One of the things that's always bothered me about the 'lone wolf' moniker, used to describe violent extremists seemingly acting on their own initiative, is the simple fact that they’re usually not alone.  Although there may be little or no material support from an active network of co-conspirators, 'lone wolf' Islamists act precisely because they are not, in their own minds, isolated at all: they have the love of Allah, solidarity with the ummah, and the ideological and psychological support of online and other communities, who may or may not be aware of their intentions.

For me, the term retains associations with Freud's Wolf Man, of whom Lacan wrote, his "fascinated gaze is the subject himself", and Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, in which Harry Haller attempts to achieve transcendence of his paradoxical nature through the murder of the bourgeois Hermine. Haller's sociopathy may well be apparent in the psychology of some terrorists, and the narcissism of many terrorists and insurgents has long been evident. Think of Andreas Baader and tell me that guy didn't 'fancy himself', in modern parlance.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I’m aware the use of 'lone wolf' to describe Islamist terrorists is a Western characteristic, and it speaks more to our north European cultural heritage than it does to its analytical utility in trying to understand the phenomenon. In fact, it may be a classic example of framing, or at least projection, and reveals more of our cultural anxieties than it does of the organisation or psychology of those who would attack 'us'. In that sense, it may hinder the West's abilities to counteract those individuals rather than help it.

Last October, Raff Pantucci suggested that lone wolves might run in a 'pack', which he quickly equated with a 'cell', a transference of terms quite compatible with theories of 'leaderless resistance' originating in earlier white supremacist movements. I don't know if Raff meant thereby to neutralise the lupine metaphor but I think he did it quite successfully anyway. Lone wolves are, in this context, potential or actual terrorists, and the collective noun is a 'cell', as per decades of insurgent and terrorist theory (i.e. it didn't start with Marc Sageman's 'leaderless jihad').  

In a new article for Foreign Policy, essentially a review of jihadi online punditry, Jarret Brachman writes of Al Qaeda's Armies of One. Jarret argues that web jihadists are now 'joining the physical fight', and that,

countries across the world―and particularly the United States―should brace themselves for an exodus from the Web forums and onto the battlefield by self-styled al Qaeda armies of one.

'Armies' can belong to larger military units like battle groups, military alliances and international coalitions, and the phrase taps into the belligerent rhetoric of jihad quite succinctly, as well as noting the importance of self-image. Again, I don't know if Jarret is intentionally abandoning the 'lone wolf' tag, but it does not appear once in his piece. The point here is that discussions of 'online radicalisation' usually include this phrase to somehow both describe and explain those who become radicalised via internet activity, and go on to perform acts of violence we normatively recognise as terrorism.

'Lone wolf' is applied to almost anyone outside of a traditional command structure, regardless not only of ideology, but whether they actually communicate with others of similar mindset. The original 'lone wolves' of the far right were defined by their lack of contact with their ideological brethren. The current crop of Islamists is defined precisely by mutual contact and the sense of shared identity, another reason why the term doesn't sit well with me. A terrorist acting alone is rare enough, one truly thinking alone even more so.

What should they be called, then? I’m not sure, and my thoughts can be rubbished at many levels. I don’t think Jarret means for 'an army of one' to be a unit of analysis, for example, and we would perhaps do best just to call these guys terrorists or extremists, or something that is generally understood across the security spectrum as a measure of tactics and intent. That doesn't help us discover or define their specific modus operandi but neither particularly does 'lone wolf', as this can mask the connections that actually exist between superficially autonomous individuals and the movements of which they are a part, formally or otherwise. The Unabomber was a genuine lone wolf, so perhaps Abdulhakim Muhammad and many others; the likes of Hasan Nidal are not. Just because the ties are virtual does not mean they act in isolation, and we should understand what lies behind the term before we sprinkle our discourse with it. Otherwise it means very little indeed.