In Pursuit of Lone Wolves
By: Drew Mekhail
Tags: National Security, Counterterrorism, Mass Shootings, White Supremacy, Domestic Terrorism

At the turn of the new century, the United States government declared a global war on terror. It became apparent several years later that that declaration may have been short-sighted. In part due to the unprecedented nature of the enemy, such a war could never definitively be won. Terror was not going anywhere, no matter how many terrorists were killed on and off the battlefield. While the power and pervasiveness of “traditional” terrorism ebbs and flows, the threat of a different war has been growing steadily in the advent of the internet.

Internet access provides homegrown terrorists with the necessary motivation, resources, and secrecy to pose a grave and burgeoning national security threat. Responding wisely to acts of terror and containing their fallout can prove difficult when the threat blindsides its targets. It is therefore essential that our government continue committing intellectual and strategic resources towards mitigating stochastic terrorism and ensuring response-readiness.

Clarity on this field of study is obscured by a lack of consensus as to what stochastic terrorism encompasses. Some analysts believe that “small cell” terrorism falls within its purview. Others only consider acts of terror committed by one person to be stochastic. Language itself is often called into contestation. Concerned with glorifying terrorists and inspiring copycats, the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate rejects the term “lone wolf terrorism” for “terrorists acting alone.[1]” In a recent report, the FBI settled on “lone offender.”

Stochastic terrorism definitionally lacks unifying leadership and organizational structure.[2] As a result, determining intent is uniquely difficult and varies from one actor to another. Consensus arises on the solitary nature of the terrorist (or small cell) and independence from direct authority or organizational structure. Intent can be traced from the isolated source to their desired impact on a multitude of victims. Even if the terrorist attack is a single assassination, what distinguishes it from ordinary crime is its attempt to influence a wider sociopolitical context through shock and violence.

Terrorist organizations communicate clearly, through word and action, what they want and what they are willing to do to achieve those ends. Lone wolves share the “how” in common — a portfolio of different terrorist methods — but why they perpetrate such atrocities is not universally consistent.

Some view extremism as the best or only way to achieve drastic measures. An example of this is environmental terrorism, whose adherents condemn the action and inaction of corporations and governments in relation to the environment. Other terrorists, in disseminating their manifestos and screeds, demonstrate that they’ve fallen into a jumbled world of conspiracies peddled on the internet, and succumbed to symptoms of derealization and paranoia. Their desire to inflict violence and suffering is the clearest thing about their conditions.

Resultant of a leadership vacuum, lone wolves are known to mix and match their own experience with various ideologies to justify their violence.[3] Intent can be anarchical or political (though it is important to note that anarchy itself is a political form). The style in which acts of terror are carried out varies based on the particular actor and their cause. While terrorist organizations often demonstrate adherence to a certain philosophy of behavior, in the realm of stochastic terrorism, every terror plot bears its own autonomy and ensuing agency.

Insight on this collective threat can be gleaned from the qualities shared among perpetrators. In a study conducted by the FBI on 52 lone offender terrorist attacks from 1972 to 2015, results showed that most of the attackers were single and unemployed at the time of their attack. Friends and family members often noted concerning behavior and tried to intervene, but failed to prevent the act. “Mental health stressors” were frequent; concrete diagnoses, less so.[4]

Though it is almost taken for granted when discussing these threats, it must be taken into account that all of these attackers are men. Sociologists and others studying gender and society would do well to examine why this may be and what can be done to address it.

Lone wolves are responsible for a small percentage of terrorist attacks committed on American soil. Some of the attacks studied in the FBI report precede the internet. The danger lies not in the proportionally-small track record of lone wolves, but in the growing number of attacks that have transpired every year since 2000,[5] and the breeding ground that the internet provides for terrorists to train and prepare.

As primarily stateless actors, terror organizations exist as a thorn in the side of states who they cannot hope to defeat in direct confrontation. Stochastic terrorists, lacking the physical footprint of organizations, have proven even harder to find and neutralize.[6] Their methods acknowledge the limitations of a highly-structured and hierarchical approach. While individual plots may lack in scale compared to organizations, they excel in promoting panic and spreading a fog of war that is not easily dispelled.

Aware that stochastic terrorism is limited by the amount of damage done through any one act of terror, a key goal held by assailants is to inspire other disaffected members of society to take up similar thoughts and methods.[7] Resources are certainly more sparse, but the lifespan of this ideology will outlast the leadership of any terror organization.

While cult of personality and charismatic leadership are hallmarks of organized terror, stochastic terror provides every actor who takes up its mantle with the chance to be famous, or, in the digital landscape, viral. The latter, an intense and adrenaline-heavy kind of fame, may motivate lone wolves much like promises of paradise do for ideologically-motivated terrorists. The realization that their vision is not only possible, but impactful — that their existence does bear consequence and even purpose — can serve as the impetus for what is often a suicide-mission, even if they survive their initial apprehension by authorities. They may die during or after the attack, but through infamy they may feel immortality.

Internet access has decentralized the process of inciting terrorism unlike any other force. Terrorists need not buy a plane ticket to a foreign training ground in order to become a grave threat — they don’t even need to leave their room. Nor do they need authority from, or contact with, any particular leadership or school of thought; mediums of audio, text, and video can transcend time and space to inspire new vessels of destruction. The alarming and unprecedented consequence is that each and every internet connection is a potential gateway for terrorism.

A one-stop shop for several radicalizing factors, internet access uniquely precipitates and intensifies the violence of stochastic terrorism. Because this valve of information and communication can never be shut off, and because behavior that merits flagging can prove extremely difficult to track, experts and laypeople alike must be cognizant of the tools at a potential terrorist’s disposal.

The exact mechanisms by which stochastic terrorists are radicalized remain unknown. Many experts argue outright that it’s impossible to fully ascertain how a social isolate mutates into a lone wolf terrorist. Scholars of counterterrorism know that interpersonal alienation, the desire for a sense of purpose, and a paucity of economic and social opportunities all contribute to the radicalization process.[8] Superseding almost all other gateways to terrorism is the need for a narrative, namely, one that can explain why the world is in its current state; how the world would look and perform in an ideal state; and what action must be taken to transform the world from its current state to the ideal.[9]

The online world teems with propaganda, conspiracy theories, and analysis that encourages violence and rejection of the systems in place to enact change. Consumption can come in the form of watching YouTube videos or frequenting message boards. Social media is a hotbed of radical thought, particularly when employed by anonymous accounts.

Once lone wolves have identified a target they believe is deserving of indictment, the next step is discerning how to reify their homicidal intent. In the absence of organizational resources and support as well as a deficit of direct leadership, the threat of this kind of terrorism is only possible with robust access, freedom and discretion to browse the internet and furnish their plot independently.

Terrorism in a strict authoritarian regime is considerably easier to crack down on, as state surveillance powers are stronger and more protected legally. In a country as liberalized as the United States, no police force or intelligence agency could monitor the constant flow of information that takes place among millions of internet users within the country, not to mention correspondence and resource-gathering on a global scale. Consequently, plots can be formulated online and constructed offline with privacy. An advantage of this kind of terrorism is that individual or small cell behavior leaves much less of a trace on the radar of counter-terrorism intelligence capabilities.

The inverse of stochastic secrecy is the wide spotlight cast onto perpetrators, should their attack come to fruition. Some terrorists, in recent years, have posted online about their attack minutes prior to live ammunition. Footage of ongoing terrorist attacks facilitate the spread of fear and potential inspiration for emerging terror threats.[10] To even greater horror, some terror attacks have been livestreamed briefly prior to being taken down, such as the Christchurch attack in New Zealand in May 2019.[11]

Beyond this nauseating and shell-shocking display of evil, the response of other internet users to these atrocities is a horror onto itself. Anonymous commenters on message boards such as 4chan, 8chan and Endchan are documented wishing good luck to the poster, urging them to pursue a “high score” by taking as many lives as possible and cheering their destruction on.[12]

The sociopathy demonstrated by this video-game-like perception of the world suggests a crisis-level toxicity in the shadows of anonymous online browsing. That the radicalized internet’s presence materializes out of similar language and concepts points to an invisible community indoctrinated by similar emotions, thoughts, and inspiration.

The damage done by stochastic terrorism magnifies in lockstep with its unexpectedness. Failing to anticipate or prepare adequately nearly guarantees that the potential threat will intensify vis-a-vis severity and quantity of attacks. In contrast with ideology-inspired acts of terrorism, stochastic terrorism’s menace stems from the ambiguous pathways and motivations that lead to its assailants’ destructive ambition. Above all else, lone wolves adhere to the institution of terror.

The American media’s coverage of homegrown terrorists has evolved. Oftentimes their name, face, and martyrdom is muted in substitution for the heroism and goodness of victims, survivors and responders. The horror of stochastic terrorism, however, ensures that it captures the imagination of its onlookers. Though its soldiers may seem to operate independently of one another, each act of violence feeds off of the lore established by previous ones, and seeks to light the fire of the next “high score.”

Inspiration among lone wolves is thriving; their existential limits seem impossible to police or prevent. In a nascent era of social media and online live-streaming, we’ve yet to witness the worst utilizations of viral or widespread disseminations. It’s not implausible that a chain reaction of terrorism could be sparked from the broadcasting or instigation of one act. The spread of misinformation could be as deadly a weapon as any other carried by the assailants.

Just as the weapons and methods of terror have evolved over time, countering this threat will call for adaptability and experimentation. Exploring the best approach may entail oversteps by the government, whereby too much power is granted or exercised over the fate of citizens in order to protect them. This is a subtle but strong way through which terrorism gains a victory over its targets. Finding the right balance is an essential component of responding to the threat.

One clear path forward in the fight against lone wolves is to increase surveillance capabilities on the part of the government. Boosting information-sharing and dedicating more resources to the monitoring of such threats may yield greater returns on thwarting plots. Profiling potential terrorists, however, does not seem like the most morally-straight path forward. Even though most American lone wolves thus far have been white men, it’s the mentality of white supremacy that is toxic, rather than the identity markers themselves. Whiteness and masculinity should both still be intellectually examined to better understand the conditions that are leading some individuals to find warmth in the world of terror. The government would do well to frame this as preventing would-be perpetrators from becoming their own biggest victim — protecting them from themselves, with psychological and social intervention.

Another source of progress may come from shaping the digital battlefield itself. Regulations on private internet companies could be tightened so that anonymity is less impenetrable. In the same way that the families of gun-violence victims want to hold manufacturers accountable for gun violence, holding websites accountable for the hatred and violence they help spread may convince some of them to do more in preventing catastrophe.

As with more traditional threats, there is only so much that can be done realistically to mitigate, rather than fully prevent, these threats of terrorism. Though even the greatest vigilance and most foolproof contingencies will not stop the next stochastic terrorist, preparing more thoroughly for their chaos will aid national security in this new age of digital guerilla warfare.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Spaaij, Ramón.”The Enigma of Lone Wolf Terrorism: An Assessment,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Sept. 2010.

[2] Spaaij, Ramón.”The Enigma of Lone Wolf Terrorism: An Assessment,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Sept. 2010.

[3] Berntzen, Lars Erik & Sveinung Sandberg. “The Collective Nature of Lone Wolf Terrorism: Anders Behring Breivik and the Anti-Islamic Social Movement,” Terrorism and Political Violence. Feb. 2014.

[4] “Lone Offender Terrorism Report.” Federal Bureau of Investigation, 12 Nov. 2019.

[5] Spaaij, Ramón.”The Enigma of Lone Wolf Terrorism: An Assessment,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Sept. 2010.

[6] Mueller, Robert. “War on Terrorism.” Testimony before the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate, Washington, DC, 11 February 2003.

[7] Gilsinan, Kathy. “Inspiration: The Weapon of Choice for Today’s Terrorists.” The Atlantic, 14 Sept. 2015.

[8] Misztal, Blaise et al. “Defeating Terrorists, Not Terrorism: Assessing U.S. Counterterrorism Policy from 9/11 to ISIS.” Bipartisan Policy Center, Sept. 2017.

[9] Misztal, Blaise et al. “Defeating Terrorists, Not Terrorism: Assessing U.S. Counterterrorism Policy from 9/11 to ISIS.” Bipartisan Policy Center, Sept. 2017.

[10] “Germany Shooting: Data on Online Spread of Livestreamed Attack Kept Secret.” Edited by Reuters, The Guardian, 19 Oct. 2019.

[11] “Germany Shooting: Data on Online Spread of Livestreamed Attack Kept Secret.” Edited by Reuters, The Guardian, 19 Oct. 2019.

[12] Gonzalez, Oscar. “8chan, 4chan, Endchan: Here’s What You Need to Know.” CNET, 14 Oct. 2019.