Reflectii

The terrorist threat to the United States is extremely diverse in 2021, with many ideologies that motivate violence defying simple categorization. 
There are important connectors that facilitate ideological convergence, including anomie, nihilism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and accelerationism.
There is a growing list of individuals who reflect this “salad bar” of ideologies, combining Salafi-jihadism and white supremacy extremism.
Extremists with a potpourri of grievances, combined with decentralized and diffuse movements, present a difficult security challenge.

In remarks before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in September 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray described the tendency of some terrorists to be motivated by what he referred to as “a mishmash” or “salad bar” of ideologies, the most prominent feature of which is an attraction to violence. The recently released Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) report on the threat posed by domestic violent extremism (DVE) in 2021 seemed to reference the salad bar analogy when it described “a diverse set of violent extremist ideologies,” adhered to by lone actors and/or small cells of domestic violent extremists (DVEs) as among the most likely to carry out violent attacks in the United States.

When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson left the hospital in April 2020 after having been treated for COVID-19, he released a widely viewed video address in which he thanked the nurses that had cared for him. In singling out two for special mention—Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal—he shone a spotlight on the critical role that migrants have played during the pandemic.

What happens when systems cross the threshold of peak complexity and can no longer be improved in their current forms? Decision-makers can commission competing models in order to pick a winner. This however calls for patience, prudence and sound oversight. Alternately, they can pounce on a fantastical blueprint that will supposedly gel via Artificial Intelligence and get to play monopoly at the same time. An all-in-one solution!

Such thinking was precisely what beleaguered the F-35 combat aircraft program with its estimated $1.7 trillion in lifetime costs. After 20 years of troubled development, the stealth fighter’s problems have become so insurmountable that the US Air Force is now considering a clean slate fighter jet program to replace its ageing F-16s.

Senator Elizabeth Warren appeared on CNBC last week, sparring with hosts Becky Quick and Joe Kernan over stock buybacks.

Both sides here either forget about, miss, or fail to prioritize the key behavioral incentives that drive this activity.

It is true that company managers are shareholder agents—and are obligated to pursue projects to the end of wealth maximization. If the managers perceive that they do not have enough net present value–positive projects to pursue, they often pay dividends or do share buybacks.

Le blocage entre l’Éthiopie et l’ONU continue à propos de la situation dans le Tigré : malgré les discussions en cours, la communauté internationale ne parvient pas à convaincre le gouvernement éthiopien de lui laisser apporter une aide humanitaire. Et au sein même du Conseil de sécurité, qui se réunissait pour la deuxième fois sur la question depuis fin novembre, les voix s’opposent quant à la façon de mettre la pression sur Addis-Abeba.

In mid-November at The Soufan Center’s annual Global Security Forum, Ambassador Nathan Sales of the U.S. Department of State Counterterrorism Bureau commented that “the question of who leads al-Qaeda core matters a little bit less today than it did a decade ago.” Given recent news circulating online about the alleged death of al-Qaeda’s current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, this is more than just an academic issue.

“If nothing changes, in a few decades, France will have submitted to Islam, and Islamic violence will probably be even greater than today. It is already almost impossible for the country’s leaders to react. They are hostages of a Muslim population that is less and less integrated and whose anger they do not want to arouse. They are under the gaze of groups that immediately denounce any criticism of Islam and under pressure from many countries in the Muslim world that France does not want to offend”. — Alan Wagner, “L’Europe face à l’islam”, interview on Tepa, August 2, 2020.

L’attentat de Vienne a propulsé Sebastian Kurz, le jeune chancelier de l’Autriche, au centre de l’attention médiatique. En quelques jours, l’enfant prodige de la politique autrichienne a acquis, grâce à sa fermeté face à l’islamisme, la stature d’un leader européen. Portrait.

“There is no place in our country for a group that sows hate and propagates the re-establishment of a Nazi state,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said.

Police found a crossbow, machete, knives and Nazi symbols in early-morning raids on Tuesday after banning a far-right extremist group called “Wolf Brigade 44” which the government says wants a Nazi state.