A discussion with the authors of “God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-right Terrorism in America.”

Service personnel and veterans who quietly hold views hostile to the U.S. government clearly pose both a grave security risk and endanger the nation as a whole.

Among the most controversial proposals to address the threat of domestic terrorism in the United States is the proposal for new laws that would specifically address acts of politically-motivated violence, much as current hate crimes statutes express society’s particular opprobrium of those crimes.

The January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol was the culmination of political trends in the United States that have festered for decades. And it may be a dress rehearsal for what comes next.

As a new presidential election year begins, America’s Republicans have already chosen their candidate. According to every poll, the rank-and-file have overwhelmingly united behind former President Donald J. Trump.

Today, however, the terrorists’ preferred tactic is the mass shooting. As we argue in our new book, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America, assault-style rifles have replaced explosives. And the perpetrators come mostly from the far right.

The coming year is set to be a chaotic, trying time for America, at least according to Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, the authors of a new book called God, Guns and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America, which traces the history of right-wing terrorism in the U.S. from its inception to the present day.

Nowadays, you can determine the extent of free speech on American campuses by whether armed police are required both to protect an invited guest lecturer and to ensure that the event is not shut down by protestors.

It’s not easy to be a Jew at an American university today. As one student tearfully explained to me, “We’re exhausted and we’re beleaguered and no one seems to understand.”

Even as the latest war between Israel and Hamas approaches its one-month anniversary, the full scale of the atrocities suffered by Israelis living close to the border with the Gaza Strip is still becoming clear: entire families executed in their homes and safe rooms, babies and children slain, women raped, and men killed, with the survivors dragged into captivity. The 1,400 Israelis slain in the Oct. 7 attack have been widely compared to the 3,000 people who perished on 9/11.

If a full-scale, full-theater, total war in the Middle East, involving Israel defending itself against Iran and its proxies comes to fruition, the security and stability of the world will be affected in ways that would eclipse the impact of the 9/11 attacks 22 years ago.

Released on August 18, 1988, the original Hamas covenant spells out clearly Hamas’s genocidal intentions. What happened in Israel on Saturday is completely in keeping with Hamas’s explicit aims and stated objectives.

Israel will seek to eliminate the threat posed by the Palestinian militant group for good, but its campaign in Gaza could draw in other adversaries, including Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.

How the United States Became a Leading Exporter of White Supremacist Terrorism

Broadening the NCTC’s mission to include homegrown terrorism will require bold executive leadership and congressional action.

The terrorist threat today is growing increasingly diverse, and although counterterrorism no longer sits atop the United States’ national security hierarchy, it remains an omnipresent challenge. The danger, now, is that in its prioritization of other national security issues, the United States becomes complacent in its counterterrorism fight. Our longstanding extremist adversaries stand prepared to strike, and eternal vigilance is essential.

In 1993, Bruce Hoffman sat on a plane writing what would soon become a pivotal piece of literature in the Terrorism Studies community. That high-altitude work began life as a lecture Hoffman was in route to give to the Special Operations and Irregular Warfare (SOLIC) conference. His lecture entitled, Holy Terror: The Implications of Religiously Motivated Terrorism was a wake-up call across the academic, policy, defense, and enforcement communities.

For extremists seeking to sow chaos and speed up some cataclysmic societal collapse, high-profile politicians provide an attractive target, as symbols of the mainstream liberal political order. We must ensure that we take this threat seriously and are doing everything possible to deter any future American assassin through a combination of prudently robust defenses and proactive law enforcement engagement with this dire potentiality.

The longstanding focus on targeting terrorist leaders and groups without effectively addressing the ideology that motivates and animates them has thus far proven powerless to halt the spread of Salafi-Jihadism. A new, more balanced, strategy and approach that better melds the variety of vital non-kinetic tools along with kinetic ones is needed to turn the current cul-de-sac the US and its allies find themselves into a more meaningful and productive crossroads.