America’s “doomsday” extremists are getting serious. They’re recruiting veteran and active military personnel. And they’ve begun attacking critical infrastructure.
The US intelligence community’s recently released 2023 Annual Threat Assessment is blunt in its warning: Nazis and other racist groups are now the “most lethal threat” faced by the United States.
That’s ahead of the aggressive expansionism displayed by China’s Chairman Xi Jinping. And the invasion of Ukraine under President Vladimir Putin.
And these groups “believe that recruiting military members will help them organise cells for attacks against minorities or institutions that oppose their ideology,” the report warns.
United States think tanks are also increasingly worried.
A new Brookings Institution survey found 16 per cent of Americans agree with the statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
But law enforcement statistics reveal an increasing number of extremists are already choosing to do so.
In 2022 there were 26 “actual physical attacks” on power facilities across the United States. That’s up from eight in 2021.
And that’s just one sign the recruitment drive among US military and police forces is bearing deadly fruit.
Ready recruits
“Extremist groups have long urged members to join the military to get training in weapons, tactics and leadership,” a special report into the emerging crisis by military.com states. “The most common route to extremism may be post-service, when veterans … struggle to make peace with their time in the military and try to forge a new life as a civilian.”
Active recruiters include militias and outlaw gangs such as Patriot Front, Atomwaffen, Oath Keepers and the Boogaloo movement.
Such groups already “ape the military and actively recruit members and veterans because they see them as an asset to whatever cause they are pursuing”.
One such cause is detailed by a manifesto circulating on the Russian social media service Telegram. Called the Hard Reset, the document details military-based tactics to take down public infrastructure.
It’s finding a fertile audience beyond just US military and police enforcement agencies.
The Brookings Institution survey found that one in 10 Americans identify as adherents to “Christian nationalism”. A further 19 per cent say they support many of the movement’s goals.
“There is an underlying ideology of racism among the Christian nationalist movement that connects them to white nationalist groups who rely on old and new tropes to promote white supremacy,” the survey finds.
This is expressed through conspiracy movements, including replacement theory – a belief that non-European immigrants are “invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.”
Unholy War
“The main thing that keeps the anti-White system going is the power grid,” a neo-Nazi manifesto declares. “This is something that is easier than you think. Peppered all over the country are power distribution substations… Sitting ducks, worthy prey.”
Analysts say the only thing uniting the diverse dogmas of US neo-Nazi, White Supremacist and Christian Nationalist movements is a belief in “accelerationism”.
“With the power off, when the lights don’t come back on… all hell will break lose, making conditions desirable for our race to once again take back what is ours,” the Nazi doctrine document reads.
What comes next, including how it will reconcile competing extremist beliefs, is not addressed.
The apocalyptic propaganda calls for supporters to select targets “that do the most damage to the system and spark revolution and chaos. So long as the power turns on, the status quo, the downward decline of our race, and the increase in non-whites in our lands will carry on unhindered.”
But signs are “true believers” have already made a start.
On December 3 last year, two electricity grid transformers in Moore County, North Caroline, came under sniper fire. The resulting outage left 40,000 residents without power for several days, even as temperatures fell below zero.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper stated the obvious: “If someone with a firearm can do this much damage and get power out to tens of thousands of people, then obviously we need to look at the different layers of infrastructure and hardening and make better decisions here.”
But College of Strategic Intelligence analyst Scott Englund warns the US isn’t in an ideal place for active government intervention. “In the United States, local, state, and federal governments have a long history of directly engaging in, and later tolerating, domestic terror against people of colour or other marginalised groups. Given that history of state terror, attempts to address inequality may be met with mistrust in these communities, no matter how well-intentioned.”
Upskilling extremism
FBI domestic terrorism statistics recorded 1981 domestic terror attacks in 2013. In 2021, that number grew to 9049.
Such figures prompted the US intelligence community’s official warning. Despite its political unpopularity.
Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, challenged the finding at a Capitol Hill briefing. “Are you serious? You seriously think that racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists are the most lethal threat that Americans face?”
The Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, replied: “Yes, sir, in terms of the number of people killed or wounded as a consequence”.
Part of that reason is the drive by extremist organisations to become more military and professional.
Extreme right-wing militia The Oath Keepers came to international attention after a combat-uniformed cadre led the assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Its leader has since been convicted of sedition.
Its membership primarily consists of people who describe themselves as military or police veterans. But a leaked database of the 38,000-strong body details some of its members’ skills.
These include battle tank operators and one who claims to have worked with nuclear warheads.
According to the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, this is just part of a disturbing trend of political partisanship within the US military.
“The nonpartisan ethic of the armed forces is at greater risk today than it has been in our lifetimes, and maintaining it is essential for the survival of American democracy,” three of its senior analysts write.
“Abraham Lincoln’s 1858 warning that a “house divided against itself cannot stand” remains as relevant today as it was on the eve of the Civil War. If American society becomes so polarised that large numbers of citizens are prepared to take up arms against each other, the United States’ experiment in self-government could ultimately fail.”
But the strength of every recruit’s vow to defend the US Constitution still holds currency, they add.
“Indeed, the 2020 presidential election served as an extreme test case. The US military not only withstood the pressure and did its job; it emerged stronger and even more committed to maintaining its unique nonpartisan role. If it were subjected to a similar test today or during the 2024 election cycle, we are confident it would pass again.”
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel