(TLP:CLEAR) U.S. Government Releases 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy

Summary: Earlier this month the U.S. government published its new 2026 Counterterrorism (CT) Strategy. The strategy’s primary objective focuses on framing the U.S. government’s CT operations to protect Americans from terrorist threats while disrupting and diminishing the support these groups receive from hostile state actors.

Analyst Note: Among other priorities, the strategy highlights narco-terrorists, transnational gangs, Islamist terrorists, and anarchist violent extremists as major terrorist threats. The strategy asserts that these non-state actors often receive secret support from adversarial governments wishing to undermine the U.S.  Accordingly, the new CT strategy centers on countering threats to the homeland and in the Western hemisphere. In addition, the CT strategy highlights the risk of terrorist groups employing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), especially the use of nuclear or radiological devices.

The CT strategy is also focused on the targeting and destruction of the most lethal Islamist terrorist groups, including al Qa’ida, and its subgroup al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, and the Islamic State, and its subgroup Islamic State-Khorasan. The recent Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)-designation of several Muslim Brotherhood groups allows the U.S. CT effort to maintain pressure on the global jihadi movement and prevent the organization from recruiting and funding terrorism. In short, the document asserts that the CT mission of the U.S. Government is to identify those groups that have the intent and capability to plot attacks against Americans and then neutralize them.

The CT strategy has been criticized by multiple CT analysts for not encompassing the full terrorist threat landscape, such as its failure to address racially motivated violent extremism. To read the critiques of the strategy, please see the articles in the additional reading section below.

Relatedly, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service recently published its “2025 Public Report,” which highlights various threats Canada faced in 2025, including terrorism. The report notably describes the continuing threat from militant accelerationism and ideologically motivated violence. Indeed, the attackers’ manifesto from the shooting this week at a mosque in San Diego shows that the shooters subscribed to the goals associated with militant accelerationism, including conducting violence to instigate a societal collapse.

Original Sources:

• https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf
• https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corporate/publications/csis-public-report-2025.html

Additional Reading:

• PERSPECTIVE: Selective Threats: A Counterterrorism Strategy Built on Politics
• A Counterterrorism Strategy Disconnected from the Terrorist Landscape
• What Makes Trump’s New Counterterrorism Strategy So Alarming

Related WaterISAC PIRs: 2