Right-wing terrorist manifestos are more than just ideological proclamations. Like the Al Qaeda Training Manual, these manifestos are propaganda providing tactical guidance to terrorists around the world. The Right-Wing Terrorist Threat Picture & Criteria for a Fifth Wave On February 22, 2021, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of the “transnational threat” posed by white supremacism and neo-Nazi ideologies, joining the global call for right-wing extremism to be recognized as a global substantive source of terrorism. The statistical evidence supporting a global rise in right-wing extremist (RWE) violence is irrefutable; in the United States of America, RWEs were responsible for 75% of extremist-related murders (2011 to 2020). Similarly, the Institute for Economics and Peace registered a 320% increase in right-wing inspired terrorist incidents between 2013 and 2018 in “Western Nations.” This trend has led academics to dub our current epoch as a “fifth wave” of international terrorism, referring to David Rapoport’s (2004) definition of an international terrorist wave as “a cycle of [terrorist] activity” with “similar activities” occurring internationally. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution according to Rapoport, the world entered the “religious wave” (fourth wave) dominated by Islamist terrorism. In a recent interview, this doyen of terrorism wave theory acknowledged that increased Western “far right-terror” could become the fifth wave. In the spirit of academic humility, Rapoport highlighted limitations to the right-wing’s fifth wave paradigm, such as the lack of “political transformation” or events associated with triggering “all four previous waves.” Nevertheless, after the January 6, 2021 Capitol Siege attended by RWE groups, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that it could inspire extremists; could this be the major political event that Rapaport describes? Vincent Auger highlighted the “international character” of right-wing “fifth wave” terrorism, highlighting right-wing-terrorist lone actors (RWLA) who see themselves as engaged in a “transnational struggle.” Auger included a number of Rapoport’s criteria for a wave, but neglected to mention one of the most tangible elements of the current, stochastic fifth wave we are witnessing; i.e. that it must produce a “Science of Terror“, which are “major technical works that reflect the properties of that wave”.
via rantt: Right-Wing Extremist Manifestos Create A Blueprint For Transnational Terrorism