12 Peacebuilding Strategies for the White American Insurgency

Strategies for when extremism is mainstream

How do we prevent further violent attacks in the US? In the short term, the impeachment of former President Trump and the arrests and charges made against the insurgents who stormed the Capitol offer a necessary first step toward accountability for the deaths and destruction on January 6. But over the next 20–40 years, Americans will need a strategy to address the mainstream embrace of white supremacy, which is a violent extremist ideology.

The Biden Administration labels the ideology justifying the January 6th siege as “Domestic Violent Extremism.” Violent extremist ideologies inspire terrorist acts that aim to invoke fear with dramatic attacks against civilians. US counterinsurgency experts have been warning that the armed political movement behind the siege should be thought of as an “insurgency,” defined as “organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control.”

For those of us who worked on a peacebuilding approach to violent extremism and terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, and dozens of other countries over the last three decades, we know that reducing threats from an insurgency requires separating the insurgents from their base of support in the population. This is no easy task when the insurgents are part of a mass political movement with long historic, economic, religious, and social roots.

The January 6 insurrection grows out of a legacy of white rage and terror attacks against Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and perceived progress made toward racial equality. Unlike violence from the left which has not resulted in any deaths over the last 25 years and aims for greater equality, violence by white supremacists aims to achieve a “racially pure” society where white men rule over BIPOC people and white women.

A diverse group of people staged the armed siege of the US Capitol building on January 6, including mostly white men and, ironically, some women and People of Color. University of Chicago researchers analyzed the motivations and demographics of the January 6 rioters. According to an analysis of court documents, most of those arrested were over 35 years old, were middle class and even…