Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin launched a multipronged attack on extremism in the force Friday, his first action following a 60-day effort that gathered information from across the services in an effort to identify how the department will root out potentially dangerous actors such as those who were part of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Shortly after taking office, Austin observed the arrest of dozens of former and active-duty members of the military for their part in the breach of Capitol security on Jan. 6, among them white nationalists. The former four-star general had himself experienced dangerous extremist ideology under his command of the 82nd Airborne Division in the 1990s, when skinheads were found to have committed murders off-base. Austin called for listening sessions across the ranks in February that culminated in his briefing with service secretaries Friday and immediate actions related to recruiting, separation, the definition of extremism, and further study.
“This is not about being the thought police,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a Friday briefing.
“It’s about the behavior and the conduct that is inspired by or influenced by this kind of ideology,” he added. “This is largely about helping us latch up better with civilian law enforcement and what they’re seeing.”
EXTREMISM DISCUSSIONS A ‘FIRST STEP’ AS PENTAGON WARY OF POLICY CHANGES AFTER CAPITOL RIOT
Immediate actions ordered by the secretary include defining extremism within the department, updating the service member transition checklist to train veterans who might be targeted by extremist groups, and revising questionnaires given to new recruits to detect past extremism.
Austin also created a countering extremism working group that will meet in mid-April and produce a report within 90 days with medium-term and long-term recommendations.
Kirby said the study would seek “greater fidelity on the scope of the problem” within the department by attempting to gather data. He said the secretary was also interested in reviewing if membership in an extremist organization should still be allowed.
Some conservative members of Congress have worried that Catholics and evangelicals would be targeted for their religious beliefs, something Kirby said was not a concern voiced by service secretaries today.
“This has absolutely nothing to do with what god you worship or whether you worship at all,” he said. “This is about the kind of extremist ideology that is based on extreme hatred or discrimination on, based on ethnicity and discrimination based on someone’s personal background and not about, not about religion.”
House Armed Services Committee ranking member Mike Rogers warned at a March 30 hearing that the rights of religious service members could be affected.
“Legislative attempts to further crack down on domestic terrorism is going to run headlong into the First Amendment rights of our service members, and doing so may have other consequences,” he said.
The Alabama Republican said the issue was far from the most important in the military and proceeded to cite infinitesimal statistics for separation related to extremism.
Rogers said that just nine soldiers had been separated from the Army out of nearly 1 million, and since 2018, 17 Marines have been separated for extremism, gang, or dissident activity out of over 200,000.
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Asked what law enforcement coordination issues were concerning to the secretary, Kirby did not provide specifics.
“There’s already been coordination between federal law enforcement and the military in terms of better sharing of information of military-affiliated individuals being investigated for crimes that are believed to be inspired by extremist ideology,” he said. “What the secretary wants to do is institutionalize that cooperation and deepen it, broaden it.”
