Unpacking the Role of Leadership in Decentralized Extremist Networks

The US State Department’s 13 January designation of The Terrorgram Collective and three of its leaders serves as the bookend of the now-departed Biden Administration’s efforts to confront white supremacist extremism—a process that began with a presidentially-directed interagency review in January 2021. On its own, the designation carries significant implications for potential prosecutions of US-based actors. More broadly, it provides an opportunity to reflect on what some experts have described as a “sea change” in the US government’s counterterrorism approach. What trends can we glean from the past four years of counterterrorism pressure, particularly as it relates to online white supremacist extremist networks? One notable pattern, especially as it relates to law enforcement activity, is the disruption of key movement leaders from the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Targeting Network Leaders

Last December, a US federal court sentenced Robert Rundo—the one-time leader of the Rise Above Movement and architect of the transnational Active Clubs network—for “planning and engaging in riots at political rallies” between 2017 and 2018. This decision followed Rundo’s 2023 extradition from Romania, which involved significant coordination between the US Departments of Justice and State, Interpol, and several Romanian law enforcement agencies. Three months before Rundo’s sentencing, the Department of Justice charged two US-based Terrorgram leaders with a fifteen-count indictment for “soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials, and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.” These charges came on the heels of the announcement last summer that a federal grand jury charged a Georgian national, the alleged leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, with “soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence in New York City.”

Outside of the United States, Canadian authorities levied terrorism charges against two men alleged to have contributed significantly to Terrorgram Collective publications. Among the pair is a man described by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network as a “major promoter and influential figure” within the Canadian Active Clubs scene. Meanwhile, the prolific digital propagandist known as ‘Dark Foreigner’ currently stands trial in Canada on three separate terrorism charges stemming from his alleged involvement with the Atomwaffen Division. 

When considered together, these investigations and prosecutions suggest a concerted focus of law enforcement and diplomatic tools around one particular aspect of the threat: network leaders.

Rethinking Leadership Functions

This trend in counterterrorism activity challenges the notion that decentralized white supremacist networks are altogether leaderless. Instead, it begs the question: how do leaders matter differently in diffuse, largely online, communities? My recent research in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism seeks to unpack this question by characterizing the role of leadership in non-hierarchical extremist environments.

In conducting this research, I found that a lack of command and control structures does not equate to an overall absence of leadership. Indeed, organizational theorists and other scholars have long worked to characterize the role of leadership in diffuse, non-hierarchical settings. Researchers of far-right extremism have increasingly followed suit, including through the study of prominent ideologues like James Mason, other “founding fathers” of the movement, and a newer cadre of social media influencers. Scholars such as Kristy Campion, meanwhile, have specifically worked to reconceptualize “leadership and power as existing in various strata and clusters of organizations and movements,” rather than simply from the top down.

Drawing on these approaches, my research suggests that white supremacist extremist (WSE) leaders help to drive ideological framing, strategic facilitation, operational facilitation, and tactical innovation in a decentralized context. After examining leadership functions across dozens of WSE cells, networks, and milieus, I developed the following “ideal type” leaders, which command outsized influence relative to their peers:

• Framers: Non-operational individuals whose writing, rhetoric, or artistic production help to advance the intellectual and cultural underpinning of the movement.
• Brokers: Individuals who set the stage for intra-movement collaboration.
• Enablers: Leaders working to set the conditions necessary for cell-style white supremacist extremist activity.
• Pioneers: Actors who provide a blueprint for violent action and serve as a long-lasting model to aspiring successors.

Individuals assuming one (or more) of these roles play a key part in shaping the enabling environments in which extremism flourishes. They frequently operate online, but often serve as a bridge to offline activity. Given the unique function of each of these ideal types, the identification of extremists fulfilling particular leadership roles also offers opportunities for more tailored counter-extremism interventions—whether by law enforcement, the tech sector, or civil society.

To be certain, the WSE threat remains highly decentralized, defined largely by loose networks and lone actors. That said, a recognition of the role of leaders does not discount the centrality of cultural spaces and digital communities in facilitating both radicalization and mobilization to violence.

There is also reason for caution in characterizing the nature of transnational connections among white supremacists. As Graham Macklin has argued, the shift towards a post-organizational landscape and enduring importance of lone-actor terrorism ultimately “complicates the notion of both the ‘transnational’ and indeed of what constitutes a ‘network’” in a WSE context. That said, the impending trials of several high-profile WSE actors will likely shed further light on the nature and extent of their role as leaders. These proceedings should provide researchers with valuable evidence to assess the relative importance of WSE leadership and gauge the effectiveness of leader-focused interventions in an evolving threat landscape.

Looking Ahead to the Future of White Supremacist Extremist Leadership

Despite the importance of arrests and other counterterrorism activity over the past four years, there remains significant cause for concern regarding the capacity of prominent extremist leaders—not least due to the unprecedented pardons and commutations of leaders involved in the January 6th Capitol insurrection. At the same time, reporting suggests that a new leader has emerged to help shape the strategic direction of the extremist network known as The Base. Even beyond these cases, security officials must also remain vigilant of incarcerated white supremacist leaders, who have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to wield influence from within the prison system.

As the United States continues to cut important efforts to counter domestic extremism, European and allied leadership to address these threats are all the more important. To aid in threat assessments and policy interventions, researchers and practitioners should avoid reflexive references to the leaderless nature of the WSE threat. Instead, we should seek to clearly understand how leaders shape the overall operating environment and calibrate our countermeasures accordingly.