The White House just announced that the Wagner Group will be designated a transnational criminal organization.
My team & I have done a research deep dive into the US's ability to designate Wagner. This thread looks into what we have found.
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The alleged O9A member in Queens who was arrested on child pornography & weapons charges certainly had a flair for picking social media handles.
audacy.com/1010wins/news/
Honored that our analysis of Wagner’s designation as a TCO was named the article of the day by yesterday.
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Article of the Day
@DaveedGR, Emelie Chace-Donahue, and @ColinPClarke analyze the Wagner Group's designation as a transnational criminal organization.
All #TNTAotD picks: bit.ly/32fvBmJ
Read @ICCT_TheHague: icct.nl/publication/us4
Newly introduced bipartisan House bill, the HARM Act, would require the State Department to designate the Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization.
thehill.com/policy/nationa
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When and work together, I pay attention:
"Understanding the US Designation of the Wagner Group as a Transnational Criminal Organisation"
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This discussion with and on the Battle Rhythm podcast was an absolute pleasure.
We discussed creativity in the national security space in some detail, naturally with a significant games/simulations angle to the conversation.
Coming in February!
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The CDSN keeps on being the gift that keeps on giving. Just had a great interview for #BattleRhythm podcast with @DaveedGR and @maxbrooks. It was about wargames and simulations and that episode will probably drop in a month. As a big fan of WWZ, this interview was a delight!
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On Friday, NSC spokesman John Kirby said the US will designate the Wagner Group a transnational criminal org.
What is the basis of this designation & what are the implications?
, Emelie Chace-Donahue & I weigh in for .
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This whole thread is interesting, but here's a key piece on the designation of Wagner as a transnational criminal organization:
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BLUF: The legal case for this designation is strong.
Natural resource smuggling is Wagner’s main criminal enterprise but its operatives are also involved in money laundering, illicit financing. There could be links to other criminal activities, including trafficking.
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Much more can be said, and & I will probably publish our findings on Wagner and transnational organized crime next week. But this designation is a significant step, one for which there is ample legal backing and copious underlying evidence.
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Re resource smuggling, Amb Thomas-Greenfield warned UNSC in Oct of “Wagner Group’s strategy of exploiting the natural resources of the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, and Sudan, as well as other countries … to fund Moscow’s war machine.”
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Contributing to this trend is the plummeting quality of Wagner recruits. Reporting suggests that, as the group’s forces suffer casualties in Ukraine, Prigozhin is now deliberately recruiting felons directly from Russian prisons.
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BLUF: The legal case for this designation is strong.
Natural resource smuggling is Wagner’s main criminal enterprise but its operatives are also involved in money laundering, illicit financing. There could be links to other criminal activities, including trafficking.
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The transnational criminal organization mechanism is separate from the terrorist designation architecture. & I, along with Emelie Chace-Donahue, had recently sent a piece to looking at this exact designation mechanism.
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The case for Wagner's designation as a terrorist group has also been made elsewhere, including in .
Here, & Sara Downing argue that Wagner is "paramilitary terrorism" in a piece published by .
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Even though the public doesn't normally think of PMCs through the terrorist lens, the legal architecture is applicable in Wagner's case.
In particular, the two biggest bars to designation--is it an org & is there recency of attacks--are both satisfied in Wagner's case.
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Interestingly, earlier today & I published an op-ed arguing that Wagner satisfies the criteria to be listed as a terrorist group. We had submitted this piece back in December, so its publication today is more coincidence than anything else.
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As w/ most op-eds, we didn’t get to write our own headline. Our point isn’t that Wagner *should* be designated - the policy case is complex.
Rather, based on our deep dive, we wanted to outline non-obvious barriers to designation for groups like this & why they don’t apply here.
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Out today: my new article with detailing how the Wagner Group can legally be designated a terrorist organization.
While this isn’t how one intuitively thinks about a mercenary group like Wagner, it meets the relevant criteria.
nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-ope
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Missed their big opportunity to go Garamond.
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big news for font freaks: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department & replaced by Calibri. Secretary Blinken sent a cable to all embassies today directing staff not to send him any more papers with Times New Roman. Subject: "The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin"
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Here's a snippet setting up Jabbari Lincoln’s story.
I'll be listening in, and so should you!
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The Jabbari Lincoln Files: an innovative and captivating new podcast by my friend . It's a fictional thriller that seems like it will be told in a gripping manner, with some extraordinary audio accompanying it.
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First in the Arab World: The United Arab Emirates announced that the Holocaust will be taught in schools.
Curriculum will be developed in collaboration with Yad Vashem and will be included in the curriculum of primary and secondary school students.
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An Islamist extremist just detained in Germany was suspected of planning a chemical attack, had allegedly sought to obtain cyanide and ricin.
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Good look at the Biden administration's struggles to respond to the Taliban's increasingly harsh restrictions on women's rights in Afghanistan.
"Punishing the ruling Islamists risks rupturing the limited relationship the United States has with them."
politico.com/amp/news/2023/
Strong book recommendations to start the year from the Irregular Warfare Center's & Kevin Stringer.
I'll be updating my own reading list for 2023 based on some of these suggestions.
irregularwarfarecenter.org/2023/01/irregu
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I was honored to recently appear on Alice Heiman’s excellent podcast "Sales Talk for CEOs." In it, I discuss 's origins; the challenges of building a sales team in my sphere; and the "rainmaker" sales model that Valens has embraced.
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Times Square machete attacker Trevor Bickford "carried a handwritten diary that expressed his desire to join the Taliban in Afghanistan and die as a martyr."
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I was honored to recently appear on Alice Heiman’s excellent podcast "Sales Talk for CEOs." In it, I discuss 's origins; the challenges of building a sales team in my sphere; and the "rainmaker" sales model that Valens has embraced.
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Coming soon
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Resharing this piece on terrorists and technological innovation that I co-authored with for back in Feb 2020 (below graphic is the violent non-state actor technology adoption curve) lawfareblog.com/terrorists-and
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Is the special operations forces community over-relying on technology?
Excellent interview with Dan Leaf & 's Derek Jones challenging the idea of the hyper-connected operator.
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Excellent contribution - in a time when composite violent extremism (CoVE - ) increases, an approach to focus on likely victims is innovative and needed. reports last year from have shifted the focus to common targets across ideologies:
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Today's Insight from @AnnaMeierPS uses the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs to illustrate how 'a target-centred approach' centring the targets of violence shifts our research questions, outcomes, and goals toward justice and liberation.
gnet-research.org/2022/12/08/res
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The Critical Mass is proud to support @StateISN Office of Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Fund (ISN/NDF) on our current project -
"Enhanced Interoperability of GOI/KRI Units and Airport Officials to Effectively Respond to and Prevent CBW Incidents"
thecriticalmass.com/partner-inform
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"Composite Violent Extremism: A Radicalization Pattern Changing the Face of Terrorism," really thoughtful piece here from & the team in
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The Irregular Warfare Center's website is now live - including announcement of a paid fellowship program.
irregularwarfarecenter.org
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Honored that our new article on composite violent extremism for was chosen as the article of the day by . Check it out!
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Article of the Day
@DaveedGR, @andrew_zammit, Emelie Chace-Donahue, and Madison Urban introduce "composite violent extremism" to better label ideologically complex violent extremists.
All #TNTAotD picks: bit.ly/32fvBmJ
Read @lawfareblog: lawfareblog.com/composite-viol2
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Here’s our explanation of the contributions we hope to make with the composite violent extremism (CoVE) framework.
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Back to work after Thanksgiving, I'm reupping my new article for on composite violent extremism.
It's an effort to provide a typology for the idiosyncratic radicalization patterns that are increasingly prominent in violent extremists.
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Extremely pleased to have contributed to this with the team at ! We have been working on a journal article on this too, it’s a big topic and it’s been great to have the opportunity to dig into it:
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Attackers seem to increasingly deviate from traditional patterns of terrorism in their ideas, grievances & sentiments.
Introducing composite violent extremism, , , Emelie Chace-Donahue & I try to make sense of this pattern.
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