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| This time Poland Internal Security Agency was successful |
First,
after the arrest of a Polish extremist, it is high time to forget the
counterproductive generalizations on extremists being
„under-educated, unemployed or poor”. Mr. Kwiecień was a
professor with two doctorates, employed by the University of
Agriculture in Krakow and appears to be affluent in light of the fact
that the resources he was able to employ while preparing his plot
required money.
Considering
the tactical implications of the case,
the important thing is that the perpetrator was not
a 'lone wolf'. Polish law enforcement
reported that they have arrested other local co-conspirators. Beyond
this, his plot was discovered by law
enforcement and intelligence agencies
looking into Anders Breivik's network. At a news conference, Polish
PM Donald Tusk said
that „an analysis of Breivik's contacts abroad had helped lead
Polish investigators to the suspect.” As we pointed out in our
latest study on the
European Threat Landscape, deadly extremists rarely materialize
out of thin air – they are products of a broader extremist scene.
This also implies the solution as follows.
On
the tactical level, European countries
must set up capacities on the European level to carry out monitoring,
intelligence sharing and analytical work, exactly because organized
extremists also operate regardless of borders. This Polish case is
just the most recent example. At the time of the arrest of Mr.
Kwiecień, several dozen Hungarian far-right extremist, including a
Member of the Parliament, travelled to Warsaw to meet Polish
counterparts and participate in demonstrations, including violent
clashes with law-enforcement.
On the
political level, one must consider the
fact that there are millions of people in Europe with similar
knowledge (either in science or in chemical, pharmaceutical, etc.
industries). Moreover, Anders Breivik had no such background in
science, but he was able to bomb central-Oslo based on knowledge he
acquired via the Internet. Europe cannot – and should not – try
to use the criminal justice system to keep an eye on all these
people. However, European countries should definitely develop
capacities jointly to monitor extremist activities, including
surveillance. Still in terms of politics, the sole viable thing in
the long-run must be a focus on better governance (decreasing demand
for extremism) and mitigation by building resilience in European
societies.
The
rationale for such a strategy is based on two facts. First, organized
extremist groups – many of them later turning
into mostly far-right political parties (e.g. Golden Dawn) –
need broader support in a society to be able to carry out prolonged
activities with significant impact (e.g. Hungarian
Guard). Mainstream politics can seriously degrade this political
support by offering a credible alternative supported by convincing
performance. (The same
is also true if European decision-makers will try to avoid making
hard decisions in key fields then people will be more inclined to
accept the “solutions” that extremists have to offer). Secondly,
European decision-makers need to realize that whatever they do, there
will still be attacks.
For instance, one cannot argue that Norway would have been such a
poorly governed country prior to Breivik's attack. Then the sole
question is what political impact these attacks will have – and
this is why the solution is to build resilience in European
societies.
If
European countries are able to decrease demand on the political
level, invest in intelligence and law enforcement on the tactical
level and in education, etc. on the strategic level and
at the same time put emphasis on preparing their citizens for coming
attacks while also emphasizing that such attacks will have a limited
impact and will not be able to undermine the basic democratic
framework of their countries – then if an attack occurs, it will
have indeed been able to cause only limited damage.
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