A Proposed Strategy to Fight Religious Fundamentalism

Hasan T. Arslan, Alec Petrone

Abstract
Religiously based terrorism has been at the center of the United States’
counter-terrorism efforts for more than twenty years. What follows is an
analysis of the role played by radical Islamist ideology in the perpetuation
of jihadist violence and a discussion of what can be done to combat this
ideology from a policy standpoint. In a strategy designed to prevent and
mitigate the threat of jihadist violence, preempting the initial radicalization
to jihadist ideology should be a primary focus. The goal of this strategy
would be to deprive the militant jihadist movement of new recruits by
attacking its sources of ideological proliferation while bolstering more
desirable alternative perspectives.

Keywords: ISIS, intelligence, counter-terrorism, jihad, radicalization,
online