Changes in the perceived terrorist threat may have placed America at an inflection point. Following two decades of almost exclusive focus on the terrorist threat posed by the global jihadist enterprise and its homegrown supporters, the intelligence effort is now pivoting to address domestic violent extremism. This is an arena fraught with danger to the country, for the perceived foe is us.

The nation is deeply divided, its political system polarized. Getting counterterrorism wrong could make the situation worse. The challenge is to isolate and contain violent extremists without turning them into political martyrs or half the country into enemies of the state. That could require a rethinking of intelligence strategy.

The absence of a domestic 9/11 terrorist attack means there is no galvanizing event to unite the country in common cause. The Jan. 6, 2021 takeover of the Capitol has not created the same level of alarm and anger as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Political partisans cannot even agree whether it was a worrisome event.

Unlike the jihadists, domestic political extremists have a potential constituency. Jihadist ideology never gained traction in America's Muslim communities. Jihadists were isolated. In contrast, the beliefs motivating America's domestic extremists, especially those on the far right, run deep in American society. Reflecting antipathy toward what some see as a tyrannical federal government, fewer tips from the community can be expected. Informants may be harder to recruit.

As it is, today's politicized atmosphere and deep political divisions will make prosecutions more difficult. More cases are likely to come to juries where just one sympathetic juror can cause a mistrial. A mere nexus to a hate group will not suffice. Prosecutors will have to prove participation in preparing for or carrying out a crime.

Read the full article about combating unprecedented domestic terrorism by Brian Michael Jenkins at Rand.