Foundation for Defense of Democracies

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies launched the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization (CSTR) in 2010. Director Daveed Gartenstein-Ross spearheaded CSTR with the objective of focusing on terrorism research through the lens of the radicalization process.

Writing

CSTR is known for its innovative and comprehensive research, and for the written products that it produces as an outgrowth of its research. Since its inception, CSTR has completed one major writing project, and a large number of shorter projects. Gartenstein-Ross and FDD President Clifford D. May served as co-editors of The Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater: Militant Islam, Security and Stability (FDD Press, 2010). The book -- which features contributions from such top-flight scholars as C. Christine Fair, Vanda Felbab-Brown, Shuja Nawaz, and Joshua T. White – serves as a helpful guide for the public’s understanding and awareness of what is at stake in the Afghanistan war, and ways that the United States can move forward. The Center's shorter writings have been accepted for publication in leading print and online outlets, including Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Reader’s Digest, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Review of Faith and International Affairs, and The Journal of International Security Affairs, among others.

Training

CSTR has delivered vital training to a variety of agencies responsible for safeguarding America's security -- including federal, state, and local law enforcement, and the U.S. military -- and has received awards testifying to the high quality of these presentations. Its training projects have included.

CSTR is working on a long-term digitization project of producing training materials about terrorism. Doing so will help this important material to reach new audiences, and will keep CSTR's material on the cutting edge of current educational techniques. Gartenstein-Ross is a regular instructor in the military’s Leader Development and Education for Sustained Peace (LDESP) courses, for which he has received a LDESP Support Excellence Award.

Gartenstein-Ross has served as a Subject Matter Expert for the Department of State's Office of Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) in years past, designing and delivering training on its behalf. The ATA used his expertise on a new module outlining new and emerging threats, as well as evolving terrorist strategies and tactics trends in terrorism. The module will be used in all of its international curricula. Gartenstein-Ross has served as a trainer for a "mirror image" pre-deployment course for an Oregon National Guard unit that was bound for Afghanistan. Mirror image training is designed to get inside an adversary's head, to understand the adversary's thinking and perceptions. In this case, the training simulated a jihadi training camp in Afghanistan; Gartenstein-Ross led training on the subjects of Radical Islam and Jihadi Media Operations.

Gartenstein-Ross led training for the Anti-Money Laundering Association, which educates compliance officers at financial institutions about money laundering and terrorism to enable them to better stanch the flow of funds to terrorist group. Gartenstein-Ross's presentation contextualized current anti-money laundering efforts by describing the links between terrorist financing, money laundering, and the broader global fight against terrorism.

His full biography is here.