Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is an American anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist and the founder and former president of the Center for Security Policy (CSP). In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked for the federal government in multiple posts, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy from 1983 to 1987, and seven months as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during the Reagan administration. He then founded the CSP in 1988, serving as its president until 2023, thereafter as executive chairman.
Gaffney speaking at CPAC in 2018
Counter-jihad, also known as the counter-jihad movement, is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and so on linked by beliefs that view Islam not as a religion but as an ideology that constitutes an existential threat to Western civilization. Consequently, counter-jihadists consider all Muslims as a potential threat, especially when they are already living within Western boundaries. Western Muslims accordingly are portrayed as a "fifth column", collectively seeking to destabilize Western nations' identity and values for the benefit of an international Islamic movement intent on the establishment of a caliphate in Western countries. The counter-jihad movement has been variously described as anti-Islamic, Islamophobic, inciting hatred against Muslims, and far-right. Influential figures in the movement include the bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in the US, and Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson in Europe.
Robert Spencer, author and editor of the central counter-jihad blog Jihad Watch
Pamela Geller, a central figure of the movement in the US
Geert Wilders, a key figure for the movement in Europe
English Defence League rally in Newcastle, UK, 2010