December 2023 — M2CC Newsletter

4 | M2CC - News www.m2cc.us DECEMBER 2023 EDITION
first released to Congress, there were 270 allegations of extremist
activities. In 2022, that figure dropped to 146 before rebounding
over the past year.
Dozens of Troops
Suspected of Advocating
Overthrow of US
Government, New Pentagon
Extremism Report Says
An annual Pentagon report on extremism within the ranks reveals
that 78 service members were suspected of advocating for the
overthrow of the U.S. government and another 44 were suspected
of engaging or supporting terrorism.
The report released Thursday by the Defense Department inspector
general revealed that in fiscal 2023 there were 183 allegations of
extremism across all the branches of military, broken down not
only into efforts to overthrow the government and terrorism but
also advocating for widespread discrimination or violence to
achieve political goals.
The statistics indicate the military continues to grapple with
extremism following its public denunciations and a stand-down
across the services ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
in 2021. Furthermore, the numbers do not make it clear whether
the military's approach is working. In 2021, the year the data was
The Army had the most allegations in fiscal 2023 with 130 soldiers
suspected of participation in extremist activity. The Air Force
suspected 29 airmen; the Navy and Marine Corps reported 10
service members each. For the first time, the inspector general also
reported numbers for the Space Force as a separate entity from the
other services -- it suspected four Guardians of extremism.
The IG report also included instances of alleged criminal gang
activity: There were 58 allegations of gang activity across the
military.
However, the report did note that, out of all the suspected extremism
and criminal gang activity, 68 of the total cases were investigated
and cleared or deemed unsubstantiated.
In the U.S., extremist activity, including neo-Nazi, white supremacist
and anti-government movements, has been growing, and numerous
violent plots by veterans and even active-duty troops have been
thwarted in recent years. Experts on extremist movements have
warned about the growing potential of more violence and future
attacks, similar to the Oklahoma City federal building bombing in
1995 that killed 168 and was carried out by an Army veteran.
In February, a former National Guardsman, Brandon Russell, who
founded the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi hate group, was
charged with plotting to blow up Baltimore's electrical grid and
cause as much suffering as possible. Russell, who allegedly kept
a framed photo of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, was
sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 after an arrest in Florida
for possessing explosives.
In the wake of the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol building, the
Pentagon tried to make a show of dealing with the problem of
extremism among troops after it became clear that veterans as well
as some active-duty troops were among the mob that stormed the
halls of Congress in an effort to halt the certification of the 2020
election.
Including the military-wide extremism training stand-down ordered
by Austin -- were largely symbolic and were widely considered as
just another box for commanders to check.
One active-duty noncommissioned officer said that, aside from the
fact that no one was paying attention at the stand-down briefing
he attended, the commander giving the lecture was "talking about
what he thought were radical groups like Black Lives Matter."
The idea that far-left groups are just as problematic as far-right ones
is a popular talking point among conservatives and Republican
lawmakers. However, law enforcement officialsand experts who
study the topic have consistently noted that far-right groups