1.) The highlighting of left wing domestic extremist groups but not right wing. This identification in itself shows that there is not an honest intellectual approach to defining terrorism. It is as you state, politicized. This should be a glaring red flag for everyone in the Intel and Security space.
2.) What we have seen from the administration in terms of positioning towards Boko Haram, other sub Saharan terrorist organizations, and the Nations they thrive in falls epically short of what it will actually take to destroy these organizations. The administration fails to understand that the basic economic security and the corruption fueled by every other nation that operates on the continent AND not on the continent continue to keep that part of world a safe haven for these organizations.
This could also be said about the cartels as well.
Ultimately, the shift will prove not to be effective because of the political priorities of using a hammer and the ideological America First.
Joshua — I think your observations are fundamentally correct, especially regarding the dangers of politicizing threat definition and prioritization.
One of the clearest warning signs for any intelligence or security enterprise is when threat categorization begins to reflect political utility more than analytical consistency. The selective emphasis on certain forms of extremism while comparatively downplaying others inevitably raises questions about whether we are conducting objective threat assessment or engaging in politically conditioned framing. That erosion of analytical credibility carries strategic consequences far beyond domestic politics because it weakens institutional trust across the entire security ecosystem.
More broadly, I think the larger issue is that many contemporary counterterrorism approaches still remain too narrowly “kinetic” and insufficiently systemic. Organizations like Boko Haram, ISIS affiliates, Al-Shabaab, cartel networks, and similar hybrid threat actors are not simply military problems. They are deeply embedded within broader ecosystems of governance failure, corruption, illicit economies, demographic pressures, resource insecurity, climate stress, criminality, and external geopolitical competition.
In other words, these organizations survive because they occupy and exploit spaces where state legitimacy and societal resilience are weak.
That is why purely military responses repeatedly produce only temporary tactical gains. Unless the underlying political-economic-security environment changes, the ecosystem simply regenerates new extremist or criminal formations.
The same logic increasingly applies in Latin America regarding cartels. These are no longer merely criminal enterprises. In many regions they function as proto-political, economic, and governance actors operating within parallel systems of authority and commerce. Treating them solely through a law enforcement or border-security lens misses the larger structural dynamics sustaining them.
What concerns me strategically is that the current policy mindset still appears overly rooted in linear “enemy-centric” thinking — essentially treating terrorism, insurgency, migration, organized crime, economic instability, and geopolitical competition as separate problems rather than interconnected manifestations of a much broader condition of compound insecurity.
That becomes especially problematic when “America First” approaches prioritize short-term coercive demonstrations of strength without equal investment in the harder and longer-term work of building resilient regional systems, credible governance, economic viability, and trusted partnerships.
Ultimately, durable counterterrorism and strategic competition success will require something much broader than simply “more force.” It requires integrated statecraft — defense, diplomacy, development, economic strategy, information strategy, and local legitimacy all working simultaneously.
Absent that, we risk continuously suppressing symptoms while the underlying conditions generating instability continue to expand.
A couple things stand out to me on this.
1.) The highlighting of left wing domestic extremist groups but not right wing. This identification in itself shows that there is not an honest intellectual approach to defining terrorism. It is as you state, politicized. This should be a glaring red flag for everyone in the Intel and Security space.
2.) What we have seen from the administration in terms of positioning towards Boko Haram, other sub Saharan terrorist organizations, and the Nations they thrive in falls epically short of what it will actually take to destroy these organizations. The administration fails to understand that the basic economic security and the corruption fueled by every other nation that operates on the continent AND not on the continent continue to keep that part of world a safe haven for these organizations.
This could also be said about the cartels as well.
Ultimately, the shift will prove not to be effective because of the political priorities of using a hammer and the ideological America First.
Joshua — I think your observations are fundamentally correct, especially regarding the dangers of politicizing threat definition and prioritization.
One of the clearest warning signs for any intelligence or security enterprise is when threat categorization begins to reflect political utility more than analytical consistency. The selective emphasis on certain forms of extremism while comparatively downplaying others inevitably raises questions about whether we are conducting objective threat assessment or engaging in politically conditioned framing. That erosion of analytical credibility carries strategic consequences far beyond domestic politics because it weakens institutional trust across the entire security ecosystem.
More broadly, I think the larger issue is that many contemporary counterterrorism approaches still remain too narrowly “kinetic” and insufficiently systemic. Organizations like Boko Haram, ISIS affiliates, Al-Shabaab, cartel networks, and similar hybrid threat actors are not simply military problems. They are deeply embedded within broader ecosystems of governance failure, corruption, illicit economies, demographic pressures, resource insecurity, climate stress, criminality, and external geopolitical competition.
In other words, these organizations survive because they occupy and exploit spaces where state legitimacy and societal resilience are weak.
That is why purely military responses repeatedly produce only temporary tactical gains. Unless the underlying political-economic-security environment changes, the ecosystem simply regenerates new extremist or criminal formations.
The same logic increasingly applies in Latin America regarding cartels. These are no longer merely criminal enterprises. In many regions they function as proto-political, economic, and governance actors operating within parallel systems of authority and commerce. Treating them solely through a law enforcement or border-security lens misses the larger structural dynamics sustaining them.
What concerns me strategically is that the current policy mindset still appears overly rooted in linear “enemy-centric” thinking — essentially treating terrorism, insurgency, migration, organized crime, economic instability, and geopolitical competition as separate problems rather than interconnected manifestations of a much broader condition of compound insecurity.
That becomes especially problematic when “America First” approaches prioritize short-term coercive demonstrations of strength without equal investment in the harder and longer-term work of building resilient regional systems, credible governance, economic viability, and trusted partnerships.
Ultimately, durable counterterrorism and strategic competition success will require something much broader than simply “more force.” It requires integrated statecraft — defense, diplomacy, development, economic strategy, information strategy, and local legitimacy all working simultaneously.
Absent that, we risk continuously suppressing symptoms while the underlying conditions generating instability continue to expand.