Lone wolves: myth or reality?

(right) US far-right terrorist David Lane
(far right) Colin Jordan, British terrorist and
promoter of “extra-parliamentary politics”
that is championed by such
thinking, but rather the
opportunity to evade detection
through uncoordinated,
decentralised actions that follow a
common ideology. Within far-right
contexts, this is the mythology that
is signified by the term ‘lone-wolf’.
In other words, it is useful to
distinguish between the idea of a
solo actor terrorist, i.e. an
individual carrying out a terrorist
act, and the ‘lone wolf’, a far-right
terrorist which is either a solo or
small grouping that has emerged
from the culture of Leaderless
Resistance.
PERSONALISING TERRORISM
AND VULNERABILITIES
With this distinction in mind, we
also need to ask what drives the
solo actor terrorist to violence.
One of the major observations
developed by Ramón Spaaij in
a recent survey of terrorist
acts carried out by solo actors
is that such protagonists
combine the broad structures of
a more prevalent extreme
ideology with their own personal
grievances – so suggestive
commentary from figures such
as Lane or Jordan can be
combined with more individual
Solo actor terrorism and the mythology of the lone wolf
concerns. As Spaaij stresses,
individual actors:
tend to create their own
ideologies that combine
personal frustrations and
aversion with broader
political, social, or religious
aims. The degree to which
these aims correspond to
those of existing extremist
movements vary …
motivational patterns tend to
involve complex
constellations of ideas and
feelings that change over
time. 7
Although no simple hard and fast
laws for understanding solo actors
are set out here, we see that,
implicitly, solo actors are dependent
on the wider culture sustaining an
extremist worldview. Here, the
‘lone-wolf’ and ‘Leaderless
Resistance’ theme is crucial in the
far-right context. This community
of support may be engaged with
vicariously by the individual actor,
or it may be achieved through direct
general contact with other
individuals and movements.
Moreover, though these wider
contacts may not engage in terrorist
activity, they will provide the
necessary culture of support that
legitimises the behaviour of
potential solo actor terrorists.
So mapping potential communities
of support in individual cases is
central to understanding the
linkages between more general
cultures of far-right activity and
solo actor terrorists. Given the
prevalence of new media, it is
worth stressing these supportive
milieus may now be developed
through virtual encounters. For
example, one website based in
Britain promoting the far-right
‘lone-wolf’ mythology is:
www.lonewolves88.blogspot.com.
Here, one can download guides to
carrying out ‘lone wolf’ activity.
Commentary on the site also blurs
distinctions between cultivating
solo actors and larger ‘street crews’
through the mythology of the ‘lone
wolf’. 8 Again we see the far-right
employment of the term denoting
decentralised units of violent
extremism, rather than simply solo
actor terrorists. Meanwhile, links to ➤
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