Iraqi youths ride bicycles next to a burning oil well in Qayara, about 31 miles (50 km) south of Mosul, Iraq, October 23, 2016.

Iraqi youths ride bicycles next to a burning oil well in Qayara, about 31 miles (50 km) south of Mosul, Iraq, October 23, 2016. Marko Drobnjakovic/AP

The Pentagon’s Next Terrorism Threat (and Solution): Kids

As ISIS-type extremism spreads, counterterrorism commanders are right to be concerned with the youth population bulge. Here’s how to turn a threat into a resource.

As the war on ISIS wanes in the Middle East, military commanders seeking to prevent the spread of violent extremism face a potential threat they can’t fight or kill away: the youth population boom. 

They also have a powerful weapon in the fight against extremism: once again, youth. 

As national security experts are consumed by immediate threats like the ISIS war and North Korea, we risk missing one of the biggest strategic disruptions the United States and its allies have faced in decades: More people between the ages of 15 and 24 live in the world today than ever before in human history, and that age cohort is likely to grow steadily for the next generation or more.  

These young people are concentrated in the world’s most volatile and conflict-prone regions, which are also among the most fertile recruiting grounds for transnational terrorist groups. How these young people transition into adulthood could transform not only their own societies but also the global security landscape, for good or for ill. The question is whether we will try to influence the outcome and seize the opportunity to transcend costly whack-a-mole approaches to fighting terrorism and instability, or sit back, wait and see.

For most countries, youth booms present a welcome but all-too-rare opportunity. If governments can harness their potential, large populations of young people offer a demographic dividend of creative energy, productivity, and economic prosperity. They offer a once-in-a-generation chance for large-scale, positive change.

But for too many developing countries, the youth boom represents an overwhelming and seemingly insoluble problem. It drives dangerously high youth unemployment, stresses overstretched or insufficient public services, feeds global migration and social instability, and boosts the ranks of violent extremists.

Unemployment for 15 to 24 year olds around the world swelled to just above 13 percent in 2016, or 71 million people, nearly its historic peak.

To us here in the U.S., these problems may seem distant and unimportant against the backdrop of more urgent threats. But to head off a much more severe potential challenge before it consumes lives and undermines prosperity, neither the United States nor our allies in Europe, the Arab world, or elsewhere, can afford to ignore this demographic youth wave.

Surging youth populations are especially apparent in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and in parts of the Middle East and North Africa. In Egypt, for example, more than half the labor force is younger than age 30. An equal proportion of the 167 million inhabitants of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, are between the ages of 15 and 34. In countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, Chad, East Timor, Niger, Somalia, and Uganda, more than two-thirds of the population is under the age of 25. In Mali, more than half of the population is under the age of 18.

Countries like these lack capacity to educate, employ, and provide sufficient human services to rapidly growing youth populations. The National Intelligence Council noted earlier this year in its quadrennial “Global Trends” report that “youthful states” tend to be “ill-equipped to meet the demands of sustained high fertility, rapid urban growth… and an underemployed young-adult population, potentially contributing to instability.”

The problem is acutely obvious when it comes to youth unemployment. The International Labor Organization, or ILO, estimated in a 2016 report that, after years of slow improvement, unemployment for 15 to 24 year olds around the world swelled to just above 13 percent in 2016, or 71 million people, nearly its historic peak. Not coincidentally, a large proportion of these unemployed young people live in lower-income, developing countries facing youth booms.

Without work now or good future prospects, these young people resort to migration within and beyond country borders, sometimes stirring social unrest and straining host governments’ ability to accommodate their basic needs. For a small minority of these young people, their mounting frustration risks sending them into the willing arms of extremist groups, either in their communities or on-line.

U.S. military leaders have long recognized the impact of the youth boom global security. And to their credit, they have been among the most articulate voices warning against relying disproportionately on military solutions to combat extremism.

Violence makes people poor, but poverty doesn’t appear to make them violent.
Mercy Corp 2015 report, "Youth & Consequences: Unemployment, Injustice and Violence"

Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of U.S. Africa Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March that new recruits enlist with terror groups not for ideological reasons but because they sorely need jobs. Far too many will do almost anything to survive.

“We could knock off all of ISIL and Boko Haram this afternoon; but by the end week, so to speak, those ranks would be filled,” he said.

Last month at the Pentagon, Sgt. Maj. Anthony A. Spadaro, the senior enlisted leader for U.S. Pacific Command, said his top concern about ISIS spreading was “primarily the youth bulge in Africa.”

AFRICOM’s own senior enlisted leader, Chief Master Sgt. Ramón Colon-Lopez, said, “If you look at Africa right now, there's 1.2 billion people there. By 2050, it's estimated that it's going to double to 2.4 [billion], and what happens when you have 600 million youth right now without any opportunities for education or jobs?” Colon-Lopez indicated he expected those youth will migrate somewhere else or potentially join terrorist organizations. “We just don't know what's going to happen. So from a national security perspective, I think it's imperative that we stare at the African problem, because it can potentially be hot bed for terrorists in the future, and that is just on — based on facts and data.”

So how should countries like the United States respond? How can we seize the opportunity to influence tectonic social shifts that will impact global peace and prosperity for decades?

The biggest driver toward violence is injustice and marginalization many young people feel when they witness corruption.

Developing countries need help meeting the basic needs of their growing youth populations, which are insufficiently prepared for the 21st century economy. In many countries, that means providing schooling for the large numbers of children who are not even attending primary through secondary school (more than 264 million children worldwide as of 2015) or not completing those basic studies.

Solving that complex challenge also includes preparing enough skilled teachers to help their students learn. That’s the aim of an IREX program called Teaching Excellence and Achievement, which brings secondary school teachers from developing countries to the U.S. to learn about new teaching methodologies that de-emphasize rote learning — or memorization through repetition — and develop more of the critical thinking, teamwork, and “soft” skills demanded by modern economies.

Developing countries also need help aligning educational institutions with the labor market, as IREX has done in Iraq and Morocco. And young people need help growing and expanding enterprises to help them become engines of employment — instead of expanding the ranks of job-seekers. 

But a job may not be enough, according to a 2015 report by Mercy Corps based on its work with Afghan, Somali, and Colombian youth, who have been historically vulnerable to recruitment into extremism movements. In Somalia, researchers found “no relationship between job status and support for — or willingness to participate in — political violence.” In Afghanistan, they learned that increases in employment and income did not significantly diminish youth support for armed opposition groups. “Violence,” the report notes, “makes people poor, but poverty doesn’t appear to make them violent.”

The biggest driver toward violence is injustice and marginalization many young people feel when they witness corruption, preferential treatment for elites, and distant, seemingly ineffective government.

A UN Development Programme study published this year also found that those who joined violent extremist groups were most likely to share a deep distrust of government. To youth, many government leaders appear to look only after the interests of a few. Moreover, the UNDP said among youths surveyed “a striking 71 percent pointed to government action’, including ‘killing of a family member or friend’ or ‘arrest of a family member or friend’, as the incident that prompted them to join.” How their own government security forces treated them, “is revealed as a prominent accelerator of recruitment, rather than the reverse.”

It’s different in Tunisia, where the government, with support from the U.S.-based International Republican Institute, engage youth in building a more responsive and participatory democracy. If such efforts reached a broader cross-section of Tunisia’s young people, would Tunisia remain a top exporter of fighters to ISIS?

Yet another Mercy Corps report found that in Somalia a combination of secondary education and civic engagement reduced the likelihood of youth participating in (by 13 percent) and supporting (by 20 percent) political violence.

The point is this:  traditional tools of human development – education, job training and other supportive services – remain essential to giving young people opportunities and the tools to avoid involvement in violent extremism. But they’re not enough. Such intervention must be accompanied by opportunities for them to engage productively in their communities and, ideally, contribute to ensuring just and reliable governance. As for the many youth-led movements that already exist to counter violence and create positive change, many would benefit from support to help them further scale up their impact.

That means the U.S. should help our developing country partners overcome corruption and fragility, strengthen democratic institutions, and limit harsh military and police enforcement approaches to countering extremism.

It also means that the U.S. and its allies should rethink its own overreliance on military responses to extremism. As a recent Bipartisan Policy Center report marking the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks stresses, in spite of prodigious U.S. effort and expense on intelligence, law enforcement, and military actions against terrorist group and leadership, “it is impossible to conclude that the enemy has been defeated. Rather, the threat of terrorism has metastasized.”

It’s a cycle that seems as unstoppable as the growing ranks of marching brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. To end it, we need to follow a different path. That begins with understanding the immense impact of the youth boom and finding ways to tap its potential and promise.

NEXT STORY: Improving on the Iran Deal

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.