 I'm Peter Bergen of New America and delighted to introduce and moderate this event for the new book terror and transition leadership and success in leadership and succession in terrorist organizations by Trisha Bacon and Elizabeth Grimm. The authors are here. Trisha is a associate professor at the School of Public Affairs at American University. And she also previously spent a decade working on kind of terrorism issues at the university at the Department of State. Elizabeth Grimm is also an associate professor she's in the security studies program at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She's also the author of how the gloves came off lawyers policymakers and norms in the debate on torture. And also she worked in the defense and security sector of the US government previously so Elizabeth and Trisha handed over to you and they're going to talk about some of the big themes above the book and then I'll engage them in the discussion. I'll also be taking audience questions through the Slido function. So if you have questions just submit them and I'll ask the authors those questions. Over to you. Great. Thank you so much to New America and especially to Peter for hosting us today to talk about our new books here in transition. And what we thought we would do just to kick off the event is give an overview of the book overall what what was the sort of impetus of it. What we look at in terms of founding leaders and successors briefly tell you about our case studies and our findings and some of the policy implications of them but we're of course excited to take Peter's questions and hear any questions that the audience has as well. So leadership of terrorist organizations is one of those topics that get a lot of really in depth coverage. You know Peter among those have has written some of the best works on specific leaders like the modern. There's been a lot of really excellent work done on individual leaders and understanding who they are, what their background was. And at the same time there's a lot of work that looks at decapitation either from the same perspective and individual organization perspective or sort of large end studies about the effects of leadership decapitation. But what Liz and I wanted to do with this book was sort of provide a framework that people could use to systematically look at leaders across different terrorist organizations that moved a little bit away from the sort of in depth focus or the large focus that we have on some of these organizations and ask ourselves some fundamental questions about the role of founders in terrorist organizations and the different types of successors that can emerge based on these founders and how we should think about them. And for most of us who follow terrorist organizations we know a lot about the founders. These are these, you know, everyone could name some prolific founders these are the leaders that get a lot of attention in terms of especially religious terrorist organizations, where they have this particularly prominent role in terms of being sort of a prophet and a preacher at the same time even when they don't have religious credentials. So what we wanted to do was look at what is the core function what's the core role of founding leaders in addition to being these very visible leaders, these leaders who have a lot of things like charisma and very interesting personal backgrounds. So what we argue is that the way to think about founders in addition to understanding them on that individual level is to understand them as the core foundation of an organization that establishes two things that establishes the why. Why does this organization exist why fights why kill by why be willing to die. What is sort of the ideology the political motivation and the framing that is driving the organization to exist and mobilizing and motivating supporters and recruits. And at the same time they established the how and amongst the how and important for our purposes is using terrorism. But a lot of these organizations don't just use terrorism they're also engaging in everything from social services to governance to running in in elections, as well as using insurgency and other forms of violence. So what we see is that founders are really serving this core role of establishing this how and this why for organizations which becomes the basic foundation that every successor then operates from which shapes the kind of successors that we see come after a founder is, in most cases killed or maybe steps down or is overthrown with that I'll turn it over to Liz. Thanks Trish and I just wanted to echo the comments of thanking Peter and thanking Angela in the new and new America so just to pick up where Trish left off. This slide sort of gives the context for what we're going to talk about over the next few minutes which is, to what extent does the successor follow the how and the why that the founder created. We're going to talk about the ways in which the successor makes choices about incremental change versus discontinuous change is sort of the way the counter terrorism pressure is an overlapping factor, whether these groups are existing in a high counter terrorism space or low counter terrorism space. So let's get into it so the next slide lays out for us, essentially, the choices that successors have. And we are not interested in simply who that successor is, but we're interested in the way they lead. Will they continue to take the organization in the same direction that the founder intended that the founder laid out, or will they take steps to change that organizations how and why. We argue that the change that a successor takes can take two forms, it can take incremental change or discontinuous change. And what we mean by that is that incremental change. This is change that is not altering the sort of fundamental nature of the group. These are changes that do not challenge or upend the existing how in the why. And in many cases are sort of natural progression of what the founder intended, the sort of natural evolution. And so an incremental change to the why, for example, could look like highlighting a recent action or recent behavior by the adversary in an attempt to discredit them. An incremental change to the how could look like increasing the use of one tactic over another, but a tactic that was already in that group's repertoire, or digging in more deeply to one way to gather resources to raise money. And discontinuous changes, however, these are changes that radically change the how or the why, or both. And so these are really, these are game changers. And so we have on the slide here that there are discontinuous changes to the why and discontinuous changes to the how. So discontinuous changes to the why could look like emphasizing a new adversary as the primary opponent. And discontinuous changes to the how could look like conducting operations in a new place and new entirely new tactic to raise money. And so, again, layered on to these two factors as we move forward is the impact of counterterrorism pressure. And so our next slide details, the recognition that counterterrorism behavior counterterrorism actions influence the leadership type. And what we mean by that is that these counterterrorism actions, they shape the operational environment that the group is operating in. And so, in addition to accounting for the way that the successor makes decisions about either staying with the same how and the why as the founder, we also looked at the environment is the group under intense CT pressure or not. And so what that I mean, groups that are existing in a low counterterrorism space, they have the freedom to undertake all of their poor activities. So this is recruiting, this is raising money, this is training, this is communication. They can undertake all of these activities without fear of counterterrorism action against them. And we can trust that for example, to leaders decisions and leaders roles in a high counterterrorism space where they cannot operate freely when the group is existing in a constant state of fear of constant say worry about betrayal. The illustration that we have here and one of the cases that I'll talk about later is the case of the Egyptian Islamic jihad that we chose for one of our in depth case studies. And it was my part because the counterterrorism pressure that they faced varied, whether they were home in Egypt, or at home, they faced crushing almost crippling amounts of counterterrorism pressure to the extent that at one point you have, you know, virtually all the senior leadership is imprisoned versus abroad, there's a much greater freedom of movement and freedom of action. So our next slide talks about the interaction in these factors. And this is the big slide my friends this is this is the argument, the interaction of these factors incremental or discontinuous changes to the how and the why. So we found produced four main leadership types, and we added a fifth at the bottom so I want to walk through all of these. So, when we found a leader that wanted to continue that trajectory of the founder with only incremental changes of the how and incremental changes in the why that leader is a caretaker. These are individuals often who for whom authority and prestige and legitimacy have been passed down to them from the founder. And though they're only making minor changes to the how and the why. The second line down shows the signal. So the signal is making discontinuous changes to the framing again that's the why, but only incremental change to the how to the tactics and the resource mobilization. And so what does it discontinuous change to the why or the framing look like, well this means changing the rhetoric changing the propaganda changing the messaging used to explain the groups why changing, for example, a pledge of affiliation to another organization would be a classic example of a signaler. In contrast, if you have a successor who's only making incremental changes to the why, but discontinuous or disruptive changes to the how the tactics and the resource mobilization that leader is the fixer. So what this might look like in practice is for example, turning to tactics that have never been used before introducing ids or introducing female suicide bombers, if that hadn't been part of the original repertoire of action. It could also look like moving to a completely different area to raise money to recruit. Then we have this fourth type. Visionaries are the leaders who are making discontinuous or disruptive changes to both the why, just the framing and the how. And so this could look like proclaiming the formation of a state, and then introducing governance into that groups repertoire of action. Now I said at the bottom, the intersection of these factors give rise to four groups for types. But one of the things that Trisha and I wanted to represent was that sometimes leaders are not actively choosing change or not actually actively choosing continuity. Sometimes groups are existing in periods of silent leadership. And so we added that fifth category at the bottom of figureheads in which leaders are absent. They're not making any either incremental or disruptive changes to the framing they're not making any incremental or discontinuous changes to the tactics and resource mobilization. Rather, they're not making decisions at all in some cases, and this situation could emerge for any number of issues that could emerge because the leaders are imprisoned or have health issues or in exile. And so just to recap just so that everyone has it sort of front of mind, because this is the take home of the theory building that we did with our examination is that we have five types of successors. The caretakers who make only incremental changes to the one how the signalers who make discontinuous changes to the why, but only incremental changes to the how fixers who make disruptive changes to the how but only incremental changes to the why. And there is who are changing both the why and now in figureheads who are not actively choosing change or continuity. And so what we wanted to do was to dive in deeply to certain cases to examine the validity of our theory. And so our final sample actually included 33 organizations that span more than 100 years, more than 90 different leaders, and more than 20 different nation states. And we developed a sample of religious terror organizations. And this sample included groups that had conducted at least 10 attacks that had at least 50 members, and that operated at least two years. And then layered on to that was the factor that we had to be able to discern and open sources information about the leadership of these organizations. We had organizations that had a varying length of time. So we wanted to have, for example, leaders that had short 10 years and long 10 years. And we wanted to have leaders whose leadership represented a different temporal time period. So spanning back in one case, more than 100 years. And so we have four case studies and Tricia will talk later about more details about the other organizations are many case studies that we evaluated. But I want to say very briefly just a word about our case studies. We have the case of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the case of the second clan, the case of al-Qaeda in the Islamic State in Iraq, and the case of al-Shabaab. And so these four cases taken together range from 1915 to today. And these cases taken together reveal that founder death was the most common reason for succession. And so we actually over selected in our deep dive case studies for those cases. On the far left, we have the case of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. As I already said, this is a case of a group that experiences profound counterterrorism pressure at home, but relatively comparatively less counterterrorism pressure abroad. And part of the reason that we selected this case is that this is a case of a very short lived founder, a founder of only two years in the case of EIJ. And so we look at the trajectory and the ways in which the, the final leader of the organization, I'm in al-Sawaqri, has moved the group as a visionary, very far away from the how and the why of the founder. The second case that we look at at the bottom here is actually the oldest case that we looked at the case of the second clan. The other reason that we selected this case was both to have a case of a white Protestant organization also have a case in the United States, but this is an example of an old group that experienced virtually no counterterrorism pressure. The successor to the second clan ended up moving into the realm of educational politics and electoral reform, but this is a case in which the group is operating with virtual complete impunity. We have the case in contrast of al-Qaeda in Iraq, eventually the Islamic State in Iraq, in which the group is existing under relatively crushing amounts of counterterrorism pressure through the duration of its tenure. And then the final case at the bottom we have the case of al-Shabaab, but also the case of a more enduring founder, founder of al-Shabaab we see with a duration of seven years. This is a case that experienced CT variation over the course of its tenure. And so with that, I want to turn it over to Trish to dive into more detail just about these many case studies that we look at. We had, in addition to the four cases we looked at in depth, we had 29 other cases that we looked at to examine whether these leadership types operated, you know, covered the range of successors that we positive and whether founders were playing the role that we argued that they would. So we looked at these 29 other organizations a little bit more briefly, but just to assess their trajectory. And one of the interesting things that we found that when you experience the first initial leadership transition from a founder, most of the time you're going to see a caretaker emerge, which sort of makes sense given the role of what we see founders is playing within these organizations and often the amount of oxygen they sort of take up in terms of the leadership. But there is a fair number of cases where we saw fixers emerge immediately after the founders as well. So when you move into the broader succession that goes not just that initial one but subsequent ones as well. Really what we see is all in all there's a tie between caretakers and fixers emerging as the successor type. And it provides evidence that generally these groups are a little more conservative than you might think of given their revolutionary aims in terms of not wanting to change too much from what founders established, as well as a willingness to change tactics, change resource mobilization, while being more reticent to change some of the other aspects of the group. I think two surprises for us in terms of looking at these succession patterns was the relatively few number of figureheads. Given the emphasis on leadership decapitation for at least the last 22 years, as well as years before that, we expected that more leaders might be sort of preserving themselves over leading organizations, but generally what we found is that they were the least common type of successor that the people who rise to these positions are clearly motivated to play a role in shaping their organizations. We were also surprised to find that visionaries were the third most common kind so it seems when there is going to be changes to the ideology to the motives to the framing that that there's going to be a change often to both the metrics, the resource mobilization and the ideology at the same time so these are the significant upheavals that we can see. And we saw this was a real there was a real divide in terms of visionaries, whether they were the savior of a weakening organization or they were sort of accelerating the weakness and the losses that an organization was experiencing so there was a really wide array of consequences for having visionary leaders. So, what is all of this tell us about leadership decapitation. You know, for the since 911 the policy on leadership decapitation has basically been decapitate when you can. Right and understandably so it's a kind of a very disruptive effect. I don't know if the people involved at the leadership level have a lot of crimes that have been associated with our tenure, but we wanted to think about what is this kind of a set this this framework for understanding founders and successors what does it tell us about when we should undertake leadership decapitation and the consequences of it. And that what we would propose in an environment where there is decreasing appetite for counterterrorism action there's a little bit more concerned about the use of air strikes given some of the unintended consequences of it that there's probably going to overall be a narrowing of counterterrorism use of counterterrorism pressure on leaders and leadership decapitation. But there also can be an assessment process that that this can help to inform. And the idea that comes to this is to first of all recognize the consequences of the loss of the founding leader that this is a particularly consequential loss for any organization. The second component of it is to examine the kind of successor that is in place when there is a successor and evaluate their fit for the organization circumstances. So, do you have a caretaker over an organization that needs a more active and more rejuvenating figure at the helm. Do you have a visionary for a group that's already pretty badly weakened and is likely to be further divided. So assessing this idea of fit between an organization circumstances and the kind of meter that they have at the helm. And then each of the types that we propose create some counterterrorism opportunities. When you have somebody who is a visionary who's departed so far from the founders initial sort of how and why the initial foundation that creates opportunities to exploit for counterterrorism practitioners in terms of the divisiveness of it. Or when you have a figurehead who is not doing very much that can be a way to discredit that kind of individual. So each type brings with it some counterterrorism recommendations in terms of how you can weaken an organization experiencing a type of successor. As well as how this information can be used to weigh when to use leadership decapitation and when it's counterintuitive as it might be, there are leaders who while they are placed within organization they are keeping the organization in a more static or more weekend situation. So with that we are working to of course, here, Peter's reactions and questions and then anything that's coming from our folks who have tuned in online. Thank you both. So, I mean as you were discussing these typologies I was wondering, you know, is Aiman Al-Zawari, you know who took over from Bin Laden was he a figurehead, was he a caretaker. He doesn't seem to be in very effective so how where do you put him in this. So you raised a really interesting point that was one that Liz is smiling because we grappled with a lot, which is that we were not necessarily arguing that any of these types are inherently effective or ineffective, right. And there are a lot of really interesting debates about effectiveness, including when Zawari was killed, was he an effective leader was he not an effective leader, and we sort of took a neutral stance on effectiveness and more. So I think you can have an effective caretaker and an ineffective caretaker and it's partially a consequence of the circumstances of an organization. So I would agree with you that Zawari was a caretaker and alternatively at times probably a figurehead when he was indisposed because of counterterrorism pressure. So the questions of effectiveness I think are the next phase in discussions about leadership that are right now very, they vary a lot just based on what criteria an individual is using to assess effectiveness and it can be very intangible things like charisma, right, which is just very, very sort of difficult to get your hands around so I think that we agree with sort of the type that you're proposing Zawari is but we remain a little bit at this phase in our work on this agnostic about the question of effectiveness. But what we would argue is that Al-Qaeda would need somebody more dynamic, that there was problems with Zawari's caretaking undertaking it as long as he did, which has left the organization in a difficult position after his death, but anything went as and I just want to echo that we, we struggled mighty to move away from questions of effectiveness but I think Zawari himself is a particularly compelling case to look at, because his personality traits from the time that he was a jihadist in the streets of Egypt as a teenager to his death, his personality traits did not change right this is a disputations ungraceful fractious human and so we found that a lot of existing treatments of leadership in in the fields that we studied focused a lot on traits but Zawari as a human didn't change because as a leader, he actually changed mightily from, for example, his final tenure in EIJ in which he becomes a visionary and and the group ends right the group the group folds with a Q with Al-Qaeda to where we characterized him in the book as a caretaker in fact a fairly steadfast caretaker of bin Laden's legacy and a really good example of a way in which some of these successors who are caretakers, their legitimacy as a leader is exclusively related to their position to the founder very direct positioning. Often what we found with caretakers is that if there were cases of successors who were family members they tended to be caretakers right a brother or a father to a son, but exactly to Trisha's point and I just want to echo Al-Qaeda might need a visionary, but that doesn't mean they will necessarily get one. And what we found time and time again is that sometimes there was a mismatch between the type of leader that the group would actually need, and then what they ended up what they ended up having. And I think it is hard with a group like Al-Qaeda in which the founder still looms so large to think about a visionary who would be effectively who would be poised to take over the group in that way. David Van Dyke, who's just got a new book on the Akhanis and he offered Siraj Akhani who's the minister of the interior who is the acting minister of the interior but also according to UN a member of the leadership of Council of Al-Qaeda which is actually a very interesting idea. It would be a non-Arab leader of Al-Qaeda but obviously somebody, he's the first member of Al-Qaeda who's been appointed to a cabinet position and he's arguably the most important person in the country. Yeah, and I also think Siraj Akhani is an example of the caretaker taking over the Akhani network as we at least call him in the United States from Jalal Akhani. So there is sort of that like family inherited legitimacy. And you also see that in the Taliban with Mullah Omar son taking a prominent role within the organization. So there certainly can be that kind of family. So I would hear he sort of created it between each other. That's deputy role in this extended tenure but in other cases we really just frankly see it handed down through sons. Yeah now it's daughters for some reason, not as often with daughters. Now I see your sort of agnostic on effectiveness because a caretaker can be effective. In the case of the Taliban right now I mean they they're being very effective but they're not it's not that they have suddenly kind of changed their mission or their tactics or exactly the point and we think, no matter the archetype, we would argue their effective caretakers and ineffective caretakers right there would be effective signalers and ineffective. But that's part of the reason we wanted to move away from it because it was it was indeterminate right it didn't really tell us that much about how that individual would function in that role. I can ask you about so it's puzzling. I'm sure to you both of you that al-Qaeda is still leaderless. You may recall them in bin Laden was died there was a six week sort of interregnum, where they appointed according to some reporting that I did for CNN they appointed Seif al-Adal who sometimes mentioned as possible number, you know, number one today. He had a process and then you know him and I was a designated successor and then he was put you know he became. So, why have they, I mean, it's very hard to know because it's all very opaque but I a, you know, any thoughts on why they haven't reported a successor and be, what does it say about this group that they haven't officially appointed anybody now sort of over its cycle, eight months later after he's been killed. And I think, I think all of us are surprised has taken this long I mean I guess I wasn't surprised it took some time because even though I would hear who we all knew was going to be the successor, it didn't happen immediately there's clearly some consultation that goes on with the affiliates within the organization and difficult, you know, always to do that. I think at this point, and my kind of informed speculation on this is, and I saw the UN in the UN report which I'm sorry you saw to where they basically saying psycholatal is acting as the leader but he's not being announced as such. And I think that's a plausible scenario and that either, no matter what his circumstances right now it would be difficult for al-Qaeda to announce him. If he's still in Iran, it's delegitimizing for the organization to have their leader be in Iran. And if he's in Afghanistan the Taliban may not want him to be announced as the leader and to show that they have al-Qaeda's leader. That's a very good explanation then. That explains it. Oh, great. I think that explains it because it's like psycholatal would be a probably quite effective leader compared to Ayman al-Zawari and it would be very embarrassing for the Taliban for a public announcement if he's indeed in Afghanistan which seems pretty likely. And if he's still in Iran, that would be very good for anybody in Iran either. So yeah, that's a very, that sort of explains it I think. And I think one of the things that we've sort of mulled over is what kind of leader would say falato be, right? Where would he sort of fall in the archetypes and one of the things that Trishina discusses. I mean it is somewhat unknowable but given his sort of deep experience as a military operative giving his opposition to the 9-11 attacks, it's entirely possible that say falato if he assumes the leadership publicly could be more of a fixer for al-Qaeda at this juncture in their evolution. Yeah, that would also suit the Taliban on, you know, not to have somebody plotting to attack. I have you, I mean I just sort of a side observation but there was this recent attack in Somalia by US special operations which they killed this guy Al-Sudani who was a leader of ISIS who apparently was funding other parts of the ISIS network. What's your take on what that achieved? That's a really interesting case. Bilal Al-Sudani is sort of an anomaly I would say when you look at maybe like sort of the jihadist networks writ large and why do I say that? He's one of those figures, he's a little bit of an inside baseball figure, right? He was part of Al-Shabaab and then he defected to the Islamic State but he wasn't the leader of the Islamic State in Somalia. It appears to be more of this Karar office that's a facilitation hub. So he's an anomaly in that locally his death will basically be irrelevant. It won't change the situation in Somalia, the conflict in Somalia, the viability of the sort of already very peripheral Islamic State in Somalia but where he does seem to likely to have impact is at this regional and international level, right? He has this facilitation role for other ISIS affiliates in Africa that he had reached into Afghanistan, very close to Yemen where he was located in northern Somalia. So it seems like he might be sort of one of those critical nodes if you will, in terms of having a relationship he's been around for at least a decade in this kind of facilitation role so he would be trusted, he would be well known. The Islamic State is also experiencing his loss at a time where it has recently lost a leader and compounding that is we don't know and Islamic States doesn't know what they got in that complex. So the intelligence vulnerabilities that could be coming out of this as well will sort of force a whole bunch of people to change their operations, their communications and go to ground change and so I think it will have a disruptive effect on this more transnational and regional level. That is, is really interesting because not usually what we talk about is oh, this will have an effect locally on operations or on money. I don't think that's the case here. I think this is a much more transnational impact and it will test the Islamic State's ability to reorganize and rejuvenate different ways of operating at a time when it is struggling with having a void in leadership, not to the same degree as all kind of but a significant void and leadership. You know, I've sort of lost track of who is actually in charge of ISIS now because they come and go with such regularity and and also, you know, they always adopt the sort of non-degear of like Qureshi or whatever to sort of pretend that they're a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad or whatever they need to. And so, I mean, what's your assessment where ISIS is today because the UN, not this recent one report but I think the one before said there were still six to 10,000 fighters in Iraq, Syria, you've also got the whole refugee camp which is 60,000 mostly women and children as you know, which seems to be going to be a ideological breeding ground of future ISIS sort of kids and teenagers and maybe adults and then, you know, ISIS Coruscant and Afghanistan which seems to be doing somewhat well so and what's the state of play does it matter that they I mean ISIS is a little bit different maybe than other groups because these regional affiliates, how much direction do they even take how they just sort of are they just slapping on the patch and sort of that the biggest baddest patch to put on right now because as I think it ISIS Coruscant is often former Taliban members. So, I mean, what's what's the state of play, you know, who's who's running the show, does it matter with both of the groups and one of the things that we talked about in other taxes that we find that both of these groups really are existing at a critical juncture in this place, and a critical juncture, as far as their own evolution and a critical juncture as far as how the United States is thinking about its next counter tears and decisions relative to them. And one of the things at Peter I think the question of itself is so fascinating we're like, who, who are the leaders right now right that it's it's so telling that at this particular moment. I mean, they have a bureaucratic process in place for their next leader and no small part because they, you know, have to be defended from the descended from the profit but they've experienced so much leadership change and so much transition that this is a group that is a heavily bureaucratized process for figuring out who and what is going to come next, whereas Al Qaeda does not. And so I think in a very real way. So these organizations are existing both both ISIS and Al Qaeda are existing at a critical turning point. And what I think is so fascinating is the ways in which these groups are talked about right now in the United States. I mean we, we are at a place right now with significantly declining resources spent on counter terrorism. And so one of the sort of concerns that Tricia and I both have is that it's possible for both of these organizations who find this perhaps turning point could benefit from, let's say relative inattention from the United States and other allies to use this as an opportunity to regroup to to delve more deeply to expand their recruitment networks to find new opportunities for populations to join, simply because of the diversity threats the complexity threats and the different strategic environment that we're in right now than we were in the United States more than 20 years ago. Let me ask a question about so because Tricia raised the question of decapitation I know there's a whole academic data debate around how effective it is but I don't think there's any debate. You also mentioned Al Qaeda in rock. In the sort of, oh, six to 2010 period, like, Jason kind of killed the whole entire middle management of the group. And I think that was pretty effective so I mean just picking up on kind of that point we were, you know, these groups. So if you're, if we're now in a situation where we may be able to the United States maybe take out a commander but the group is regrouping in Afghanistan or Somalia and the United States is not paying much attention. Yeah, how does that play out. And one of the ways it plays out and I think what we saw evidence of during that time period was that decapitation I think became seen as a strategy and not a tactic right it sort of became the stand and for. This is the outcome this is what we want to achieve rather than this is the means to achieve some greater counterterrorism goals and greater counterterrorism operation. I think that we found by delving in so deeply and you're right this very deep reservoir of literature in international relations and terrorism scholars in particular is that the results are somewhat inconclusive. I mean they, their debates about does it matter if it's a religious leader or, or, you know, right wing leader and debates about the tenure about the, about the geographic space that they're operating in and we found in those small part that those outcomes were inconclusive in scholarly work. I think because of a lack of understanding about what role did that founder play, as far as establishing the how and the why, how close were they to operational change how close were they to this changing of the mission or the identification with the mission. That question of the utility of decapitation. I mean one of the things that we found is that it was the central tool right it was the central counterterrorism tool spanning administrations right regardless of what party the leader was in in the United States. Yeah me is there anything wrong with that idea. Shockingly with my background no I don't object to that, but I think that one of the things to sort of in moving forward is to understand when it will be with limit more limited resources more limited intelligence about these, these leaders and which organizations we're going to invest in tracking the leadership there has to be. I don't think we can continue to do what we've done for the last 22 years with the amount of resources that are going towards counterterrorism going forward. And I think one of the other things that emerges as you're referring to. I aside is on the state in Iraq is there was an organization that was fundamentally weakened we made a similar dent against the Taliban in 2001 we made a similar dent against all Shabbat in 2012 to 2014. There is a resurgence capability of these organizations that demonstrates that leadership decapitation and just broader pressure will only take you so far once that pressure is alleviated these organizations can can research again. And they, there's they they're one they are these, they're very hard to kill their cockroaches right of terrorist organizations that these organizations they can go through these periods of weakness and they can research and one important component of that. As we saw with the ISIS case can be a leader who comes with a new vision and a new way of approaching the mission. And I think with the Islamic State in al-Qaeda right now you have a real dearth in that, in that realm these are two organizations competing for leadership of the Sunni jihadist movement. And neither one of them can make a compelling claim, given that they're both in weakened situations and neither one of them has a leader that is motivating the broader movement is really exciting the broader movement so both of them have to rely on their affiliates. Both of them have affiliates to rely on that's not inconsequential, but it does keep them in a less powerful position in terms of their credentials and their stature within the movement as long as they don't have leaders who can occupy that kind of position. So, you selected religious groups and I guess that's two related questions one, why the focus on religious groups. And two, is it because religious groups actually are more sustainable. So, you know, the weather on the ground the bottom I have the Brigadier Rossi once those leaders were sort of imprisoned or killed. You know they kind of cease doing business or what. So why did you focus on religious groups and our religious groups. Is it partly because they're more sustainable there's more for you to discuss. Yeah, I think we selected religious terrorist groups in part because leaders play a much more central role in religious terrorist organizations in terms of what they a leader needs to occupy in terms of offering a vision and having religious authority as well as organizational authority. And there is a pretty, you know substantial body of work and evidence that these the leaders of those kinds of organizations are particularly consequential. Of course that is also the main has been the main threat and main concern for practitioners and policymakers and analysts for a number of decades now and, and I don't think, even though we have a rise of some other kinds of ideologies that the religious terrorist organizations are going away anytime soon. I don't think it will continue to have relevance. I don't think that we are sort of making a call on whether this would be the case for you know leftist groups or right wing groups that are not religious or I know nationals I think it's an open question. You know, whether they have the same types or you know if you broke it down based on that whether leadership capitation would be more or less effective, just because of the sort of unique role that leaders play in religious organizations in terms of their stature and their influencing and inspiring capabilities. And with regards to your second question Peter. Sometimes we found that the religious leaders were quite durable and lasted for a long time, and some of them did not. So there were certain leaders in our sample who had a 10 year even only of several months, some of the successors, but sometimes we had leaders like bin Laden who have an almost sort of remarkable durability as religious terrorist leader. So David Rappaport famously in 2002, so there were four sort of cycles of and I out this for the anybody in the audience is I am sort of repeated very quickly. So, and that they tended to last generation. And then they repeated either because they were successful because they weren't successful. And so there was the first way the anarchist wave, you know killed McKinley, they made it by definition anarchists and then offer any ideas so sort of just sort of expired. So the second wave, which was sort of the anti colonial wave with Algeria and Northern Ireland and, you know, that that terrorism succeeded to some French got out of Algeria the British of we, you know, kind of redid the way that they approached the Irish question. And then, and then there was the Marxist wave bragati Rossi, whether underground in this country, etc, etc. And that collapsed to some degree with the collapse of Soviet Union then you have the religious way which we're in now. And this kind of really goes this question about. So, you know, the religious wave seems to have sustained itself for much longer if we begin it with us at the overthrow the italy of the arrival of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and 79. So the, the annual sedan, you know, sort of signing the deal with Carter and the, you know, the, then the Sadat assassination the attack in Mecca. So that, that all happened in 79 so now we're, you know, it's, it's more than a generation later so can I from both of you sort of discuss, you know, a is it. Do you think this wave is going to sustain sort of indefinitely. Is it petering out if it isn't petering out. Why, you know, Taliban now controls Afghanistan again. You know, on the other side that I told us is still in charge of Iran and that's been pretty durable. And you could say look al-Qaeda is in terrible shape which I think probably is ISIS is not doing that well which is compared to where it was so what, where do you score where we are overall. One of the reasons I love this question. I hope that anybody listening knows, this is a question that is often asked in the Georgetown security studies program as a comprehensive exam question for the tears. And so, anybody who's listening who could like scribble the answer down. I wonder about where we are now is such an interesting one and I, I wonder if we ever know when we are in like, when, when do you know when you're out of the way I think 79 is such a good marker because it was very clear to tell that we were at a tipping point of history, right it was very obvious to tell. But as far as where we are now. I wanted to say that we're at a space of increasing connections between what we would have described as domestic terror organizations and predominantly transnational terror organizations, part of being inclined to say that we're facing a rise and research of right wing terror organizations with fascist ideologies and racist ideologies and anti LGBTQ anti Semitic ideologies. Is it a cop out answer to say that it is all of them, because I think at this particular moment, the salience of those hateful ideologies is occurring at the exact same time as we have still the repeated endurance of these religious terror organizations. I was talking about decapitation five minutes ago, all of these groups that their leaders have been decapitated and yet these groups, all still exists, these groups are all still around. And so how will we know what the end of that fourth wave will look like and when we are at the beginning of a new way. I, for me it was really salient. You know the backdrop of the book to have we submitted the first manuscript for the book days four days after the attack on the Capitol in January six. And then we submitted the final manuscript for the book, just around the, the withdrawal from Afghanistan. And so these two events taken together have really sort of bookended my own thinking about how would we characterize this space that we are living. And I think the short answer, this would be a terrible answer to a comprehensive exam question but I think the short answer is, we see the continued persistence and durability of these religious terror organizations in no small part because of the persistence of leadership because of the ability and the opportunity of these successors to take over. The particular moment and the rise and the salience of these right wing terror organizations and in particular, the ways in which these domestic organizations are intersecting both with state sponsoring them but also other right wing terror organizations feels like we're in a different space in 2023. But I don't know what Trish thinks about it we've never actually talked about it. Yeah, I think that from a course framework is a good one but I don't think that the waves are not necessarily mutually exclusive. You know, even in 79 we haven't sort of wrapped up all of you know the previous era. So I think there is something of it can be overlap I don't know what the duration of overlap would be. And I also think that one of the interesting thing about religious organizations as they can groups can have dual identities as ethno nationals and religious as far right and religious less so leftist and religious but maybe So I also think that that's one of the things that makes this an enduring wave is there. Yes, there is a rise and in far right violence but a component of it though not all of it has a religious component religious identity or ideology associated with it. And though we see what I think we see with the jihadist movement in particular is a Sunni jihadist movement is a real adaptability, right, like there's the gas al-Qaeda and ISIS are weak and so there is more of a localization. And some, and especially in a place like Africa where we really see this unchecked proliferation of Sunni jihadism. And on the she has died of course there's also a parallel state sponsored movement. I think we still are in the religious movement maybe we're overlapping into a new phase but I also think the religious wave encompasses part of what we're seeing now that isn't entirely distinct from it. My question I'm very interested in is, so you have these proxy groups which are religious terrorist groups which now control to a large degree, Afghanistan the Taliban is totally in charge they're more in charge than they were last time, but no opposition movement to speak of a much better armed. You have Hezbollah which is sort of the de facto government of Lebanon. And they have pretty much veto their stronger militarily than the Lebanese army, and they kind of have veto power over what the government can do. And you have the Houthis in Yemen, who are also sort of the de facto government they control the capital. And just when we're talking about leadership, you know these terrorist groups are actually the leaders of these countries. So what does that. I mean what is that. How do you reflect on that what does it mean. I mean I think has bought us such a great example and one of the examples that we talk about on our book in which they move to a place of broadening, what does it mean to be a member of his ball in order to encompass they, they adapted and and move forward to who could be a member what did it look like to be a much more expansive, simply Lebanese as a definition right, and I think that to me shows the power exactly to what Trish said of these adaptations of the ability of these religious leaders and religious terror organizations to occupy dual roles, and often is the occupying of those two rules that has in that has allowed them to evolve to remain to remain relevant and to remain in charge and exactly to your point Peter to remain more capable than many of their adversaries but also more capable than legitimate political organs of the state. I think it also improves their longevity, right, that those aren't the leaders we see being eliminated very often and in fact, the state sponsored groups that operate in Pakistan. There were two notable ones that still have founders, so we couldn't even include them. It's pretty rare in this day and age to have an organization founded before 911 that still has a founder, and there are two in that context. So it does have a sort of a fact on the leadership longevity and consistency and ability to really implement the vision that they have so I think it does in some ways increase the importance of leadership because there is that greater institutionalization longevity. You're an expert on salvation terrorist groups amongst other things so let's. So what's going on right now because he's got this very ironic situation where the Pakistani Taliban is headquartered in Afghanistan, which is now controlled by the Afghan Taliban, which is sort of a has been a proxy for the Pakistani government. And yet the Pakistani Taliban are attacking the Pakistani government and we had a recent attack at a mosque in Peshawar, where a lot of people were killed so what what is going on and, you know, what does this mean for Pakistan what does it mean for the Pakistani government what does it mean for Afghanistan. So this is sort of one of the painful ironies that the Taliban makes his pledge that they will not allow terrorism to based in Afghanistan to affect other countries and the country most affected by it is their patron. But I also think it brings into focus that clients are never as manageable as they might appear to be in the Taliban is no exception. The last one was during a lot of the war in Afghanistan this was a relationship of necessity, there wasn't much affection behind it there may have even been some fairly intense dislike behind it between the Taliban, the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani state. And so now that the Afghan Taliban is out from under the thumb of the Pakistanis it behaves in this more independent way so the the patron client relationship is rarely one of control, right it's one of influence. It's not invasion and coercion but it's not control. And the Taliban really illustrates that very clearly that it is not going to just be an instrument of the Pakistani army and Pakistani state. And it also reflects that the relationships that were built during the war during the insurgency those 20 years you know when you have Pakistani Taliban fighting with the Afghan Taliban when you have foreign fighters fighting with the Taliban. And it's not the lines that are created during that time that defy sort of our rational calculus of Oh the if the Taliban was willing to expel them it would be much easier X, Y and Z so they should do it. It's not that simple of sort of an economic calculus if you will, which is something we see in other realms to I thought this when we look at that al-Qaeda affiliates stayed with al-Qaeda even during the ISIS challenge right so some of these, these kinds of violations are not easy, addition and subtraction of costs and benefits. But I do think that they that the Pakistanis find themselves in a situation that is sort of a turning of the tables, where they have a safe haven next door. They have a government unwilling to take action and only willing to do things like facilitate talks against a militant group striking within their country. And it's, it's a consequence it's a function of the policies that it, it had in some ways. And the pot and the Pakistani Taliban is another one of those groups that many people were writing the obituary for after violence declined so much in 2014 and now has researched. So there's this sort of an especially in part because of the right leader at the right time taking the approach that reunified the fragmented organization so it also does highlight the importance I think of leadership in this kind of rejuvenation. Yeah, I mean it, you know, sort of the implication of what you're both saying, you know, is that given enough time and space for these organizations, you know, they do tend to regroup. And there can be a lot of wishful thinking about, I mean, look, I mean, I was saying, as you were talking earlier about, you know, Zikari was killed in 2006. And Al-Qaeda in Iraq carried carried on took a huge amount of pressure up till 2010, then Assad, you know, then there was civil war in Syria they kind of migrated across the border. Suddenly they come back there ISIS and they take over, you know, territory decides the United Kingdom and population decides a Bulgaria. So an al-Qaeda in Iraq was in terrible shape, I think in 2010 2011 so the policy lesson is what I think one of the first policy lessons is. And I see exactly to your point, Peter, after the death of a leader is that there's a sort of flurry of obituary writing a flurry of, this is it we've done, you know, we've done it we've achieved it. And I think we have to have some caution, right about writing the obituary for an organization just because the leader, or even the founder has been killed. I think our research is not saying necessarily that counter terrorism effort should exclusively focus on the leader, and no small part because we've seen the durability of these organizations but rather an understanding of the type of leader that's leading a type of understanding of the situation the environment the operational environment that they find themselves in. And exactly if we sort of loop it back to the point that we said at the beginning of our discussion. There's a declining emphasis on counter terrorism in US policy. I think it is even more critical to understand now, the type of leader that is being faced. Trisha and I both worked in a counter terrorism environment of almost sort of limitless resources. And we are not in that situation anymore we're not in that post 911 world and so I think what it tells us with with the diversity of these threats with even fewer resources. If we stop paying attention to the leaders of religious terror organizations. They're not stopping paying attention to us, and they will find ways to frustrate the other strategic priorities which are critical and very important, but they will find ways to frustrate us and allied strategic priorities in ways that we have decades of history and evidence relatedly then Trisha. So, you know the Taliban now control Afghanistan and they're absent some pretty large event that seems likely to last for a while. What does that mean, in your view, for these questions since so many of these groups are based or have some kind of presence in Afghanistan. I think South Asia is a region to watch with a degree of concern when you have two governments, neighboring each other who are sponsoring and supporting militant organizations right if that is an environment where capabilities can be rehabilitated. Right where weekend organizations can find the space low counter terrorism pressure environments to rebuild for for tomorrow. And a lot of these organizations especially I'll kind of demonstrate a level of patience. And so I think if you give them space that will be a big ingredient that they need to rebuild. And I think that that also creates an environment where where leaders can be more secure in their ability to manage organizations, whether they decide to take a caretaking versus a visionary type role. And rather than one imposed on them from counter terrorism pressure. And so I think there's there's two regions that I'm worried quite a bit about these days and that's Africa as I mentioned, or you just see this sort of explosive growth in jihadist organizations and ISIS affiliates and South Asia, where you do have this mix of two governments that have had policies of at least permitting Sunni militant groups to operate with a level of impunity and a level of safe haven which I think is also a very dangerous combination, let alone that their neighbors and doing so. That's Pakistan and Afghanistan. I mean, is there thinking out a little bit further, is there a sort of set of circumstances where the Taliban are going to shoot themselves in the foot inside or, you know, my yeah, I mean what's the difference so obviously in Iraq and Syria ISIS was able to recruit 40,000 Muslims around the world many of them Europeans and a few Americans. They conducted attacks in Paris and Brussels and Turkey and you know suddenly that they had a global coalition assembled against them and they basically they're not destroyed completely but their shadow what they once were so, you know, do you see a sort of future I'm thinking five years from now the Taliban sort of in power these groups are still there they're regrouping suddenly got some Europeans coming. Maybe the attacks have been plotted against American targets in the region now how does this play out. I think one of the interesting things is I remember in that, you know, period you were talking like 2010 2011 that there was sort of a lot of talk, the line was killed the Islamic State in Iraq is weekend maybe we're sort of wrapping this up. And, you know, it was a decade after 911 and then you have the Arab Spring, you have the civil war in Syria and there was there was sort of an element of circumstances, you know, creating a galvanizing cause. Then, of course, which Syria did to a degree we'd never seen before. So part of what I'm looking at in terms of thinking forward. Not the future of the Sunni jihadist movement is, you know, like I said who wins the competition for leadership and where's the galvanizing cause for the movement and who is positioned to exploit it who is who really can take it the way that the Islamic State in Iraq was able to exploit the situation in Syria and of course in Iraq as well. So there's an element of unpredictability I think to some of that because it's who you know what where does the galvanizing cause emerge who's able to exploit it. And, and I but I'm of the view that given enough time there will probably be some kind of situation like that. That one that one organization, maybe even an organization that we're not that aware of today maybe we're going to see the rise of a new organization or a new competitor for leadership of the movement. There's some outside wildcard variables here that I think it's a time to think creatively so that we don't fall too behind in assessing where it is in an environment where there's less attention to it. And in that time period, can they avoid self defeating measures that would trigger overwhelming counterterrorism responses against them. Great. Well, the book is terror and transition. You can buy it at the lower right hand corner in the button on your screen. Thank you very much Trisha Trisha Bacon. Thank you very much Elizabeth grim and good luck with the rest of the book tour. Thank you so much Peter and thank you to new America for hosting us.