A growing movement of foreign fighters to Ukraine has attracted considerable numbers of white supremacist group members, many from the U.S. What does this mean for U.S. national security?
In 2017, James Fields rammed a car into a crowd of counterprotesters at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring dozens. The event sparked widespread discussion of the recent rise in hate crimes.
Lurking under the surface of this reenergized hate is a calculated transnational effort to augment the strength of white supremacist groups. Fields is a member of a new neo-Nazi group, Vanguard America, which has ties to the British neo-Nazi group Vanguard Britannia. Similarly, groups like “the Base” and the Nordic Resistance Movement have used social media platforms to disseminate White supremacist ideology and recruitment propaganda internationally.
To harden their members and expand their international ties, White supremacist groups have urged their followers to join foreign paramilitary groups, with Ukraine becoming a hotspot for these extremists. For example, the Azov Battalion, formed in 2014 to oppose Russian separatist forces in Ukraine, has attracted White supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other adherents to far-right ideologies from many countries. According to a Soufan Group report, at least 35 Americans have traveled to Ukraine to fight on either side of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.
This is a serious threat to U.S. national security that will only worsen if left unchecked. In this article, I explore the threat of White supremacist foreign fighters to the U.S. in the context of the increasingly transnational character of White supremacist groups. I conclude with policy recommendations.
The Foreign Fighter Threat
Foreign fighters — individuals who join armed conflict outside their home countries — have posed a serious threat to U.S. national security at least since the rise of the jihadi terrorist group Islamic State (IS) over the past several years. As of 2017, approximately 129 Americans have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join IS. At least seven have returned. Newly trained, battle hardened, and with new ties to international extremist groups, returnees threaten to wreak havoc on their home countries.
While not all foreign fighters continue fighting when they return, one study found that one in nine jihadi foreign fighters from Western countries participated in terrorist attacks after returning home. Others go on to fight in different theaters of conflict, potentially sharpening their skills and increasing the threat they pose to their home countries. Even if foreign fighters avoid using violent tactics in domestic settings, returnees may still act as more effective recruiters or radicalizing forces in their home communities.
The Western experience with jihadi foreign fighters inspired White supremacist groups to emulate the jihadis by learning from other militant organizations. Indeed, the aforementioned group “the Base” is a direct reference to al-Qaeda (Arabic translation for “the base”) and some neo-Nazis even symbolically glorify Osama bin Laden. The Azov Battalion’s training of foreign fighters in safe-haven territories mirrors the “Maktab al-Khidmat” (Services Office), a body established by al-Qaeda’s founders to help recruits from around the world (mostly the Middle East) reach Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Soviets. White supremacist groups also studied online jihadi magazines and forums on everything from propaganda to bombmaking manuals.
The Unique U.S. Context
The threat of a White supremacist foreign fighter movement differs from the threat jihadis pose in important ways. First, jihadi foreign fighters, especially those who join IS, do not plan on returning home. The recent jihadi foreign fighter movement aimed to bolster IS in its fight to establish an Islamic empire, or caliphate, in which the supposedly “faithful” could live their lives. Going back to a country not ruled by Sharia would be heretical.
In contrast, White supremacist foreign fighters do expect to return home. White supremacist groups have a history of enlisting combat veterans in their ranks, including U.S. veterans of the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They seek such experienced recruits to bolster their strength at home in preparation for fighting on U.S. soil.
Second, U.S. White supremacists are often members of militias, providing them with the militant infrastructure to quickly return to organized violence on return. With few exceptions, jihadi terrorist attacks on U.S. soil are classified as “lone wolf”; attacks conducted by individuals rather than organizations, likely because of the difficulty of armed groups operating in the U.S. as they may in conflict zones.
By contrast, white supremacist groups believe they must arm themselves for a coming race war in the U.S. and maintain organized militias for this purpose. As of 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center counts 181 “antigovernment patriot” militias operating in the U.S., many espousing White supremacist ideologies. Even a small number of veteran foreign fighters can bring combat experience, stronger leadership, and military acumen, strengthening their militias and perhaps emboldening them to commit potentially deadlier attacks.
Finally, White supremacists’ prime target is the U.S. government, not a foreign entity. At the core of their ideologies is a twisted conviction that a cabal of Jews, together with Black people and other minority groups, controls the government to put in place policies diminishing the population’s White majority. These militias view the supposedly imminent race war as a battle between the minions of the “Zionist Occupied Government” and the champions of the “white race.”
Thus, any foreign engagement is a prelude or support mission to the race war. White supremacist militants who go abroad to participate in foreign conflicts intend to return home to fight the real enemy — the U.S. government.
Policy Implications
This increasingly dangerous threat to U.S. national security requires more serious attention to counterterrorism measures aimed at addressing foreign fighter movements. Monitoring by intelligence services is a must but alone is far from sufficient. The U.S. should make no mistake that the threat of White supremacist groups is a militant and terrorist one akin to or greater than that posed by al-Qaeda, IS, and other jihadi groups U.S. forces have been fighting for years. U.S. authorities should treat them as such.
To do so, the U.S. must expand the available legal toolkit to properly address the threat. For example, designating White supremacist groups as foreign terrorist organizations would be a positive step forward. Advocacy for this move by Representative Max Rose and former FBI special agent Ali Soufan has already garnered significant support. In April, the State Department showed a willingness to comply by designating the neo-Nazi-linked Russian Imperial Movement, the first official terrorist designation of a White supremacist group by the U.S. Expanding this label to U.S.-based transnational White supremacist groups would allow law enforcement to more easily sanction, apprehend, detain, and target members. Proposals for a domestic terrorism law that could designate U.S.-based groups would also be helpful, though face concerns over infringing on First Amendment rights.
In the security sphere, authorities should view White supremacist groups as hostile armed entities and treat them as such to the extent they are legally able. These groups are preparing for war against the U.S. government and our security services have a responsibility to be ready for armed conflict with them. Consequently, intelligence officials should not only monitor group members, but also seriously invest in assessing the strategies, goals, and military capabilities of these organizations to identify their strengths and weaknesses and form a strategy to fight them when needed.
The threat of White supremacist groups in the U.S. is only growing more acute. We must be ready for war with them or pay the price as we did on September 11, 2001, after failing to fully grasp the threat of jihadi terrorism.
Photo by Carl Ridderstråle.
Ido Levy is the editor-in-chief of Georgetown Public Policy Review. He is a second-year MPP student at the McCourt School of Public Policy. He earned a BA in government from Israel’s IDC Herzliya. He has completed research work for the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Institute for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, and Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. After graduating, he hopes to enter the security research world through a think tank or academia.
So much misinformation to unpack here:
Charlottesville “sparked the recent rise in hate crimes”? The FBI report listed 4,571 “crimes against persons” INCIDENTS for 2018, up from 4,090 in 2017. Part of this stems from increased reporting but what are the actual numbers saying?
– Murder and Rape remained virtually unchanged at 13 and 22 incidents, respectively.
– Aggravated Assault incidents increased by 30, from 788 to 818.
– Simple Assault, as in pushing, punching, slapping, etc. rose from 1,433 to 1,653 and “Intimidation,” in which no physical contact occurs at all, rose from 1,807 to 2,039. Nobody should have to suffer either indignity, but as serious crimes go, this isn’t much.
All of the above are reported INCIDENTS, which are not actual crimes until a court of law determines them to be such and the vast majority of these incidents never go to court. And seriously, 4,500 “incidents” out of a population of 330,000,000 is hardly a cause for alarm. If only 1% of the US population were criminally violent there would be over 3.3 million psychopaths roaming the streets, to which 4,500 of anything would be statistically insignificant. And what proof is there that ANY of those incidents were directly tied to Charlottesville? Because they allegedly occurred a year later? Correlation in no way implies causation.
“…approximately 129 Americans have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join IS.” And how many of these were “white supremacists” who would have had to convert to Islam before joining the cause? If there is cause for alarm in this factoid, who exactly is the author implying should be feared?
“As of 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center counts 181 “antigovernment patriot” militias operating in the U.S.” The SPLC claimed 577 “anti-government groups” for 2019, of those, 242 were listed only as “statewide” entities, meaning the SPLC gave no corroborating information whatsoever, not so much as a known city or town, that a researcher or donor could use to verify the claims. Another 100 were allegedly lurking in various “counties,” which is little better than the “statewide” phantoms, and another 30 were pinpointed to various geographic areas such as “Northern California” or “Central Florida.” Dozens of others are one-man websites, which the SPLC swears it does not count, except they apparently do.
Of those groups designated as militia, nearly all of them were designated as “statewide” or hiding out in various counties.
Big claims demand big proof, or any proof for that matter. Make the SPLC show its evidence, and while they’re at it, make them give accurate membership numbers. Two or three guys drinking beer in a basement are hardly a “group.” SPLC numbers are for fundraising, not fact finding. Make the company show its proof.
Your readers deserve better than this.