The US's listing of the European far-right group on terror signals fears of a growing threat – each abroad and at home

The Rise of the unconventional right in Europe represents a Threat not just for the continent but additionally to Americans at home and abroad.

But while the US government tends to quickly apply sanctions However, on the subject of the transnational threat of far-right violence targeting perceived wrongdoers around the globe, successive U.S. administrations have been more cautious about using one other vital and effective tool: terrorist designation.

It was not until mid-June 2024 that the Biden administration’s State Department decided approved his first violent far-right group, the Nordic Resistance Movement. A neo-Nazi group based in Sweden but with a presence throughout Scandinavia, the NRM has a Call of brutality and represents a vision of totalitarian rule. As the State Department noted in its name, the group can also be the storage of weapons and explosives.

Before the Nordic group was classified as a terrorist organisation, the Trump administration named the far-right Russian Imperial Movement as a terrorist group in 2020.

Both groups are actually officially designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists by the United States. As a result, these groups' assets are subject to a freeze, and anyone attempting to support them risks criminal prosecution for terrorist financing.

As a former State Department counterterrorism official with greater than a decade of experience Given that the United States sanctions terrorists under American law, I consider it is not any coincidence that the groups currently being targeted by US authorities are based in Europe and never within the United States.

Target for the acute right abroad

The threat posed by violent right-wing extremist actors is actually as serious in Europe because it is within the United States. But the US authorities haven’t any authority To legally sanction groups similar to the US-based Oath Keepers, Proud Boys or the Atomwaffen Division as terrorists.

Constitutional rights protecting freedom of speech, assembly and the correct to bear arms make it extremely difficult to sanction indigenous groups. In addition, all relevant decrees and laws are within the Anti-terrorist space is explicitly that the Foreign Ministry must name groups based abroad.

Since authorities' power to crack down on far-right groups within the United States is restricted, they’re as a substitute attempting to contain the influence of violent far-right ideology from abroad.

Nevertheless, the designation of only two violent right-wing extremist groups as “specially designated global terrorists” – 4 years apart – is disappointing to me, especially given the range of right-wing extremist threats scattered across the European continent.

The EU crime prevention agency, Europol, reported in its Report from December 2023 that there have been 45 arrests of right-wing extremists in 2022 and that the “threat from right-wing terrorist lone perpetrators who have become radicalized on the Internet remains significant.”

The most important attack was a October 2022 Shooting in Bratislava, Slovakia, outside an LGBTQ+ bar that left two people dead. Interestingly, Name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nordic Resistance Movement stressed that the group’s violent actions include an anti-LGBTQ+ platform.

Attacks on immigration

Shortly after the EU parliamentary elections, the Biden administration designated the Nordic Resistance Movement as a terrorist group that features right-wing extremist political groups achieved significant gains.

Right-wing extremist groups similar to the Alternative for Germany won seats for the primary time – 15 of them. The group promotes violence against immigrants – Communities often targeted by violent right-wing extremists similar to the Nordic Resistance Movement.

In fact, the Nordic group most notorious attack was carried out in January 2017 in a refugee center in Gothenburg, Sweden, during which an attempted bomb attack one person seriously injured.

The perpetrators of the attack were trained in a camp in Russia by the Russian Imperial Movement – ​​the group that the US State Department designated as a terrorist organization in 2020.

Recently, on June 18, former member of the Nordic group carried out a knife attack on a 12-year-old child born abroad in Finland.

Migration policy has long been the main focus of violent right-wing extremists, and politicians are increasingly being targeted.

In May 2024, for instance, a German centre-left politician was beaten up in an ideologically motivated attack while putting up election posters.

In one other attack, a politician in Dresden attacked by a gaggle on which “Heil Hitler” was allegedly shouted.

According to the Middlebury Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism the goal of the Nordic group is to “overthrow democracy throughout the Nordic region and Scandinavia in order to establish a Nazi dictatorship inspired by the Third Reich.”

Groups similar to the Nordic Resistance Movement exploit the delicate and polarised European society and stoke fears that migrants pose a threat to the continent.

Protecting democracies

Against the backdrop of recent violent right-wing extremist attacks on politicians and immigrants, in addition to Results of the recent European electionsThe timing of the Biden administration's designation of the Nordic Resistance Movement as a company reflects growing fears in Washington that the political rise of the far right in Europe could encourage violent extremists to maneuver beyond chants, slogans and swastikas to mass shootings.

Nevertheless, the United States is less inclined to sanction far-right groups than a lot of its partners. The United Kingdom, for instance, has seven right-wing extremist organizations as terrorist organizations; for Canada the number is nine.

In short, despite its penchant for sanctioning enemies—from hostile states like Russia to terrorist groups like ISIS—the United States appears unwilling to completely exploit the terrorist designation options at its disposal against violent far-right actors.

And that, in my view, may very well be a cause for concern. Right-wing extremists from the US are known to have good connections with like-minded groups and individuals in Europe. The organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, had alleged links to The banned Russian imperial movement.

By designating groups just like the Nordic Resistance Movement as terrorists, the Biden administration hopes to discourage Americans from supporting Europe's far-right. According to the State Department's order, any American who supports the group could find yourself behind bars.

At the identical time, the Biden administration's listing of the Nordic group can also be a signal to Europe that more terrorists with links to the acute right shall be added in the longer term.

Finally, the federal government has a Point to clarify that the Nordic group was named “after consultations with our European partners”.

And with several vital elections coming up in Europe, Biden's decision also represents an try to get up for democracy and resist groups that promote an “us versus them” narrative and define others worthy of attack as enemies.

If the designation of the Nordic Resistance Movement as a terrorist organization is an indication that more such designations are to return, it could further two of the Biden administration's stated goals: Promoting and protecting democracy abroad And Combating domestic terrorism.