We’ve seen this before. It may have revealed itself with a different end result than we’re used to, but the components are the same - aged 18-30, a young man mired in grievance, chronic self-loathing or shame - in this case, physical pain, an online trail of rants and writings, philosophical and personal queries converging on ethics, humanity, martyr or hero complex, binary me vs. them thinking, and eventual self-isolation.&nbsp;&nbsp;Now that details of the United Healthcare CEO assassin in Midtown Manhattan on December 5 have emerged after his recent arrest, an unnerving profile has begun to take shape. If we look beyond the wealthy family pedigree, elite education, and emerging career path, we see a young man who despite all the privilege and support of generational wealth and what is purported to be a loving friend and family structure, struggled with deep-seeded anger and a lack of purpose, eventually enabling grievance and extremist ideology to become his true north.&nbsp;&nbsp;We’ve seen this before. We saw it in the scores of young men globally who were recruited online to Syria to join ISIS, in the U.S. we’ve seen it in the perpetrators of dozens of mass and school shootings that have become one of America’s greatest shames, and now we see it in a young man who became a cause assassin.&nbsp;Little research and civil society support focuses on the psycho-social relationship these young men have with themselves and the society in which they exist. Most of the countering violent extremism (CVE) and counterterrorism (CT) policy emphasis in the U.S. is on tech policy and regulation, content takedown and moderation, intelligence and surveillance, and debate over gun control.The lack of understanding and civic policy emphasis on the mindset that drives these individuals continues to create a vacuum that perpetuates the inability to intervene and prevent. More emphasis needs to be given to understand the state of mind that brought them here and the motivations that are driven by seemingly negative circumstances beyond their control, personal insecurity, and or perceived injustice.&nbsp;&nbsp;This mindset - Identity Vulnerability - increases susceptibility to coercive messaging and can promote an extreme world view that enables them to be recruited, susceptible to mis/disinformation, and or otherwise exploited. These vulnerabilities cause someone to seek grievance validation, build (false) confidence or look for perceived solutions through a binary lens, and can enable recruitment to violence based groups or ideology. Identity Vulnerability can fuel someone down a path to radicalization, seeming to provide an individual who is looking for something to attach to - identity, community and purpose.&nbsp;&nbsp;Just as soft skills are the hardest to articulate, hire and train for in a workplace,&nbsp;intangible indicators of susceptibility to violence based ideology are the most difficult to detect, understand, and build social infrastructure around. More emphasis should be given to the following:&nbsp;<ul><li>Policy development of supportive mental health programs and research generally, but specifically for at-risk “groups”&nbsp;</li><li>Increased public awareness to signs of decline, identity vulnerability, and susceptibility&nbsp;</li><li>Continued funding, emphasis and support for strong moderation of user generated content online - social media, gaming technology, and also public forums like Reddit and Good Reads</li></ul>For students of these cases, each is nuanced and begs the questions - why? And how do we understand? Learn from? And prevent? The profile of a young man who seemingly had all the promise and purpose in the world, but clearly suffered and was vulnerable, is perhaps the most difficult to learn from. Just as Marketers know that prospective consumers are complex, non-monolithic audience groups with competing priorities and motivations, these cases where two profiles exist at once should be considered through the lens of audience analysis to really unpack nuance and contradictory behavioral indicators.&nbsp;

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Christy Grace Provines

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We’ve Seen This - Identity Vulnerability - Before

In 2017, I had the honor of participating in a peace and security delegation on behalf of Columbia University | SIPA and spent nearly three weeks in <a href="/search?search=%23Israel" type="hashtag" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Israel</a> and <a href="/search?search=%23palestine" type="hashtag" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#palestine</a>. There were so many unforgettable moments that changed my outlook forever. I'm reminded of a particular morning in the <a href="/search?search=%23golanheights" type="hashtag" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#golanheights</a> when we explored an abandoned <a href="/search?search=%23russian" type="hashtag" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#russian</a> military base and sat with a leader of the Mossad in the demilitarized zone on the border of <a href="/search?search=%23syria" type="hashtag" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#syria</a>. We saw bombs exploding over Syria from where we sat on a pile of rocks with the mountains in the background. These photos are from that talk on the <a href="/search?search=%23geopolitics" type="hashtag" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#geopolitics</a> of the region.
Today, on a historic day that marks the end of a long and brutal (13 years) war for Syria and the liberation of Syria from an oppressive regime - I am reminded of the beauty of this region and its people. I am reminded of the fragile balance of power that exists there on every border and the uncertainty that lies ahead as they chart their way forward.

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