William Braniff
William Braniff is the Executive Director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). He previously served as the director of practitioner education at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) and an instructor in the Department of Social Sciences. Braniff is a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Following his Company Command as an Armor Officer in the U.S. Army, Braniff attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he received a master’s degree in international relations. Upon graduation, Braniff served as a foreign affairs specialist for the National Nuclear Security Agency. He lectures frequently for counterterrorism audiences and programs including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joint Special Operations University, National Defense University. Braniff has also taken a keen interest in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE). He has consulted with the Department of Justice, the FBI and the National Security Staff, playing a key role in an inter-agency working group dedicated to the topic and speaking at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism in February 2015. His research focuses on domestic and international terrorism, counterterrorism and countering violent extremism.
Within the territorial boundaries of the Islamic State’s (IS) ‘caliphate’, women were largely confined to the domestic sphere. Their roles centred on support to militant husbands and the ideological upbringing of children. The physical collapse of IS’ proto-state marks a significant turning point in women’s commitment and activism for the group. Many IS-affiliated women are […]
Right-wing violence and terrorism have slowly gained more academic and public attention in recent years, with an increase in anti-immigration and anti-government organised violence from the extreme right in most Western countries. Some evidence exists that right-wing extremists have attempted to infiltrate the military in their home countries to gain access to tactical training, weapons, […]
Climate change indirectly increases the risk of violent extremism, write Reinier Bergema and General (ret.) Tom Middendorp in their PSI-ICCT policy brief The Warning Signs are Flashing Red: The interplay between climate change and violent extremism in the Western Sahel. Development and security cannot do without the other. It is not enough to counter violent […]