Introductory Remarks: The Future of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy
US Department of State
Remarks
Elizabeth Richard, Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Bureau of Counterterrorism
Atlantic Council
Washington, D.C.
December 11, 2024
As Prepared
Thank you all for coming. This forum is so timely.
You have an amazing lineup of experts for today. Vast amounts of experience and reach. For my part, I'd like to offer a little reflection on my own time in the CT fight, looking at how things have changed and at some of the challenges those changes present to us all going forward.
Make no mistake. We have had a lot of success. Since 9/11, we have not had a terrorist attack on the homeland. When ISIS moved swiftly through Syria and Iraq, we assembled a coalition that defeated the geographic caliphate. And that Coalition is still active and still united in fighting ISIS, even ten years later.
But things are changing quickly. This is the most dynamic and most complex period of my career – across many fronts. For all of my life, the U.S. dominated in the world. We still do in many ways. And our democratic orientation and our values are still a beacon to many around the world.
Two women speak as they sit in chairs on a stage in front of a large banner that reads "Atlantic Council."
Yet this is an increasingly multi-polar world. We have more adversaries. There are many countries and entities who now have a veto on lots of issues, even if they cannot fully achieve their own goals. Our economies and our supply chains are deeply intertwined, so that as we saw during the pandemic, a factory shutdown in China creates shortages – whether of household goods or rare earth minerals – in the U.S.
On the terrorism front, the picture is also more complex than I have ever seen it. I joked a while back that I'm nostalgic for the clarity of the days of al-Qa'ida and Osama bin Laden.Today, the landscape is much more fractured, more decentralized, more geographically dispersed, more ideologically diverse, more tactically adept, and more technologically sophisticated than we have faced before. And in all this uncertainty, more countries and entities are hedging, as they look to keep their options open with all sides.
Let me highlight a few of the issues I think most challenge us on the CT front.
First, there are many more actors with the ability to threaten us. ISIS and al-Qa'ida are still serious threats. But look at what has developed in Central Asia, across Africa, and even in southeast Asia, where affiliates range from those in direct communication with ISIS and al-Qa'ida leadership to all manner of loosely associated factions and even individuals "inspired" by ISIS or al-Qa'ida. Both ISIS and al-Qa'ida are themselves much more decentralized, with local affiliates more empowered to act on their own. There is more cooperation among dissimilar groups and there is more collaboration with organized crime.
Second, I think a lot of these groups are less bound by ideology and identity-based affiliations than before. They are a lot more pragmatic, willing to collaborate with those who would have been adversaries in another time. Shia Iran supporting Sunni Hamas. Shia Houthis in contact with Sunni al-Qa'ida- affiliated al Shabaab. They are putting aside those identity-based differences to focus on us and our allies, especially in the West.
Third, there is more state involvement with terrorist groups than I have ever seen.
And it's publicly acknowledged. These are not the covert "proxy" relationships I grew up with. They are increasingly collaborative partnerships in which the proxy – and I'm thinking here of the Houthis – can and will act on its own when it chooses.
This is a huge challenge for us, as we find ourselves in situations in which dealing with a terrorist group may mean opening an armed conflict with another member of the UN. We are right to be cautious and disciplined.
But we have to recognize the risk of allowing these aggressions to continue, as terrorist groups gain experience and refine their tactics and procedures.
For example, I think of the Iranian-backed proxies. DoD counted 206 attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan between Oct. 18, 2023, and Nov. 21, 2024. Or the Houthis, who have in a very short period of time gained the ability to precisely target and inflict serious damage on vessels in international waters.
Related to this, terrorist organizations are increasingly embedded in government, especially where the state is weak. I lived with this situation in Lebanon, with Hizballah famously called a state within a non-state. Think of Iraq, where the Iranian aligned militia groups have a say in government decision making.
The Houthis and al Shabaab are operating, in their areas at least, as governments, providing services and collecting taxes at scale. And, of course, the Taliban are running the whole country of Afghanistan.
This makes it extremely difficult for us, not only to act against these groups, but to maintain relationships with and assist the States in which they live. I think we have been reasonably successful, for example in Iraq and in Lebanon, where despite the presence of Iranian proxies, the governments want a cooperative relationship with the U.S.
But that outcome is not predetermined. Should the Houthis or al Shabaab succeed in taking control over Yemen or Somalia, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan, we will be confronted by some very difficult choices in an important piece of geography.
The last issue I want to raise is that of technology. The speed at which technology is developing is dizzying. The technological advantages over which we once had a monopoly are now widely available to everyone, including our adversaries. Secure communications gave us the advantage of surprise and insight. Now, encrypted apps are widely available to those same enemies. Drones gave us eyes and ears in the sky, the ability to be everywhere, and to deliver decisive strikes. Now our adversaries have that capability.
The internet – a technology that made information and communication instantly available to everyone – is being weaponized by terrorists who use it
to inspire, recruit, radicalize, and fundraise. And to sow disinformation among our populations.
So, what do we do about all this? That's what today is about, and I look forward to the discussions. A couple of thoughts from my side:
First, we must preserve the deep interconnectedness that we realized on 9/11 we did not have.
Today, I would assert, every department and agency has a role in national security. Just think of recent cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and systems, like health care. We cannot let those hard-won gains in interagency collaboration fade away.
Second, we need to continue to build partnerships. That is an imperfect science. But the U.S. cannot solve all of this alone. We can be proud of the coalitions we have built against terrorist organizations, from the formal, like the D-ISIS coalition, to the thematic, like the FATF network that helps curb terrorists' ability to use the international financial system to move money.
But we need to ask more of our partners. And we will have to struggle with cooperating with partners who are – let's say "unsuitable".
Third, we have to deal with the technology challenges. When I see some of the developers of AI actually calling for more, not less, regulation, I realize the enormity of this problem. We want the American private sector to dream of the impossible and make it possible. We want them to innovate. But we need to find a way together to put some guardrails on these technologies before our adversaries turn them against us.
Our adversaries are adapting, and we need to adapt too. And we have. The CT community is more interlinked today than ever. We are more awake to the possible challenges of the future. Though as we just saw with Syria, we still get surprised. But watching and participating in our government's response to this crisis, I believe we are far better positioned today to deal with surprise than we ever have been.
Resources are a challenge. It's difficult to talk about some of these budgets because they are not – for very good reasons of security – public.
But I will tell you they have been declining. And with that decline comes risk. We, as a nation, need to decide how much risk we are willing to take.
There are more departments and agencies actively involved in the counterterrorism mission – and rightly so – than in the past. And more interdependency among agencies that work abroad, like Defense and State and the Intelligence Community, and the domestic agencies like DHS and FBI. We have lots of policy arguments about all kinds of issues. But not on counterterrorism. And it is this unity of effort and singular focus on securing the homeland that lets me sleep at night now and makes me optimistic for the future.
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