Vol. 11 No. 1 | 2024 Edition
The tensions between nationalist, regional, and global terrorist agendas, further complicated by the Shia and Sunni divide, help illuminate the “wicked” nature of the jihadist problem. Far from monolithic, the enemy in the war on terror is a confederation of competing actors joined together in a shared contempt for Israel, the West, and apostate governments. The ideological currents that fuel these religious and political movements are diverse and continuously activated along independent, mutually-supporting pathways—revolutionary, sectarian, regional anti-West, or global-caliphate strains—that tend to immunize the organizations themselves against hierarchical fragility or decapitation. While counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria may have weakened terrorist capabilities in the short term, they have had the opposite effect on the global map, driving organizations like al Qaeda and ISIS to pursue alternate strategies and discover new safe havens. The alarming reality is that despite our extensive, combined efforts to curb the threat of jihadist terrorism, the problem has only morphed and metastasized since 9/11.
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Colonel Daniel R. Moy is a lecturer in the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia where he teaches courses on terrorism and counterterrorism and national security policy and crisis decision making. A 27-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Colonel Moy commanded a counterinsurgency team of 100 personnel in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009, leading a whole-of-government strategy for combatting terrorism in hostile environments.
During his military career, Colonel Moy served as the deputy military advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in New York and worked closely with international partners to advance U.S. national security interests abroad. He also served in the Pentagon as deputy executive assistant to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as an acquisition deputy director overseeing several of the Air Force’s top-tier intelligence and aerial reconnaissance programs.
Colonel Moy is a recipient of the Legion of Merit, the Defense Superior Service Medal, and the Bronze Star. He is also the author of a forthcoming book on the ideological origins of the American founding—Antiquity and Loyalist Dissent in Revolutionary America, 1765-1776.
