Thought this was a fascinating and very germane article from the NYT today:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/...0170205&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=41336949&_r=0
For the IC and LE communities I think there are a lot of implications to this 'lone wolf' threat we haven't really started coming to terms with. The analogy I've thought of - as imperfect as any analogy - is the threat of recruited agents on foreign soil. During the Cold War an agent usually had to be recruited and communicated with through some intermediary in-person - something no longer necessary with the internet and telecommunications. Also, the value of recruiting an agent had to do with their placement, access, and accessibility - their proximity to the information you want, their ability to secure the information, and your ability to maintain contact with them without unacceptable risk to your operatives. Now, placement and access for ISIS and affiliated groups is really just the will to carry out attacks - something they hone through the recruitment process.
The similarity to me is the fact we're talking about an extremely small group of people - a percentage of the population, or even religious/ethnic population that's a fraction of a percent. Even at the height of the Cold War internal security forces behind the iron curtain weren't catching spies by beefing up patrols and checking IDs - though they were harassing the shit out of their populations fueling discontent. Operatives were being caught through sophisticated and targeted counterintelligence operations - something that requires significant knowledge of your adversary and their infrastructure, something that might be harder if the first inkling you got of it you shut down their website or JDAM'd the building they're working in.
A key difference to me is the recruitment process itself. It used to be the signs of recruitment were best spotted/analyzed by experienced folks in the IC - since that was their world (FBI CI as part of the IC in this scenario) but ISIS and affiliated recruitment seems to have more in common with internet sexual or financial predators - using the same techniques of spotting, grooming, isolating, and recruiting.
I think if we're taking this threat seriously the IC and LE communities will need to invest heavily in a different set of tools, accesses, techniques, and structure in order to combat the threat. I think broad shifts in immigration or policy towards groups of people may have other costs/benefits but will be limited to useless in really combatting this threat.
