The Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) has released a new paper, Crowdsourced Political Violence: A Literature Review on How the Internet Embodies Leaderless Resistance and Empowers Lone Actors, authored by Paula Granger, an alumna of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
The paper examines how online spaces lower barriers to mobilization, fostering leaderless resistance and empowering lone actors. It situates these dynamics within the broader threat environment outlined by DHS and FBI, which identify lone offenders and small cells—particularly racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs), anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists (AGAAVEs), and homegrown violent extremists (HVEs)—as persistent and lethal threats. In the past five years, lone wolf attacks have accounted for 93 percent of fatal terrorist incidents in the West.
Granger’s analysis highlights how the Internet accelerates radicalization, connects lone actors to virtual communities, and provides logistical support. Unlike traditional models of political violence that relied on groups and ideological coherence, today’s landscape often involves individuals mobilizing around grievances outside of formal organizations.
The review also places these developments within the context of leaderless resistance, a concept revived by extremist Louis Beam and visible in decentralized networks such as The Terrorgram Collective.
Looking ahead, the paper calls for further research that applies the Cynefin Framework, re-examines U.S. counterinsurgency lessons, and integrates cybersecurity considerations into counterinsurgency strategies to address internet-enabled political violence.
Read the full paper here.
(AI was used in part to facilitate this article.)