Counterterrorism and Modern White Supremacy

Abstract

Too often the terrorist threat is judged by lives lost, but less quantifiable metrics like political impact and strategic plausibility are also vital for understanding the danger. The history of the modern white supremacist movement in the United States illustrates different dimensions of how terrorism and political violence affect a country. Changing politics led to a devastating U.S. government crackdown on various Klan and like-minded groups in the mid and late 1960s. In the years that followed, violent white supremacist groups decentralized and followed new strategies, and the internet also transformed the movement. As a result, the threat white supremacists pose changed: they no longer enforce a structurally racist political and social system in the South, but they target a wider range of enemies, conduct bloodier attacks, and embrace sedition.