DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COUNTER-TERRORISM AND COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM

The differentiation between these two concepts is a complex task and far from a unanimously accepted solution. Both terms are often used in different ways and sometimes mixed, or referred to both at the same time without making a real distinction between them. Not for nothing do some government agencies (such as the US State Department's Bureau of Counter Terrorism and Counter Violent Extremism, or Europol itself) view them jointly as two closely linked elements of the same problem. This means that sometimes the same units can be used and the same resources can be drawn upon for research and implementation. 

Firstly, it seems that the term counter-terrorism (hereinafter "CT") does not require much definition. In this case, it is mostly defined as the set of repressive actions undertaken by states in response to the threat of terrorism (the definition of which, however, varies depending on the territories), including in particular the investigation and pursuit of terrorist attacks or actions. As time has gone by, the repression of terrorism has progressively broadened its spectrum of measures, combating it in its other manifestations (financing, proselytism, recruitment, etc.). 

Furthermore, countering violent extremism ("CVE") has emerged as a consequence of the failure of the strategy of combating terrorism based exclusively on the repression of terrorist groups -the so-called "war on terror"-. Thus, while the objective of the CT could be identified as the elimination of terrorist groups, the CVE would seek to prevent new individuals from adopting extremism and joining the ranks of such organisations or becoming individual terrorists, or those who have already been radicalised to cease from being so. Indeed, the CVE has emerged as one of the main pillars of the fight against terrorism in recent years, as understood by the United Nations (UN Global CT Strategy) and the European Union (EU CT Strategy). 

Although they originate from and are fundamental to each other, the two phenomena have different logics and elements that differentiate them: 

• Different actors involved: while CT can be reduced almost exclusively to law enforcement units of intelligence, investigation and criminal repression, since they seek the arrest of members of terrorist organisations and their cooperating elements, CVE integrates into its actions both law-enforcement (especially local police) and non-police stakeholders, including NGOs, religious communities, social services, public bodies, psychologists, educators, disseminators, and even social and communication media and social networks). In this sense, for example, in the Netherlands they use what they call 'key figures', i.e. citizens who are respected in their communities, who are able to detect the initial signs of radicalization and to correct or redirect those symptoms because of the trust they create among their neighbours or, if necessary, turn to the authorities to take other types of action. 

• Different aims: while CT aims at the repression of terrorists as individuals who have already assumed terrorist action, CVE directs its action primarily towards those elements that are susceptible to or in the process of radicalisation or de-radicalisation, as well as their closest relatives and social environment. 

• Different actions: Once again, CT actions are eminently repressive, aimed at preventing, investigating and punishing terrorist acts through the prosecution, where appropriate, of their actors. In contrast, CVE eminently seeks the deactivation and reprogramming, both preventive and reinsertive/rehabilitative, of those who are in the process of radicalising or abandoning a terrorist organisation. It is essentially based on counter-narrative work, with a view to providing subjects with an alternative to the story offered by the terrorist organisation (often based on the grievances caused to the group in question). At the same time, it has to be complemented with other measures such as psycho-social support programs, labour insertion/reinsertion, etc. In fact, it has been pointed out that for CVE to be truly effective, its actions must be clearly and distinctly separated from CT actions, in order to avoid the suspicions and reticence of the subjects to whom it is addressed and not to feed the story of stigmatization on which the terrorist organizations are grounded.

It is precisely this latter catalogue of eminently ideological and counter-narrative actions that currently generates certain criticism against CVE. It has been pointed out that CVE policies can be misguided if they are based strictly on a logic of reprogramming the extremist individuals. In other words, these programs are often accused of simply seeking to moderate discourses, converting or making subjects susceptible to radicalisation more in line with the standard of Western citizens, as it is believed that this would make the commission of terrorist acts more unlikely. However, some sources believe that this would be a mistake, not only because it has been shown that a person can follow a Western lifestyle and yet assume violent extremism, but also because it assumes the immediate link between ideological extremism and violence, when such a link need not be automatic. Therefore, the difficulty for states when establishing this type of policy will be to focus their measures on preventing precisely this leap from ideological extremism -on the one hand- to extremist violence -on the other- as an essential preliminary step to committing terrorist acts.