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And now it is my
pleasure to introduce
today's moderator, Mary Perry.
Mary is a triple
Terrier, graduating
from the College of
Arts and Sciences,
the Graduate School
of Arts and Sciences,
and the School of
Law, and serves
as the President of the Boston
University Alumni Council.
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today for BU's most valued
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and leadership volunteers.
Please go ahead, Mary.
Thank you, Eric.
Thanks everyone, and
welcome to today's program
on an update on the war
on terror conversation
with Professor Jessica Stern.
Access to this event is
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Dr. Jessica Stern is
a Research Professor
at Boston University's
Frederick S. Pardee School
of Global Studies and a member
of the Aspen advisory group
on Homeland Security.
Her current work is a
study of Radovan Karadzic,
the former president
of the Serb Republic
within Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Convicted in 2016
of genocide and
other war crimes.
Author and coauthor of several
books, including her most
recent work ISIS
the State of Terror,
Dr. Stern has found
herself at the forefront
of the fight against terrorism
over the span of a few decades.
She was included
among seven thinkers
in Time Magazine's 2001 series
profiling 100 innovators.
And in addition to her work
as a professor here at BU,
advises a number of
government agencies
on issues related to terrorism.
At such a contentious
and poignant time
in our geopolitical
climate, it is
important to have the
kind of open discussions
that Dr. Stern has been
fostering about terrorism,
discussions that are
occurring both domestically
and internationally.
Therefore, without
further ado, it
is my distinct pleasure to
welcome Dr. Jessica Stern.
Thank you so much, Mary.
I'm honored to be here.
And I want to thank all of
you for your assistance to BU.
I'm just so grateful
that you are
helping us and our students.
I've joined a new school at BU.
It's very exciting-- the Pardee
School for Global Studies.
And I'll tell you a bit
more about that as we go on.
We'll start with a brief
discussion of the terror threat
today.
We're going to talk
also about how worried
we should be about this threat.
I'm not going to tell
you how worried to be.
But I'll give you some data that
might make you feel differently
from how you start.
We'll see.
And then we'll go over how the
Pardee School of Global Studies
is addressing this threat.
So we'll start with a poll,
and we'd love to hear from you.
Has terrorism affected
you or anyone you know?
And we can see--
wow, a lot of people
already are saying yes.
We have-- gosh, this is a
higher number than I thought.
So we're now up to about 70%.
OK, so about 70%.
And then we'd also like to
know, on a scale from 1 to 5,
how worried you are about
the threat of terrorism,
with 1 not very worried,
and 5 very worried.
And I see that we seem to
be getting pretty worried.
People are pretty
worried, not very worried
but pretty worried--
quite worried.
Interesting.
That looks like people
are quite worried.
So we'll start with an update
on ISIS and other terrorists
groups.
We're going to focus primarily
on the Middle East and North
Africa, also on Europe, and
finally on the United States.
These are the
three places that I
think are most
important when we think
about ISIS and other
offshoots of al-Qaeda.
Where does ISIS come from?
Many people don't
realize that this is not
an organization that suddenly
appeared in 2014 when it
started beheading Westerners.
It actually comes
out of a group that
was formed in 2004 called
al-Qaeda in Iraq that
were formed in reaction to
the Allied Coalition of Iraq.
The organization changed
names many times.
Many of you probably
remember in 2007 the surge
when we really pushed back
against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
But the organization
regrouped after the surge,
under several names, and then
split into an organization
called ISIS, and another
one called Nusra.
They were mortal enemies.
To me, the most
interesting thing
to recognize about this group is
that it was not actually formed
by a religious extremist,
but a secular thug--
an ordinary criminal.
His mother thought that if
she sent him to the mosque,
he would become a better person.
But he didn't become
a better person.
He kept up with the
same type of really
extra lethal violent activities,
really gruesome violence--
beheading Shiites.
He kept up with this
kind of activity
even when he became a
purportedly religious fighter.
Many of the
attributes that we're
most horrified about ISIS--
number one, beheading of
both Westerners and Shiites,
and even Sunnis who disagree
with their version of Sunni
Islam--
those were initiated
by Zarqawi in 2004.
So this is not new.
This was not a style of fighting
that Baghdadi initiated.
What is new is the sophisticated
social media campaign.
That has changed terrorism.
And in fact, as we'll discuss,
even ISIS' enemy, Nusra,
has picked up that style
of using social media.
So we know that ISIS
has now been pushed out
of its major
stronghold in Libya,
in Dabiq in Syria, also Raqqa--
its capital in Syria, and Mosul.
This is an organization
that was functioning
as a kind of hybrid
insurgent army,
as well as terrorist
organization, as well as state.
It was offering many of
the services of a state,
including courts, taxing the
local populace, including
people who happened to be
stuck in its territory.
A lot of criminal activity,
also, for raising money.
In some ways, you could
call it a major organized
criminal ring.
It was involved in
currency manipulation.
Obviously most of you know
about the oil sales, also
sales of antiquities.
This is no longer.
The organization ISIS did
something revolutionary.
It held a tremendous
amount of territory,
which made it vulnerable to
exactly what has happened.
When there's a return address
for a terrorist organization,
we can go after them.
And that's exactly what we did.
And the organization
has really moved back
into a terrorist organization.
But it still has
provinces or wilayats
in nine countries
around the globe.
So when we look at the region--
Iraq and Syria--
the two countries
are quite different in
terms of the challenges
they pose for the US
military and policy makers.
In Iraq we have a partner,
Prime Minister Abadi.
He is not as
sectarian as Maliki.
Maliki really,
unfortunately, increased
the disenfranchisement
of Sunni Arabs because
of his pro-Shiite stance.
We also, of course,
have been working
with the Peshmerga--
the Kurdish military,
and the Iraqi military.
But the risk factors
for terrorism remain.
And this is pretty worrisome
to me and my colleagues.
We know that
illiberal democracies
and incomplete
democracies actually
are more vulnerable to
terrorism than autocracies.
So the idea that
spreading democracy
is a good way to fight terrorism
actually isn't quite true.
It's a good way
to fight terrorism
over the very long term.
But in the intermediate
term, if there
is a slow transition
to democracy,
that's a vulnerable moment.
Fragile states are
a very well studied
risk factor for terrorism.
Terrorists will move around
to find new fragile states
when a state becomes stronger.
Low opportunity cost for
the time of young men
is another risk factor, a youth
bulge, strong sectarianism.
As I said, the Sunni
disenfranchisement
is a little bit better
under Prime Minister Abadi.
But it's still an issue because
of these Shiite militias
that have been fighting ISIS.
Iran's influence is, for
some of us, a major worry.
And the fact that there is
a civil war right next door
is also worrisome.
Syria-- we have no
clear partner there.
In fact, it's a matter of
our non-partners fighting
our non-partners.
Assad, of course, remains.
Iran and Russia are still
having a major influence.
And, of course, as
many of you have
seen in the last few days Times
or whatever newspaper you read,
Turkey--
it's so complicated.
Turkey is very worried about
a long-time terrorist group
called the PKK, which is--
well, perhaps
aligned, but certainly
from Turkey's
perspective, very much
aligned, with the Syrian
Kurdish group, the YPG.
Ocalan, who ran the PKK,
a terrorist group-- the US
recognizes it as
a terrorist group.
Europe recognizes it
as a terrorist group.
He spent time in Syria.
So this is a threat and very
much a increasingly perceived
threat to Turkey.
And this is causing
enormous problems for us
at the moment because of the
Kurds on the border of Turkey--
the Peshmerga on the border--
and their very successful
fight against ISIS.
What is their long-term goal?
From Turkey's perspective, what
is the long-term goal of the US
bolstering the Kurdish groups?
The risk factors in Syria
remain, in some ways,
even more strongly in
Syria than in Iraq.
Civil war-- we all agree
that that's a major risk
factor for terrorism.
ISIS remains in small pockets,
actually in both countries.
And it's important to
recognize that the group that
was formerly known as of
al-Nusra, now called HTS,
is becoming increasingly
important al-Qaeda
and its affiliate.
This is an al-Qaeda
affiliated group.
It periodically says it's
not affiliated with al-Qaeda.
It is affiliated with al-Qaeda.
And another, often described
as more moderate group,
are al-Sham, which perhaps
will join together with HTS.
HTS is, in fact, already
a merger of four groups.
This is something that
I've seen over the decades
that I've been
studying terrorism.
These groups merge and
split all the time.
So I don't even really see ISIS
as separate from the al-Qaeda
movement, even though
they are mortal enemies.
I see this as the
al-Qaeda movement.
We're going to see new
groups splintering off.
We're going to see mergers.
This is going to keep shifting.
I call this protean al-Qaeda.
It keeps shifting.
We're going to see new names.
But this is a
movement that has been
with us for quite some time.
What's next?
It's very hard to predict.
I guess we can predict
chaos and instability.
That's the one thing I
think we can predict.
So when we look
beyond Iraq and Syria,
we can see that ISIS
now has a major presence
in a number of countries.
You can see Afghanistan, Egypt
in the Sinai region, Libya--
although ISIS has been
pushed out of Syria,
it's still active in Libya--
Philippines, Somalia, Mali,
Niger, Nigeria, Yemen.
These are major
places that are going
to be posing problems for us.
We always see fighters
moving to conflict zones
or, as I mentioned
earlier, fragile states.
So wherever we see
fragile states,
we need to be on the lookout
for remnants of ISIS,
as well as other al-Qaeda
affiliates, setting up shop.
They always take advantage of
these conflicts and failing
states.
What about ISIS' future?
Yes, you're reading in the
New York Times or whatever
paper you read, that ISIS has--
well, we're celebrating the
purported defeat in Iraq.
But this organization
has not been defeated.
It's very active online.
There's been a rapid
drawdown of ISIS militants
in Iraq and Syria.
The latest estimate is
about 3,000 militants left.
That's a very
rapid drawdown from
about an estimated 100,000.
The US government has never put
out a reliable or convincing
figure for the
number of militants
that were in Iraq and Syria.
But I think the best
estimate is around 100,000.
It's no longer a state but it is
still attracting local support.
And as you've been seeing in
the newspaper in the last week
or two, they've been
able to launch attacks,
even in Baghdad.
Still very active online--
a few weeks ago, I was invited
by the Royal Court of Saudi
Arabia to come see what
they're doing to fight ISIS
and other al-Qaeda
inspired groups online.
It was amazing to see.
I have a 16-year-old son.
I saw a room full of
30- or 40-year-old men
looking very much like my son.
When I came in the
room, nobody noticed me.
They are looking at how these
organizations are recruiting.
And they're either taking
down their recruitment
advertisements or conversations,
or they're interrupting them,
working together with
the organization that
used to be called Google
Ideas, now called Jigsaw.
You know how when you're
looking for a new pair of shoes
on Amazon and then when
you're looking something
up on Wikipedia, you're going
to keep seeing those shoes?
Well, when somebody typed
in, "I want to join ISIS.
How do I do it?"
this organization
in Saudi Arabia--
and actually there are
others around the globe--
will say, look,
this is what it's
really like if you join an
al-Qaeda affiliated group.
It's not the five-star jihad
that has been advertised.
It is not a true
Muslim organization.
So now we'll turn to what
is happening in Europe.
Europe was a major source
of foreign fighters
from all over the globe, as you
see from the arrows pointing
toward Syria here.
We saw between 40,000 and
45,000 foreign fighters left,
not just for Syria,
but Iraq and Syria.
That's, I think, the
most reliable figure.
But of course there are many,
many different estimates.
The highest number,
in absolute terms,
came from Tunisia,
second, Saudi Arabia;
third, Jordan; and
fourth, Russia.
But a surprisingly high
percentage came from Europe,
approximately 7,500.
The highest number,
in absolute terms,
came from France, the United
Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium.
In terms of per capita,
it's Kosovo and Bosnia.
So the issue is, where
are these foreign fighters
going to end up?
On your screen you now
see an actual recruitment
advertisement hoping to
attract young people--
well, young people
who speak English.
And this is very interesting
because in Europe especially,
ISIS has been very effective at
recruiting ordinary criminals.
Again, this is not--
they're not recruiting
in the mosque.
This successful recruiting is
among the thugs, criminals,
people in prison, using
ordinary criminal networks.
Also using ordinary
crime to raise money.
ISIS has been labeled
a super gang in Europe.
It's a criminal organization,
really more than anything else.
Criminals have social
networks that are useful.
They also have skills
that are useful.
We see kids that
have joined ISIS.
We've seen the Islam--
they're ordering books
like Islam for Dummies
or very elementary books
about Islam or jihad.
These are not long
time Islamists.
These are criminals.
What is happening to
these foreign fighters?
And of course,
we're very worried
about the foreign
fighters from Europe.
An estimated 30% have returned.
But the figures we
see are so varied.
That in itself, I think,
is very worrisome,
that nobody really knows
exactly how many left.
And nobody really knows
exactly how many have returned.
Or at least nobody--
there isn't agreement.
Let's put it that way.
I imagine there are
some intelligence
agencies who feel they know.
I'm not persuaded they do.
And there isn't agreement.
I see this as a
significant threat.
And frankly, to the extent
that al-Qaeda still poses--
the al-Qaeda movement
poses a threat to the US,
I see the European fighters
as part of that threat.
There are three
kinds of attacks.
The US government
divides attacks
that we can expect from the
al-Qaeda movement into three.
One is directed,
where individuals
who have been
trained in the field
would actually
direct the attack.
Then there is enabled attacks,
where the al-Qaeda movement
or ISIS is actually directing
an attack from abroad, online.
And then there's inspired.
This is when we see
individuals who perhaps
see an advertisement
like the one we see here
and decide to carry out
an attack on their own.
That is increasingly the
kind of attacks we see.
You've notice, I'm
sure, many of you,
that often the
attacks in Europe we
discover that the operatives
were already on a watch list.
Why are these European
law enforcement personnel
not able to stop attacks if
the operatives were already
on a watch list?
Well, it's because the
numbers on the watch lists
are so high--
15,000 in France and about
23,000 subjects of interest
in the United Kingdom.
I think it's
important to recognize
that we hear the most about
jihadi attacks, both in the US
and in Europe,
especially in Europe.
But the vast majority
of attacks that happen
are actually carried out
by ethno-nationalists
or separatists.
These terrorists are
not very skilled.
The jihadists are
much more effective.
So in Europe they're responsible
for about 95% of the deaths,
even though 70% of
the attacks have
been carried out by
ethno-nationalists
or separatists.
In the United States, we
have a similar phenomenon.
The attacks coming from the hard
right are a lot more frequent.
But jihadis are more effective.
They kill more people.
At the same time, the threat is
not nearly as big in the West
as it is in the
rest of the world.
That's something to bear in
mind, especially in the Middle
East and North Africa.
For people who
study terrorism, I
will tell you that there is
an interesting phenomenon
that there's a small--
very, very, very small--
but growing threat of
other types of violence,
besides hard right and jihadi,
which are the most important.
And that is leftist Antifa
and Black Nationalists.
And I will tell
you that I thought
about inviting some Antifa
members to my classroom.
In fact, one of my
students admitted
that he had gone on to a
march on the Boston Common.
And as he put it, I might have
been wearing a black mask.
He got recruited by Antifa.
But I went and talked
to the BU detective--
or rather, a
detective-- and he said,
no, no Antifa in the classroom!
And also I will tell you,
once I heard that they were
advertising, trying to figure
out who had invited Richard
Spencer to a
university in Georgia,
perhaps going after whoever
had invited this neo-Nazi--
he calls himself an
identitarian-- a hard right,
I would also call
him a neo-Nazi--
that they are beginning
to pose a, as I said,
small but growing threat.
So when we look at how these
attacks are carried out
in the United States, there
have been no directed attacks,
no attacks carried out
by trained operatives.
Those attacks were all thwarted.
There were four attempted and
at least one successful enabled
attack, that I know of.
Most of the attacks
are inspired.
These are people who sometimes
are picking up, claiming
to operate in the name of ISIS,
maybe the day before, maybe
the day of.
They're really not a long
time jihadi activists.
Quite a small
number of Americans
have attempted to travel
or actually travel
to Syria or Iraq in
comparison with Europe.
Only seven have returned.
ISIS has been very unsuccessful
at recruiting in the United
States.
And I would like to just
say a little bit about why
that might be.
First of all, about 33% of those
who joined ISIS are converts.
But that leaves about 2/3
who actually were Muslims.
Well, it's very hard to
recruit American Muslims.
The latest poll was
taken immediately
before the last election
by Dalia Mogahed
who had been working at Gallup
and started her own firm.
She found that Muslims
in the United States
are more optimistic about
the future of the country
than other religious groups.
Muslims in the United States
are the second most educated
religious group.
They are patriots,
more likely to vote.
This is not a disenfranchised
community, not
an alienated community.
It's not a particularly
poverty-stricken community.
Muslim Americans are as
wealthy as any other Americans.
That is not true for Europe.
It's much easier to
recruit in Europe.
So here the purpose of this
slide is just to show you
that jihadis began promoting
vehicle attacks in 2010
in a magazine called Inspire.
You're hearing a lot
about vehicle attacks
with cars or trucks.
It took a while for
this fad to take off.
And it's becoming
increasingly important,
as we'll see in the next slide.
So in 2014 there were
three such attacks.
By 2017 we see 10
vehicle attacks.
And it's important that
this style of attack
is spreading in what we
call a copycat style attack.
We often see this spreading
to another ideology.
We've seen two attacks
from the hard right.
What makes these vehicle
attacks attractive--
very hard to prevent.
They're very inexpensive,
relatively high
probability of success.
And it's really
scary because it just
seems like wherever you
are, it could happen.
So that's the point
of terrorism--
make people feel afraid.
And it works.
So when we look at who are the
jihadists in the United States,
it's important to recognize that
every lethal terrorist attack
in the United States since 9/11
was perpetrated by either--
sorry, every terrorist
was either a US citizen
or a permanent resident
of the United States.
Now, both the right and the left
are playing with these figures,
I have to say.
So we just saw that
some data put out
by the administration looking
at all terrorists as opposed
to terrorists who have
carried out lethal attacks.
If you look at
lethal attacks, it
looks like every
terrorist is American.
If you look at the universe
of attempted attacks,
terrorists look more foreign.
So you should be skeptical.
It's very easy to
manipulate with statistics.
And I'm trying not to do that.
I know I'm about to report some.
About 80% of the US jihadis
were radicalized online.
That's very interesting to us.
As I mentioned
earlier, about 33%--
this figure, 33%--
it's been every year
for about the last 4 years.
So it's gone down a bit.
It was a little bit
higher the first year
that the George Washington
Program on Extremism
started counting this.
An interesting finding, we
are seeing about a third
of jihadists have a history of
domestic or sexual violence.
This is something I've noticed.
And I'm interested to see
that somebody has actually
collected the data.
So the polling
shows that Americans
are very fearful of an
impending terrorist attack.
In fact, when this poll
was taken in the last year,
it was the highest
percentage of Americans
who were worried about an
impending pact since the Iraq
war--
since we started, since
the US and the allies
invaded Iraq in 2003.
But the chance of dying
in a terrorist attack,
in an actuarial
sense, is quite small.
So if we look at
the cause of death--
the lifetime odds for
a cause of death--
we can see that heart
disease is much more
important than
attacks by a refugee
terrorist or an illegal
immigrant terrorist.
It's also, I'll
just tell you, much,
much higher than dying
in a terrorist attack.
For me, something could happen
tomorrow that I can't predict.
I don't have a crystal ball.
But obviously, this
is going back to 9/11.
We're looking backwards here.
We're not predicting.
But to the extent we can predict
based on what we see now,
terrorism is a much more
important psychological
and, frankly, political threat--
or of political interest than
a threat to national security.
And terrorist groups
aim to instill fear.
And once again, I will
repeat, it is working.
Now I want to tell
you about what
we're doing at my school,
this very new school at BU.
We have in the Pardee School--
you see one of them
in the picture there.
That's Professor Joe Whippl.
We have two former operatives.
BU is the only school that
I know of in the United
States that has in its faculty
former operatives from the CIA,
as opposed to analysts.
I always think of
intelligence analysts
as very much like academics.
They're kind of boring.
They're not very
socially skilled.
They're often introverts.
Whereas operatives are
definitely not introverts.
Some of the classes
actually go and--
they go at the end of class to
a bar, which I think is great.
I have to admit, I don't
do that with my students.
But, of course, I've been
stuck with an 8 AM class.
So it probably wouldn't
be approved if I did.
We have courses in security
intelligence, counterterrorism,
homeland security, arms
control, and conflict
and state-building.
We're able to attract a really
wide variety of speakers
to our class.
And that's so much
fun for our students
because they are all
thinking about, what next?
We've had scholars.
One scholar who actually
has gone many times
to Syria and Turkey--
she's incredibly courageous.
And actually maybe, to use
the technical term, masugana.
She does incredibly
dangerous things.
But she's doing
really exciting work,
looking at why people join,
for example, ISIS versus Nusra
or HTS, why they leave.
One of her fascinating
findings is
that what matters is
the health insurance
policy and essentially,
the life insurance policy.
And the salary.
It's not about ideology.
We had this year a
man, Suleiman Bakhit--
he's given TED Talks.
Some of you may
have seen his name.
He came to our classroom to
talk to us about the comic books
that he's been creating to
model heroism throughout-- he
does this in Jordan.
But it's throughout the
Muslim majority countries.
The Director of Global
Policy Management at Facebook
came to my classroom
last year and came
to talk to our faculty.
This year we had the former
head of the TSA come talk
to our students.
So these are really exciting
speakers for our students.
You see a picture of
our Dean, Adil Najam.
And he-- well, I'll just
say that he's the reason
I came to BU.
He and I went to the
same school at MIT.
He's a remarkable--
just a great leader.
And that's a lot
of what makes it
so much fun to be on
the faculty at Pardee.
But it's also really fun
for students, I think,
because we have such
small classrooms.
You can see those ladies are
leaders from the Yanomami
tribe.
I have generally seen
them without clothes on.
It's great to see them here,
obviously wearing clothing,
to speak to our students.
I just can't believe we have
these women leaders coming
to talk to our students.
So I want to tell you a little
bit about a new kind of style
of teaching that we've
been spearheading, which
is to have the students
actually create something,
rather than just
read about something.
So two professors
have been working
with students, Professor
Noora Lori and Kaija Schilde.
Their students have
been developing apps
to help refugees.
One class developed apps
to help refugees in Jordan
and another in France.
It's just amazing what
young people can do.
It's incredibly exciting.
My classroom participated
in a competition
to develop a counter-narrative
to terrorism.
So the students aren't
just listening to me
drone on and on.
They're actually
getting to do something.
And they were selected--
Facebook selected them.
Can you show the next slide?
They were one of three
projects featured on Facebook's
counterspeech site.
My students got to meet
with former terrorists.
You can see two of them.
One is a former neo-Nazi.
The other is a former--
I won't call him a
jihadi, but someone
who was very much pro-jihadi.
And we held this
school-wide discussion.
And the students
developed the toolkit
to help families who are
worried about their kids.
So I think we will stop
here and take questions.
Oh, yes-- a poll, another poll.
So we'd like to see, based
on what you know now,
on a scale from 1 to
5, how worried are you
about the threat of terrorism?
So it looks like--
I don't know.
Have people-- have they
shifted a little bit?
It looks like it's
shifted a little bit.
So people are
slightly less worried.
What I said after 9/11--
I was then teaching
at Kennedy School.
And the dean actually
asked me to cancel my class
and go to New York.
He thought it was a
public service for me
to go to New York and go on TV.
Because at that
time, there were not
a lot of people who
knew about terrorism.
I'd been interviewing
a lot of terrorists.
And I said, the important
thing, if you're
worried about your
life expectancy,
is wear your seat belt.
And I got on Comedy Central
when I said that.
The press people were very,
very excited about that,
that we got on Comedy Central.
OK, we'll take questions now.
Thank you, Dr. Stern, for
such a wonderful presentation.
And ladies and
gentlemen, it's now
time to get your questions
answered on today's webcast.
If you would like
to ask a question,
you can go ahead and submit
it via the webinar platform
in the chat area
located down there
in the bottom left-hand
corner of your screen.
Just type your questions, and
then click the Send button.
And we'll try to get to as many
questions as we have time left.
OK, we have several.
And the first that came in asked
if you would give your opinion
on the likelihood that
Russian hacks of the US
might embolden some of
the groups towards cyber
terrorism-- if you had an
opinion along those lines.
I do have an opinion.
I think that hacking is very
exciting for terrorists.
And how much attention the
Russian hacks have been getting
will be very exciting
to terrorists.
The media attention is so
important for terrorism.
Margaret Thatcher called
it the oxygen of terrorism.
Wow, the attention that
these hacks are getting
must be very exciting to anyone
in a terrorist organization who
has that kind of skill.
And there are many.
Can you tell us whether
the poll of US Muslims
was taken before the Trump
administration was elected.
It was taken before the Trump
administration was elected,
yes.
And I have not seen a
new poll since then.
So I can't report
on any new findings.
This is something of
a detailed question.
The questioner points out that
you make an interesting point
about possible correlation
between extremists
and domestic violence.
And they're looking
for you to make
the comparison between the
occurrence of domestic violence
for the American
population and compare
the data you've
been seeing on how
the rate of the correlation
between domestic violence
and terrorism
compares to that which
is in the country as a
whole for domestic violence.
I am not an expert
on domestic violence.
I mean, obviously domestic
violence is much more common--
much, much, much more common--
than terrorism.
How significant, what
percentage of people
who are involved in domestic
violence become terrorists--
I'm going to go out on
a limb here and suggest
that it's vanishingly small
because domestic violence is,
unfortunately, so common and
terrorism is so uncommon.
So it stands to reason that the
answer would be, very small.
One thing I will say--
this reminds me--
that many of us
are starting to think
of the kind of terrorism
that we're seeing in
the United States now
as not that different
from mass shooting.
We like to be very careful
about how we define terrorism,
even though we don't all
agree on a single definition.
We do agree that it is
violence with the aim--
with a political, or
ideological, or religious goal
to influence an audience.
And when we see a
mass shooter that
doesn't seem to have
any political goal,
we want to distinguish
that from terrorism.
But we're starting to think that
there is more of an overlap,
certainly in the kind of
person that gets involved.
One of our attendees
would like to have
your opinion of the
most important actions
that we as ordinary citizens
can take to help minimize
the risk of domestic terrorism.
It's like, maybe
buckling our seatbelts.
[LAUGHTER]
Great, you know I--
what we're seeing
now, there is--
the most lethal terrorism
is carried out by jihadis.
But this is not a
popular ideology.
A more popular ideology
is neo-Nazism, hard right.
They have generally been
flops as terrorists.
However, the
movement is growing--
not the terrorist
part of the movement,
but the movement is growing.
Also, one thing I would--
when we think about
who gets involved,
it's usually people who
are quite alienated in one
way or another.
So I guess I would say, if you
want to work in your community
to help people who look
like they're alienated,
you will be helping society
in many ways at once.
And we have a couple
related to this.
You just talked about the Who
and the What of terrorism.
We have a question about Where--
where you might think
the most likely places
of terrorist attacks
might be, and a couple
of other related
questions right after.
So New York is--
it's fairly predictable
that terrorists
will continue to focus on
New York and Washington.
Terrorists like to go
for symbolic targets.
But of course, we are seeing
terrorists attack places
where people are congregated.
So wherever there are
large numbers of people.
We keep trying to protect
concerts, sports facilities,
and the terrorists
now are trying
to-- it's a cat and
mouse kind of game.
The terrorists now try to
attack outside the theater.
But I think it's
pretty safe to predict
that those are attractive
targets to terrorists.
Along those lines we
have a question of,
what do you see as the
possible way of eliminating
the recruitment online of
jihadists in the United States?
Well, one of the things
that has happened
is the social media
companies have
become more and more
energetic about taking down
recruitment content.
How successful are they?
The content is still there.
But the numbers
have gone way down.
And I will tell
you that there was
a debate among my colleagues.
Is it useful to
be able to follow
how people are recruiting,
where they're recruiting?
What is the message
they're sending out?
Which messages are
most successful?
We lose that kind
of information when
the content gets taken down.
One of the interesting
things that I've learned
is that a lot of the smaller
social media companies that
keep coming up don't have the
wherewithal or the knowledge
to take down content.
And Facebook has been
very actively involved
in teaching them.
So social media companies
are getting together
to learn about this.
Look, I'm not going to say
they're completely effective.
But they have really taken down
a massive amount of content.
Do you see a risk for
BU's studying abroad
students in the UK,
given the increasing risk
of jihadists in Europe?
You know, I'm not particularly
worried about that.
We just have to remember
that there's risk in life.
Any time, any
parent who's worried
about their kid going
abroad, I urge you
to look again at that chart.
We tend to-- there's
certain kinds of risks
that are called dreaded risks.
We tend to think that getting
behind the wheel is risk free.
And we imagine that we're in
control when we drive a car.
A lot of people are more afraid
to fly than they are to drive.
People are not often thinking
that when they get on a bicycle
or they go swimming
that that's actually
a relatively risky activity.
It doesn't mean we
shouldn't do it,
but we're not very scientific
about how we evaluate risk.
And by the way,
risk analysts, when
it comes to their own families,
are often not very scientific.
But it's a useful exercise
to actually look at the data
if you want to
calm yourself down.
One of our attendees
wants to feedback to you
that it's a wonderful
presentation and thanks you.
She was wondering
how many people
are on the watch list
in the United States.
Can you give us any indication
of who and how many?
Oh, well, I really
thank this respondent
for saying something so nice.
But I'm afraid, despite
hearing such nice words,
I'm not going to be able
to answer that question.
I don't know that that
has ever been published.
Oh, I'm getting a
little help here.
I'm not sure.
That doesn't sound right to me.
OK, the answer is, I don't know.
An interesting question
from one of our attendees,
do you see Antifa as a
haven for foreign terrorists
under cover of an
American organization?
In other words, is it a
better door into the US
to commit terrorist acts?
Well, I'm not sure
how that would work.
I mean, I think at the
border if someone said, hi, I
want to come to the US because
I'm an Antifa member, that's
not going to help much.
The US government
does see Antifa
as a threatening
organization, even though--
the reason I wanted to
invite Antifa to my classroom
is I think it's
important for students
to recognize that
they may sympathize
with the ideology of a group.
And many of my students do
think that it's a good thing
to go after neo-Nazis.
But that doesn't mean
that the methodology--
the action-- is good.
And it's easier to see that when
we empathize or even sympathize
with the ideology.
I guess the answer
is, no, I don't really
see hiding as a member
of Antifa as a good way
to get into the US.
We have room for one more
question, I'm being advised.
And we had questions
with regard to Pardee.
And the question particularly
is the relationship
briefly between GRS
and the Pardee School.
As an alum of GRS
who enjoyed classes
with Profressor
Najam and others,
he's unclear about how
they complement each other.
The Graduate School
of Arts and Sciences.
Ah, thank you.
Well, Pardee technically
falls under the CAS.
So I would have to
look at a chart.
I'm new here.
I apologize.
I don't know everything
about how BU is organized.
But technically Pardee
does fall under CAS.
And there is a relationship
between Pardee and obviously
with the Central
Intelligence Agency.
Is there also one with
the State Department?
We do have a former
ambassador at Pardee.
And I will tell you that
some of the former government
officials, you don't
know how they're
going to end up as teachers.
But our former ambassador is a
spectacularly talented teacher.
The students love him.
His name is Robert Loftis.
Dr. Stern, we want
to thank you so
much for sharing with us today
your expertise and your insight
into the geopolitical climate
and how terrorism has changed
over the last few years.
We look forward to seeing
the new and exciting ways
that you and your
colleagues at Pardee
integrate global policy
strategy into forward thinking
and innovative programming.
And with your
remarks in mind, we
will conclude with
today's web class.
We want to give
thanks to all of you
in attendance for your
participation and for all
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