migration, and food shortages create favorable conditions for the spread of terrorist groups and extremist violence? What measures can be taken to mitigate this phenomenon?
A3 – Examining the nexus of these concerns and climate change, I would begin with the idea that the impact of climate change is most extreme in regions and countries that have harsh environments and where governance is weakest. The top countries at the most risk of climate disaster and food shortages are also in the top 20 countries most impacted by potential conflict or unrest. We need to begin to understand the linkages between the effects of climate change and the risks of recruitment to violent extremism; how violent extremist groups leverage governance failures to address the effects of climate change; and how to respond, potentially developing synergies between efforts to mitigate climate change and those to build community resilience.
Regarding migration, one can look at the rapid arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees into the European Union (EU) from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa beginning in 2015. This has coincided with an increase in support for anti-immigrant rhetoric and the so-called far-right in many European countries. A substantial number of these migrants came to the EU through what became known as the “Balkan Route”, a major land transit route cutting through the Western Balkans. In 2016, however, this transit officially “closed,” leaving many of the people attempting to reach Europe effectively stranded. I do not find a linkage with migration and climate change that is a direct driver of violent extremism, whereas in the military such linkages are sometimes risk multipliers. This could add stress to an already stressful situation and lead to polarized views for those seeking to escape a region or country facing bleak futures, especially for the youth.
Multifaceted but softer security challenges face us with the growing problems from climate change. Current political differences portray reluctance to support urgent preventive action. Strengthening constructive engagement around those conditions that are pressing but considered non-traditional security threats (e.g., climate change, poverty, water and food shortages, and loss of natural habitat) will help ensure that these issues are considered equal peace and security concerns among countries of this ever-smaller globe. Foresight and prevention done correctly, for example, would allow greater rebalancing of resources towards rising competitors.
Violent extremist groups have required us to consume many resources and with the military leading foreign policy because of the Global War on Terrorism. Rather than asking whether climate change is relevant or not, the counterterrorism architecture could shift to addressing this endemic/persistent challenge by simply maintaining the tools already fighting terrorism. After 20 years of robust funding under the rubric of the War on Terrorism, climate change and potential violent extremism can be addressed early on by taking these lessons and leading action before the effects breed more terrorist concerns, with a potential dividend that allows more focus on the rising threats from the strategic competitors fueling inter-state warfare.
Q4 – What role can religious moderation play in resolving interstate conflicts and humanitarian crises and weakening violent extremism?
A4 – I am just back from the 3rd International Conference on Religious Moderation (ICROM) 2024: Religious Moderation and Its Responses to Humanitarian Crises in Jakarta. I looked at whether religious moderation can be a model for resolving inter-state conflicts. The dialogue viewed the way forward as inseparable from the global discourse responding to various phenomena such as intolerance, conservatism, and even terrorism. The organizers discussed the role of Wasathiyyah (meaning the middle way) and the institutes and partners that are focused on moderation. The lead religious ministry formulated four core values of religious moderation: nationalism, anti-violence, tolerance, and respect for tradition.
Collaboration efforts should address global humanitarian disparities due to environmental problems, health issues, human development, and inter-state conflicts that systematically impact the international community, such as the Russia-Ukraine war. The biggest challenge that must be addressed is communication between the representatives of different groups in conflict zones. Leaders of religious communities, with their influence and community outreach, have a unique role in reconciliation. Specific challenges include 1) limited resources to support current and possible initiatives to build cross community relationships, 2) sustaining long term engagement in joint interreligious initiatives, 3) focusing on those who are already convinced along with those that are difficult-to-reach and are more extreme, 4) limited interest and space for engaging religious institutions on the part of policy makers/parliamentarians, and limited capacity (skills and strategies) among religious leaders to work with secular leaders.
None of this is new. The King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, mostly referred to as The International Dialogue Centre – KAICIID, focused on this as early as 2015 at a Club de Madrid event titled Building Peace through Interreligious Dialogue. The organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also worked with KAICIID. Morocco launched in 2015 the Mohammed VI Institute contributing to global dialogues on religion, peacebuilding, and combating extremism. Subsequently, a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on 8 December 2017 built on the Security Council resolution 2354 (2017) of 24 May 2017, in which the Council welcomed the comprehensive international framework to counter terrorist narratives. Past steps recognized that moderation is an important value and a sound approach to countering violent extremism, especially when it is conducive to anti-terrorism and in promoting dialogue, mutual respect and understanding. The recent international conference in November sought to reinvigorate this effort. Like many similar efforts, the earlier hortatory language lacked well-resourced follow-through in the mid-2010s onward.
I see a missed opportunity to focus on the importance of religious moderation as an approach within societies for countering extremism in all its aspects. Success would be contributing to the promotion of dialogue, tolerance, understanding and cooperation. Encouraging efforts, as appropriate, to enable voices of moderation to work together to build a more secure, inclusive and peaceful world. 20+ years of hard security approaches, as noted in the questions above, have failed to reduce the underlying causes and we have not lowered the temperature of divisive politics that fuel the flames of hard security approaches. Rather than more policy maker training, I would seek to undertake further initiatives to promote religious moderation through such activities as outreach programs and cross-cultural dialogue. All the while promoting the value of moderation, including non-violence, mutual respect and understanding, through education with careful regard for the importance of human rights education.
Thomas Wuchte – Founder of the Center for Multilateral Collaboration and Cooperation Leadership (GCMCC), based in Washington, DC and Bangkok.
Image Credit: Al Jazeera /AFP