Building the capacity of Afghan special operations forces (SOF) is a key goal of the United States and its coalition partners. This report summarizes key partnering practices and presents findings from SOF partnership case studies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Colombia. The goal is to identify best practices to benefit the development of Afghan SOF, as well as for special operations partnerships beyond Afghanistan.

The authors reviewed literature on White identity terrorism and racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE) and analyzed social media data from six platforms that host extremist content. They developed a network map that evaluates REMVE network construction, connectivity, geographic location, and proclivity to violence and found that users in the United States are overwhelmingly responsible for REMVE discourse online.

Russia employs a sophisticated social media campaign against former Soviet states that includes news tweets, nonattributed comments on web pages, troll and bot social media accounts, and fake hashtag and Twitter campaigns. Nowhere is this threat more tangible than in Ukraine. Researchers analyzed social media data and conducted interviews with regional and security experts to understand the critical ingredients to countering this campaign.