I had the privilege of participating in the White House summit. Even though it got a lot of bad press afterwards, I think it was a very worthwhile initiative, because it highlighted the importance of prevention.
It is very important to engage in counterterrorism, but counterterrorism in many ways is firefighting. It is to deal with urgent cases, people who are on the verge of carrying out terrorist attacks. If we want to be successful in the long term, we have to complement the counterterrorism by prevention efforts.
I think it is very good that the Obama administration in the U.S. has put a lot of emphasis on prevention, which is what it calls countering violent extremism. Whenever you hear that acronym, CVE, countering violent extremism, what they really mean is prevention.
In 2011 the U.S. government constructed a strategy to empower local actors to engage in countering violent extremism. These activities are not about empowering the intelligence services. I think it was very important for U.S. lawmakers and for U.S. decision-makers not to what they call securitize relationships with Muslim communities, so they put a lot of emphasis on empowering communities to do their own work and to avoid the trap of using these initiatives in order to gain intelligence. That has not always been successful, but that was the intention by the U.S. government.
I personally believe that it was an honest intention, even though I admit that since 2011, despite all the best intentions, not that much has happened in the U.S. If you look at the U.S., there is not a lot of activity.