Marine Corps Extremist, Gang Activity Must Be Immediately Reported Up the Chain, Service Says

The Marine Corps is streamlining how its commands report protests, extremism and gang activity among Marines, according to an administrative message released late last month, issues that each of the military services have long struggled with.

Marine commands must verbally report instances of alleged extremist or gang activity directly to the Marine Corps headquarters' operation center within 30 minutes of being informed of the incident, the new message said. That initial notification is then followed by a more detailed report in the following day or days, depending on the rank of the alleged offender.

The message intends to improve reporting requirements and address instances of the prohibited activities among Marines, the service confirmed to Military.com on Thursday. It was spurred by 2021 legislation that tasked the Pentagon with addressing "act[s] or threat[s] of violence" with ideological aims.

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The updated policy places responsibility in the hands of commanders to report extremist or gang activity, but is also overseen by other entities such as legal authorities and investigative services. The guidance aims to bring reports of potentially violent activity to the highest levels of Marine Corps command by giving commanders a direct line to the service's headquarters.

"When you put reporting requirements on paper for those in positions of authority -- whether it's a company or battery commander, or battalion or regimental commander in the Marine Corps sense -- then it adds a layer of legitimacy to the message," Luke Baumgartner, a former Army officer and current research fellow with George Washington University's Program on Extremism, told Military.com in an interview Tuesday.

"I think it's a much-needed step in the right direction, and it's something that I hope that the other branches will emulate, if they haven't already," he added.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the military was concerned with criminal gangs such as MS-13 infiltrating the services. Affiliation rates among service members were estimated to be at around 1% to 2%, 50 to 100 times that of the average American population, the FBI warned at the time, according to a report by Stars and Stripes, a military newspaper.

But according to Military.com reporting, that concern has shifted to anti-government or white supremacist groups that seek to recruit service members and veterans.

Nearly a month after protesters -- a notable fraction of whom were veterans, active-duty service members or National Guardsmen -- stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered a forcewide stand-down to tackle violent extremism.

Those efforts proved to be inadequate at addressing the small but potentially dangerous extremist presence within the military, experts and previous Military.com reporting revealed. Military.com found that troops and veterans are not more or less likely to join extremist organizations than the rest of the population but are often targeted by groups looking to tap their social status and training.

For the stand-down, Baumgartner said that service members were "woefully unprepared" -- with little background information provided by the services -- to discuss the complex problem meaningfully.

And instances of extremist activity persisted.

In 2022, an active-duty Marine firebombed a Planned Parenthood facility in California in what authorities called an act of domestic terrorism. Last month, a soldier stationed at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, was indicted and kicked out of the Army for his ties to a white nationalist group and weapons charges.

A Rand Corp. study published last spring reported that, while the veteran community did not have higher rates of support for extremism than the general public, the "survey found that veterans of the Marine Corps expressed the highest support for extremist groups and beliefs among the different branches of [the] military."

"The DoD has had policies that prohibited political activity that active-duty service members are not allowed to engage in," Baumgartner said. "But there's never really been a formalized way of restricting that to extremist activity and, since that's the crux of the issue here, I think they've gone too long at least without a formalized reporting system that has checks and balances that hold leaders and the junior personnel accountable."

Furthermore, he said that some extremist groups, such as the white supremacist Rise Above Movement, or RAM, have ties outside of the U.S.

"If those are the types of organizations that are going to be actively recruiting service members, whether active or some sort of reserve component, and there happens to be a foreign contact with that, that should be a red flag right there," Baumgartner said, adding that those ties would jeopardize security clearances.

According to Baumgartner, instances of extremism are likely underreported publicly. Last year, American Oversight sued the military in order to obtain records on white supremacist activity in the services, for example.

But the Marine Corps reporting requirement may bring more light to the issue. The new guideline includes not only informing legal authorities, security clearance officers and law enforcement, but also the Marine Corps Operations Center, or MCOC. Those reports are then collected for watchdog entities within the military.

"The MCOC will track and route reports of protest, extremist and criminal gang activities through Judge Advocate Division (JAD)," the Marine Corps told Military.com last week. "JAD will then consolidate the reports and forward [them] to the Inspector General of the Marine Corps, who will submit the final report to DoD inspector general."

After the initial verbal report, commanders must relay allegations of extremist or gang activity among senior leaders -- defined as "any active-duty, retired or reserve military officer in grades O-7 and above," as well as senior service civilians, according to the Marine Corps -- within one working day. Commanders must report other ranks within three working days.

Baumgartner said that he is hopeful the increased oversight will provide more meaningful visibility on instances of extremism and gang activity, but only if "the services are going to be transparent about it," he added.

"These people are going to end up being held accountable to their superiors and their respective service," he said. "But they're also being held accountable to the American people, since they're entrusted with safeguarding the nation's secrets, they're trusted with leading men and women into combat, and they're entrusted with keeping this 'peacetime' military prepared at the highest state of readiness that they can muster."

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