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Extremism is becoming more common among veterans and service members

Online Niel October 29, 2024

There is an ever-growing faction among military veterans and members of the US military: the extremists. While the number of people in the military who practice extreme ideologies remains small compared to the 2.86 million active duty members and 16 million veterans, experts are concerned that such extremism continues to infiltrate the ranks of the armed forces.

Recent deep dives into the phenomenon have shed light on these ideologies, which most often manifest as far-right extremism but it can encompass all facets of the political spectrum. And the concern that this radicalization could lead to violence, as it has in the past.

No date is absolute, but reports have tried quantifies military extremism. More than “480 individuals with a military background” were “accused of ideologically driven extremist crimes from 2017 to 2023,” according to an investigation by The Associated Press. At least 230 of those arrests were in connection with January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. At least 80% of extremists with military backgrounds identify with the far right, according to the report National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

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The veterans also “formed four of the five Proud Boys leadership charged by federal prosecutors with seditious conspiracy,” according to an investigation by ROW. This investigation also found that “having a military background was the single strongest predictor of involvement in a mass casualty attack in the United States from 1990 to 2021,” while “having a military background was increased the lethality of attacks by up to two times”.

Previous studies, including those from the Department of Defense (DOD), “confirmed what many military observers” already knew: extremism “doesn’t have to be large to be lethal,” he said Atlantic. Participation in violence by “even a small number of individuals with military connections and military training … could pose a risk to the military and the country as a whole,” he DOD report said in 2023.

Although “military personnel are drawn from the general population, initial screening and training should weed out people who are not in the military for various reasons,” The Atlantic said, but that doesn’t always happen. And veterans are “considered significant additions to violent extremist groups, given their prior weapons training and their logistical and leadership skills,” the RAND study said, and veterans also “lend a sense of legitimacy to militant groups that can continue to help with recruitment”. The military too bow the man and the white, two demographics that are “associated with right-wing (and to some extent left-wing) extremism in the United States.”

The Pentagon and Congress also called for “greater efforts to remove extremism from the ranks,” it said interceptions. This includes efforts to “implement steps and provide recommendations to address the threat posed by extremist activities. However, politicians have often ignored reports that identify “veterans with negative military experiences as a demographic at higher risk of radicalization.”

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