War on terror

The Pentagon is Developing A New Suite of Tools to Fight the Lone Wolf Problem


DARPA posted the program description this week, several days after Michael Lumpkin, director of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, or GEC, revealed the program in an interview with Defense One.

“Many tools are available today to reveal whether rockets and bombs hit their targets or otherwise achieved their tactical goals. But no such tools are available to rigorously assess the effects of the volleys of information that are traded through social media and other communications channels,” reads the description.

Related: Why Lone Wolf Attacks Are So Hard To Predict

The new program seeks to develop “automated digital tools that can help operational partners better understand how information is being used by adversaries and to quantitatively predict and assess—in real time and at scale—the effects of those campaigns and of countermeasures.”