Four years ago, with the attacks in France, homegrown terrorism sprung at the forefront of the news in Europe. People started realising that the wave of jihadist attacks was carried out by individuals born and bred on the continent. Radicalisation had gone largely ignored and led in some cases to extreme violence. While the number of potential terrorists registered by countries such as the United Kingdom and France has alarmingly swelled to 30,000, the radicalisation phenomenon has also continued to spread in Europe, writes Olivier Guitta..
At the source of this radicalisation are very well-funded, extremely well-organised Islamist movements. For example, Salafism has expanded in Europe recently: from Belgium, where the federal state security agency has listed more than 100 Salafist organisations active in the country to France where the number of Salafist mosques has grown from 15 in 1990 to 60 in 2015 to 130 in 2018. Sweden is not spared as well, according to the report "Between Salafism and Salafi Jihadism", the number of Islamist extremists over the past decade there has grown tenfold, from 200 to 2,000. Salafism is one of the main sources of the spreading of violent Islamism in a number of Swedish cities. (more on page 2)
The bizarre online hubs and the role they play in the online information and culture wars, by Greg Rowett of the Institute of Statecraft
NATO has dilemma is of its own making. It is overextended. George Kennan had warnedd NATO’s expansion was a "strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions.” Deceiving Russia on NATO expansion, alienating Russia’s political elite across the political spectrum, expanding NATO to Russia’s borders and to within 100 miles of St. Petersburg, ensured Russia would upgrade and expand its military capabilities. Treating Russia as a threat resulted in Russia becoming a threat. The result: Instead of providing NATO with a straight, flat route to Moscow, the European Plain now provides Russia with a straight, flat route to the west – to Kiev, Riga, Tallinn, and beyond, writes Joseph E Fallon.