Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has announced a new initiative to weed extremists out of the United States Military. The new initiative includes a review of Department of Defense guidelines to update guidance regarding “prohibited extremist activity” among uniform military personnel. New recruits to the military will face enhanced screening to address the problem of extremist groups trying to get their members into the military so they can receive weapons and tactical training. The memo also mentions expansion of “Insider Threat” monitoring, to identify individuals sympathetic to MAGA terrorist ideology.
There will also be the creation of a “Countering Extremism Working Group” which will spearhead an effort to expand the military’s off-boarding efforts, to try to educate former soldiers about how criminal and extremist organizations may try to recruit them. For decades now veterans have been viewed as high-value recruits by extremist and criminal organizations such as the Oathkeepers, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and the Republican Party. The working group will also be charged with creating an “extremism study”, to map the threat landscape of extremist organizations as they relate to veterans.