Coming up, behavioral scientists from the Rand Corporation will talk about violent realism in u. S. We will have live coverage when it gets underway shortly, here on cspan. I am happy to welcome you to todays policy lab on very important topics, addressing violent extremism in the United States. Our policy lab theory is designed to give an opportunity to hear directly from rand experts about todays policy issues. I am pleased to see so many folks have joined our webinar. And seeing so many folks watching and listening on sees than one and cspan radio, both broadcasting live. For those who are joining on zoom, we will have time at the end of the presentation for a short q a. If you have questions, post them in the q a forum on zoom, not in the chat. However, you can check the chat with additional information. We posted links relevant to todays information. Finally, quote captioning is enabled. You can display it by selecting the option in the menu at the bottom of the window. We are recording this session and will make it Available Online at a later date. I think we are ready to get going. I will tell you a little more about hours acres tom hom is an rind brown. Ryan brown works with culture and social networks in driving risktaking, violence and other destructive and selfdestructive behaviors. His client workshop focuses on individual, social and cultural drivers of domestic terrorism and does research that betters the lives of rural and remote populations with a focus on American Indian and alaska native for native groups. Ryan holds an m a an ma. And is involved with a program at ut berkeley and San Francisco uc berkeley and San Francisco. Tom is a nationally recognized expert on this information and violent extremism and specializes in the of data and evidencebased strategies to understand and counter these messages and extremism. He has studied threats caused by deepfakes, russian propaganda targeting the u. S. And europe, and the use of social media by violent Extremist Groups and has led researchers on the effectiveness of online interventions to prevent radicalism. He holds a phd from wayne state university. Ryan, todd, take it away. I will be back in a bit for the q a. Thank you everyone for joining us. It is an honor for ryan and i to print that the reason those of this buddy we recently did. On a really important issue, affecting the nation. Did you want to show the slides, ryan . Next slide. We are able to bring this study to you because of the generosity of the rand Epstein Family veteran policy institute. They conduct research to include the lives of those who have served and some or them. A generous grant to enable this work so we are super grateful to those, the towani adn rand and rand epstein center. Anyone who has followed knows rand has done a lot. We famously helped organize and run one of the central databases of terrorism events in the u. S. We no longer do this but do you conduct a host of different policy Research Studies to address extremism. I, myself, have been doing work since soon after 9 11, focus on al qaeda radicalization and recruitment. When Osama Bin Laden was killed, isis came on the scene and rand started doing work then. Rand has done a lot of Domestic Work on domestic extremism. Ryan brown and i coled a series on violence in america and constructed interviews with former violent extremists. But rand has also done other work including the wing extremism or races extremism and including in the military. Brian and i, and more broadly rand, has done this over the years. January 6 is really what sparked americas interest in the issue of veterans. Soon after the riots, reports were suggesting sometimes even 25 of those who identified who were identified in the rice had military paths. Most often in the past but sometimes current. I think we are all aware of ashli babbitt, the air force officer who was shot and killed during the assault. And the proud boyss membership is heavily loaded with veterans. Three out of four members of the proud boys convicted of seditious conspiracy were military members. This has raised concern. We are concerned about the veterans being in extremism for many reasons. Veterans can offer a lot to Extremist Groups. They have skills and capabilities, not only military training skills but leadership skills, which could potentially make the groups more violent and deadly. More broadly, america since the time of civil war has really acknowledged the responsibility america as a society has to the veteran community. We want to do everything we can to help veterans lift, fulfilling live fulfilling, safe and secure lives. I forgot to mention in the previous slide that the initial 20 to 25 references of veterans being engaged in extremism has dropped down considerably. They were revised down to either 13 or 18 depending on who is measuring. George Washington University pens it at 13 and have a more structured way of how they include people. Whereas the university of maryland, a very auspicious terrorism center, has at it at 18 . The university of marylands center also suggests the number of veterans are politically motivated in violence is motivated suggest that the number of veterans politically motivated in violence is increasing over the last 12 to 15 years. Another issue to be concerned about. One thing we havent done, is we have not seen what prompted us during the study. We do not know to which level veterans support terrorism or domestic extremism issues in the United States. Understanding the prevalence of this is important for many reasons. One is a basic have got that show supporting extremist ideology does not make one a terrorist. Ryan talked more about this at the conclusion. It is important to at least do this as a form of barometer. So ideally we can track over time to assess the degree to which veterans may be more or less at risk. We do presume that supporting extremist causes does lend one at risk to violent extremism. There are other factors that go into joining terrorist movements but it is understood that having some intellectual affinity with a terrorist movement is often times a precondition. We conducted a representative survey among veterans which is not a trivial task. We were lucky in that we were able to work with an existing rand survey conducting among veterans. We are able to add questions that related to extremist costs. Here you see the topics included. We sampled nearly 1000 participants about their support for white supremacist, black nationalist, proud boys, antifa, and asked about three ideologies we know can drive extremist movements or actions. One is political violence. Support for political violence. The second is the qanon conspiracy. Then finally the great replacement theory. I will talk more about what those are in a moment. We basically took the questions for this from existing surveys out there because we wanted to be able to identify how our numbers compared to what might be representative surveys of the general public. We used the same questions. Then you will see we do make some comparisons. And ryan will talk more about this in a bit but we do make comparisons with some degree of humility, recognizing we have different examples and survey methodology, and different demographic makeups among veterans or two nonveterans. Ryan here are the key findings. One thing we noticed overall is among support for Extremist Groups like white supremacist and proud boys, the veterans underperformed in a good way, compared to the general representative survey. For White Supremacists, only 0. 8 of the veterans we sampled expressed support for white supremacist is like the kkk or neonazi organizations, in comparison to 7 in the general population. Support for black nationalist organizations we have no comparison but that was around 5 . For proud boys, it was at 4. 2 compared to the general population of 9 . With antifa, we also saw around half of veterans compared to 10 in the general population. This will be my last slide and then i will turn it to ryan. We asked about three ideologies. What is political violence. The wording is important. The way we asked the question is, because things have gotten so offtrack, true american patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country. Around 18 of respondents agreed with that statement. We see a comparable percentage among the veteran population around 17. 4 . Relatively comparable numbers. For qanon, the question was, for those not familiar with this conspiracy rate, the government and financial worlds in the u. S. Are controlled by a group of satanworshiping pedophiles who run a global sex trafficking operation. Again, we see around 18 in the general population whereas we saw around 17 among veterans. Then the great replacement theory is a group of people in the country are trying to replace people born in america with native americans and other minorities. It was around 24 percent generally and the veteran population was around 29 . Fairly high on most of these marks. Ryan, do you want to take it from here . Ryan thank you so much todd and everyone. We also break down these read votes by branch of service these results by branch of service. What we found is veterans of the marine corps showed higher for black nationalist, proud boys, and antifa. Which means if you look at support for any of these roofs, veterans of the marine corps are twice as likely to show support for one or more of these groups then the army, air force, or navy veterans. We also break down branch of Service Support for the specific ideologies and beliefs. Again, marine corps veterans showed higher support for political violence. In the true patriots may have to resort to violence. And higher support for the great replacement theory which is there is a can searcy there is a conspiracy to replace nativeborn americans. Marine corps but then air force showed Higher Results for the qanon conspiracy. Marine corps shows some increased support for both ideology and theory. We can talk a little bit during q a about reasons for that. We also looked at overlap in support for specific groups and endorsement of political violence. The reason is particularly concerning to see a law of importance. The good news is the degree of overlap and supporting the need for taking up arms against the country to support specific groups was pretty mild. It is a couple ways of looking at it. The overlap was great for antifa and the proud boys. But if you take everything for supporters, only a little less than 20 of supporters also supported political violence. For proud boys, around 33 supported the proud boys and endorsed critical violence. You can look and say 18 of veterans supported the violence so how many supported proud boys . When you look at it that way, it is less than 10 . On the one hand, that is may be good news because you do not see a lot but also, it makes us wonder for the 15 which is pretty high who do not support a group right now or maybe support a group we did not measure or is this kind of a focus ready to be a part of a group that does not exist yet . We know extremism is evolving rapidly compared to previously. And is much more specific to membership than it had been in previous decades. Todd hinted at this. The veteran population in the u. S. Is demographically very different than the rest of the u. S. Population. On the one hand, the military has been the great emigrate or. But it is different. Veterans are in the u. S. On average tend to be older and more likely or predominantly male. This means we are comparing veterans and the overall u. S. Population. And they both represent samples of each but it also means we are not power to support these civic comparison. We cannot answer, is the average 40yearold veteran male more likely to support extremism than the average nonveteran mail . That is a different question and needs a Higher Powered survey to ask pacific questions for groups with or without veteran status. That is one major limitation and is related to a pattern in findings recently that todd nodded to or described at the beginning of the presentation. So we averaged this study at the start to take a specific sample of those involved in mass casualty plots or attacks. These are things that are either thats either occurred or were contradicted. They found Prior Military Service was the largest risk factor for participation in one of these plots or attacks. Two kind of contradictory patterns we are finding is there is lower support over all for these and ideology, but there is a pattern of what seems to be greater involvement in extremist activity. That had us wondering things like may be pipeline is narrower. So overall, members of servicemembers who have separated from the military and are now veterans are less likely, on average, to support extremism. But if they do radicalize, they have a predisposition to action . There are a number of reasons this may be the case. There are selection factors for joining the military. You are also trained to be action driven. These are all just guesses right now. It really makes us wonder what is happening to drive these. As todd mentioned, even if overall percentages are lower, there are capabilities. One of those being commitment to action. It will make them, as we know, likely to try to target veterans in their recruitment attempts. It is not only skill but Extremist Groups will get the pressure the impression of stability because of this high status. What do we do with this . There are a few different directions. Right now, we are conducting interviews with veterans over the phone to understand a bit more about their experiences serving in the military and separating from the military and how this might be related to extremism. This is an area of hypotheticals at the moment. We have anecdotes about how trauma can lead to hatred and loss of camaraderie for Extremist Groups to replace the camaraderie and draw veterans into the rank. We have a lot of stories but we are still gathering data. To understand this issue more closely, including comparing like groups. The 40yearold male comparison. We will also need more survey research and more drilling down on case studies. We are at the very beginning of understanding what might be driving particularly the higher association or involvement in actual plots . What might be driving this and what can we do to better support veterans to protect them from recruitment. It is Extremist Groups and just to improve their lives which is part of the Greater Mission of policy. With that, i think we have a p oll question we wanted to put to the audience. You may have had ideas about this at the beginning but now we want to assess with the data we presented in the discussion here, how concerned are you about veterans and extremism . I think there will be a question popup. Please go ahead and select an option. We will keep this open for probably 30 seconds or so as responses accumulate and then take a look at the distribution of results. If you have already voted, please go ahead and start putting questions in. We are happy to have a good amount of time for q a on this. All right, so we see some results. Around 10 say not concerned. The rest say very concerned or somewhat concerned. I think now, i will turn it back over to deanna for q a and i can stop sharing slides. Deanna thank you both. Super interesting. A reminder for everyone, if you do have questions, go ahead. We have a couple already. I will get started. Todd, ryan, it will be at your discretion. First question, how does social media correlate with veterans joining or participate . Todd we do not know specifically but we know that social media is a key. Not that there is anything inherently bad about social media but it connects people to like ideas. It provides often times a venue for individuals to engage in dialogue and debate and discussion. Which is great. But when you get into these ideological funnels, where people become more extreme politically, then they have the social network likewise that becomes more politically extreme. Which can often times ignite or facilitate radicalization because people online are sharing extremist content and getting reinforced for sharing that content. They are getting reinforced for even more extreme ideas amongst their social network. And they feel emboldened because without the social media, you would never know. It would be hard to connect with these groups. But with social media, it is easy to connect and feel you are not alone and many people have these views. Social media is a key radicalization element. I dont know whether veterans are more likely to rely on this. My guess is probably not. It is probably an equal opportunity issue but ryan may have other ideas. Ryan it is a common but not necessary pathway for those we have seen. Both those in extremism more broadly and the conversations we have had. It is kind of an option and one of many pathways. We strive at the number of facetoface connections that seem to be supporting a lot of these beliefs or cohorts and groups who believe similarly about the need for political violence. There are some very clear narratives where that was the primary radicalization pathway and later became facetoface. There are quite especially with older veterans who may not be as likely to be tech savvy. Some of them are extremely tech 70 and older veterans as well but its kind of all over the place and we just dont have an answer statistically. Deanna ok, we have a couple of questions here about different types of extremism. Im just going to paraphrase. I know the work you talked about today focuses i believe mostly on far right extremism. If i remember the study correctly. Can you talk about the prevalence of the risk of that compared with other types of extremism you found in this work or maybe some of your other studies youve done . Todd you want to take a shot, ryan . Ryan for the veterans, we did not look specifically at islamic extremism. A lot of todds prior work has focused on that. In terms of the overall risk and weve seen a shift over the last decade or so towards lets say nonreligious, there is still a risk but todd, you want to ryan todd terrorism fluctuates and wanes. We know terrorism grew. They are fed by changing ideologies in the population so thats why you see in the 1970s, leftwing extremism was the most problematic in common. There is a period where animalrights extremism was common and it might still be but and then 9 11, we saw islamic extremism and it was al qaeda first and now isis seems to be the most prominent islamic actor. During that time, some military personnel im sure it military people have converted but we know there is an attack at fort hood back in 2008 or Something Like that that killed a number of service personnel. That was emblematic i think of the risks we were sing at that time but it seems to have gone away a little bit at least in the United States and even in the middle east whereby muslim extremism is on the ebb and right wing extremism is on the ups. These things just evolve and at some point, right wing extremism will fade away and we will see other forms. Todd among former extremists, ryan we have ideologies switching so these are the common drivers for some extremists, people who get swept up in these movements lead them to join right wing extremist causes and then left wing extremist causes through trying to fight the right to wrong and potentially international extremist movements. There is a lot of movement there. Our work shows that extremism, it suggests that extremism is one of a number of pathways for some at least two self medication could otherwise have been joining gangs or be joining groups involved with extreme drug use but there is a little bit of a right time, right place phenomena for radicalization. Groups gain and lose sway in their capabilities and the resources also. As we fight them. One of the dangers is to take our eye off of what the emerging strength might be in right now, we are very focused on right wing extremism but that doesnt mean that will be the predominant threat forever. Deanna very interesting to think about that in terms of a trend. Has rand work with dod on combating extremism . Who within dod is leading the charge . Ryan thats a really good question and theres been a couple of reports on extremism in the active military. I will note that those reports at rand were funded internally. There were not commissioned by the dod. The dod initially took this very seriously. Lloyd austin initially set some policies and they had the, everyone took a day off and did a training on extremism. They implemented a new policy on warning people who were leaving the service that they might be at risk of recruitment. They put in charge a gentleman named bishop garrison who let a working group on this topic and issue recommendations. Just so happens that one of his recommendations that the committee issued has been adopted. Since then, the dod has largely backtracked on the extremism threats. It is partly because its receiving, extremism is inherently political act and because of that, there is challenges in addressing extremism and we saw this with countering islamic extremism 15 years ago when muslim communities were concerned they were being targeted and now conservative audiences feel they are being targeted by counter right wing extremism initiatives. Because of that, i think its become inherently political for the military to take a robust effort. That said, we still dont know to what extent the military needs to implement a lot of new policies to address this. Most of the terrorism acts that people with military backgrounds have been involved with were done by veterans. Veterans seem to be the greater risk and there are protective factors like chain of command, a unit, a social meal you that people are attached to. They are working hard and have social connections so there is protective factors and is more oversight for military personnel. But you dont have those for veterans which may make it a more challenging issue. Deanna ok, can you talk about the differences you saw in the Service Branch . We had a question related to that. What is driving the greater support for extremist highly ideologies and groups among the marine corps and to a lesser extent air force in many other branch differences . Todd right now, we have guesses. There are few studies of branches of service, culture that are very recent or empirical. Some of the thoughts weve gotten including from former marine corps veterans are that there is an e toast of every marine is emphasizing direct action also being the first in and being expeditionary. Those characteristics that we talked about in terms of predisposition to action, commitment to mission, those may be particularly difficult to come down from after leaving the military service. It could be that groups are able to capitalize on that and convert that will to action and that mindset to extremist causes. 0 that said, thats still a guess and we dont know that thats whats happening. Similarly, with the air force, there have been anecdotal reports of fundamentalist christian or tendencies in the air force but these are anecdotal one off reports. We dont know whether there is an overlap so qanon has kind of helped grow its the ranks of its believers by drawing on some judeochristian ideology. Its just a guess. Todd as much as it pains me to say it, we know qanon is relatively popular within the evangelical church. The rates are higher among evangelicals than non evangelicals. To the extent of the air force bringing in more evangelical personnel than they might be at risk for that. Deanna ok, does marital status or more broadly, other demographics like marital status have any potential effect on the potential extremism . Todd i dont have data on that in my head so im not certain. Ryan in our prior study, we saw there are a few cases of people getting converted by their spouse. There are many more cases of people getting pulled into extremism than establishing a healthy relationship, sometimes while they are in the Extremist Group and then getting pulled out because of commitment to their families. The greater stability and other kinds of things that romantic partnerships and family relationships can initiate. My guess is in terms of pathways out of extremism, there is a protective factor there. We dont know how that plays out differently among veterans versus the overall population. Deanna ok, i think i know the answer to this but will you be looking at past cases of veteran extremism like Timothy Mcveigh and Terry Nichols or the veterans who were Branch Davidian and then the militia moved in . Maybe its what insights these specific cases offer if any or are there plans to examine these situations . Todd i think we did a review of those cases really on. Todd ryan yeah, its a great question. I have not done a review of those questions but its a great idea. Other researchers, i know there have been other studies that do look at some of those. Those guys are almost surely at the start of data. There is like a quantitative picture of the risk of veterans. Im sure there is less understanding of the detailed radicalization trajectories they have. Im not familiar with and unsure studies have been done but if not, they should be done. Thats a great idea. Ryan ryan in terms of future direction and complementing that, more recent case studies as details emerge in Court Documents and other places would be an interesting way of looking at this. The thing that interviews or studies of extremist reformer extremist of us are a lot of details about the pathway so there is confirmation in studying just them. Thats why we turn to a survey population where we are not sampling extremism, we are sampling overall demographics. I hope we get better understandings in the future of cases that could have been or people who are maybe attracted to causes but were pulled away from them by other veterans or their social network. Thats the kind of knowledge we hope to develop more on this offramp and protective factors as well as the unfortunate cases that resulted in attacks or convictions through investigation and introduction of land attacks. Deanna what concerns have you seen as far as active duty sharing grievances with Extremist Groups in western or Eastern Europe with potentially posing a threat to u. S. National security . Maybe some of your work on russian disinformation might speak to this . Todd its a great question. I would urge the questioner to check out report by Heather Williams at rand. Its on racially motivated extremism. They focused work on europe. They do look at that issue. There are several concerns. One is just shared grievances and im sure they do but also whether or not there is collaboration or coordination or joint Fundraising Initiatives between them. I think those are really important questions to get asked. We know that the white supremacist or theremv movement in europe is relatively strong. It certainly affects some countries particularly like germany who has had some issues with extremism in their ranks but even the activeduty ranks and they sort of remove those folks from their services. Is an important question but i dont know the exact answer to what level that coordination is happening. Im sure the grievances are somewhat similar and we also see there is propaganda that can Cross National boundaries. A classic example is the attack of the Christs Church in new zealand where an attacker went into a mosque and murdered tens or hundreds or wounded hundreds of muslim parishioners. He livestreamed that attack and that livestream really galvanize the International White supremacist movement. Im sure those videos are Still Available for those who want to diligently look through them. It sort of like pornography for extremist ideals. Its not only radicalizing but even worse, its galvanizing and pushing people toward action. We certainly see that. Ryan yeah, we know that russian disinformation and propaganda targeting the u. S. And trying to support racial divisions so they will lend support to anything that is racially dividing in the u. S. We know they did that during covid. They also capitalize on white identity western supremacy or feelings of insecurity that the great replacement theory capitalizes on. They use a lot of these themes and we know there is some travel from White Supremacists to fight in the war, the russian war against ukraine. There are concerns with nazi sympathizers on both sides. We worry about training. I mentioned earlier about switching from right to left. There are individuals who join the war in syria on both sides who were extremists. That is a way of continuing the thrill of being involved in a cause but also getting real experience with smallgroup tactical movements and with explosives and weapons and just getting further traumatized and drawn into the violence. We also know that extra mist groups will try to get individuals involved because getting in facetoface combat helps drive home some of those emotional patterns that further devolve into extremism, that they are being attacked and there is an enemy and so forth. I think the transnational piece, we are concerned about how that piece reinforces or provides opportunities. Deanna for those of you in the webinar, the Heather Williams report is linked in the chat if you want to check that out. Have you looked in any potential connections between trauma and radicalization toward extremism . Todd no, not in a systematic way. A friend and colleague published something a number of years ago on that topic. I think we hypothesize that there is a connection there. But i dont have hard evidence to support that. Ryan we see it in the trajectories or narratives we have studied for her prior work on former extremists. There is a lot of mention more than statistically you would expect overall population to respond like that. Childhood trauma, sometimes trauma in the extremist organizations, like todd said, we dont know what the precise causal role is but it does seem like there is enough evidence to say that extreme groups are taking advantage of emotional and social vulnerabilities and they are transforming this to a kind of addiction to involvement in extremism as a temporary promotion emotional pass. We also have cases where there doesnt seem to be evidence of trauma we can tell in the radicalization trajectory. Its not like we see it in 100 of cases. Todd we did find like 2 3 of those participants, when they gave us their stories, indepth stories, we can identify often times a life altering event like some sort of major life event. Sometimes it was a trauma like attempted suicide or major let down that they would consider traumatic in a typical way but it could be a major let down or a loss of a job. It caused them to rethink their life. If you look at conversion, religious conversion often times, it follows these major life events something major happens in someones life and it causes them to rethink everything like what ive like what have i been doing with my life . At that moment, they are open to new ideas. We saw that in the previous study that one of the ideas was the sort of getting involved in neonazi organizations or the kkk or al qaeda. Whether thats trauma, i dont know but we did see that. It looks like they deleted a question earlier and it was about the risk of extremism from veterans from iraq and afghanistan. Its important question. Its one we are not able to answer. Our study cannot address whether a 40yearold veteran is more or less likely to become extremist or support extremist ideals than a 40yearold nonveteran. We dont have the sample size for that and the statistical controls require real study. We want to do that study but we have been able to do . We need to recruit veterans and nonveterans together to conduct representative studies and surveys. Its a key issue what role these folks have coming back from iraq and afghanistan with combat experience. Potential trauma and what role that might play. They could be at an increased risk and its an important question to answer but unfortunately our research could not answer that. Deanna is conducting a study like that feasible . Todd yeah, we just need to recruit a representative sample survey. And a representative sample of veterans and nonveterans and we need a large enough sample size or probably oversample certain demographics like those who might have come back from iraq and afghanistan and make those comparisons. You need to do both studies of the same time and record complexed statistical weighting. Thats what we need to do is we need to do both surveys the same time. Deanna sure. This next question has a little bit of an panicked joke with it. I worked on a project with the world bank on preventing deadly violence. These were only development interventions. What i remember most is the countries having success against privation is at the fabric of governance, public life and popular culture. The marginalization of violence was a continued society effort. Do you see any countries out there that more closely match the model for the u. S. . Todd its an interesting question. 10 years ago, when our primary concern was islamic extremism, i wouldve said the u. S. Was a good example. Compared to europe. Europe seem to have a much worse radicalization problem than the u. S. And partly it had to do a lot with the ability of the u. S. To take in immigrants and the diversity approach mindset. That made it more welcoming for muslims and limited the degree to which they radicalized. Europe, not as well. I dont know the answer for that on this sort of new variety of extremism we are dealing with. Ryan ive seen some kind of presentations on programs in germany that one was in germany that seems to have a better crosssection and integration, some of these preventative approaches. I think that the current level of Political Polarization especially in the u. S. Make it difficult but i cannot say i have a specific country in mind that would provide a model for the u. S. To copy. I would say we have a ton of work to do. We have massive countries geographically but a lot of work to understand where the generation of the threat is happening, especially because the terrorist threat is so distributed. The location of groups or headquarters or membership is no longer a good measure of anything. Its especially in under resourced locations, many of which happen to be remote in the u. S. Go undetected for quite a while. We just have anecdotal examples now we dont understand the spatial distribution and i think we have a long way to go for that for the preventative approach to be properly substantiated. Those issues can be challenging but we also have to be careful about pushing back against that because what weve seen online is that censorship sometimes it works, sometimes it creates more radicalization elsewhere. Deanna i think that kind of gives us a segue into what i think is the essence of the next west and which is how do you go about sharing Accurate Information about this important topic with government decisionmakers and the public and may be correcting misinformation on the perceptions that are out there about the veteran involvement in violent extremism . Is there a formula to that or is it about spreading the word is much as you can . Todd we do not make any kind of categorical assertions about the risk of veterans for extremism. This is a limited study that we assessed. There is a lot of other variables that go into potential radicalization. I want to avoid the notion that we have a categorical denial that veterans are problem or potentially problem. Its a positive study for veterans and there is more research that has to be done but we have been engaged with a lot in the Public Sector on this study, probably more than most. We have briefed staffs of congress and brief representatives from the white house and the nsc. This is probably our second or third webinar on this matter. We are getting the surround but what would you say, ryan . Ryan its a great question. Its hard to correct misinformation about who is responsible are at fault are at risk because there is so much polarization and fingerpointing in certain Public Discourse at the moment. There are people, including former extremist who are doing, challenging people who are pursuing others and trying to pursue prosecutions against those so they recruit veterans and others. That broader healing question of can we stop having these impressions about these overly simplistic ideas about who is at risk and was at fault. Thats a Civil Society question that i wish i knew the answer to. I think we are just hunting around in the dark for solutions. As well as trying to have civil conversations that are supported by data if there is data on an issue with ones friends and neighbors. Thats a great way to do it and then larger forums are a great way to do it. We still have a long way to go. Todd we need to do more research on this topic. Thank some have taken the report to suggest that we dont need more research and thats not true. We know Extremist Groups are trying hard to recruit veterans disproportionately. Caret doing that and how can we stop them . We know some veterans have joined in her in these movement so how do we deal radicalized them or disengage them from these movements . How can the Government Support them and how can we support veterans as they transition from active duty service where its a hyper social supporting environment where you work on your own and now you have to make do by yourself. Thats really important. As well as just understanding the radicalization process for veterans. Is that different from others . A lot of questions that have yet to be answered on this. Deanna absolutely and you both have lettuce elegantly into the final question. Its a simple one is there somewhere vibrant veterans can find out about these surveys and who conducting them . Todd for our studies, no. We work in a survey firm but there are survey firms you can go out to and sign up to be in their surveys. Some might be for veterans and some might not be. We work we do our work through nord so you can sign up with them and be part of their panel. Ryan thats the National Opinion and research center. Deanna great, i will encourage folks to do that if they are interested. That is all we have time for today. I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful questions and their attendance today and thanks to those who joined us via cspan. If you are in the webinar, we have a short question only poll that will pop up on your screen. Take a moment and give you give us your feedback and your quest and your answer wont be visible i encourage everyone was watching and listening today to stay connected with rand. You can go to rand. Org and sign up for our mailing list and they also have the link in the chat. You will receive our weekly newsletter and you will get invites to future events like this one. Thank you again for coming today we hope to see you again in the future. Todd thank you all. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2023] President Biden will mark the oneyear anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act with remarks in the white house at 2 30 p. M. Eastern. Tonight, david gergen, advisor to president nixon, ford, reagan and clinton talks about the state of the nation. Its hosted by jews united for democracy and justice, whats the conversation live at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Also and i are free mobile video app, cspan now or online at cspan. Org. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more including cox. This is extremely rare. But friends dont have to be. When you are connected, you are not alone. Cox supports cspan as a Public Service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. This week, cspan brings you campaign 2020 for coverage from the iowa state fair. Watch ffair side chats. Thursday night, the former South Carolina governor and the u. S. Ambassador to the u. S. Nikki haley and a friday night, Florida Governor ron desantis. Fair side chats with republican president ial candidates from the iowa state fair this week at 9 p. M. Eastern on cspan and online at cspan. Org. A healthy democracy doesnt just look like this, it looks like this where americans can see democracy at work and citizens are truly informed and the republic thrives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. From the Nations Capital to where you are, the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. And now afghanistans former ministers for Public Health and education discuss the taliban governance following the u. S. Withdrawal of troops two years ago. They focus in education, Public Health and the treatment of women and girls during this virtual conversation from the wilson center