Trump’s visit to Britain comes amid rising lone-wolf violence and fragile US–UK ties

Prominent US political figures , including the President himself have raised awareness about the issues of  crime that plagues Europe. This includes predatory attacks on women and knife based violence.

However the threats that the police and the security services of both nations have had to prevent during the Presidential visit represents a far more complex risk landscape.

Firstly, there is a new type of threat actor- as demonstrated by the attempted assassination of President Trump, in July 2024.

Then, there was the recent horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, which will invariably has caused security levels to rise to new heights.

As we have seen in these incidents and others, such as the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, those ready to unleash cold blooded murder, for political or other motivations, are individuals who don’t stand out in the way many terror suspects might. They are not obvious members of hostile groups, travelling to far away training camps or drawing attention with overt red flag social media activity.

They are somewhat educated, appear unassuming and have access to all manner of training through the web and other sources.

Whether inspired by warped ideology, narcissistic desires for fame or infamy they are committed to gaining tactical capabilities and are fully prepared to go through with these acts of violence.

From close range or from a distance they kill with no sense of remorse about the suffering they will cause to the victim and their loved ones, with sociopathic disposition.

Security services also have to adapt to mobile and organised crowd based disorder where there is always likely to be individuals who attempt to breach fences and escalate from protestor to unhinged, rioting aggressor.

Then, there are those groups who will look to disrupt and cause turmoil inspired by more subversive agendas.

Finally, with global volatility at new levels, there is still the potential for more organised, systematic threats to emerge from hostile nations with distinct anti Western feelings.

Having had previous professional interactions with US Secret Service, it’s clear that  the organisations which has gone through a recalibration process post July 2024, will deploy multiple levels of advanced deployment teams whilst also coordinating with other government agencies and host nation law enforcement.

Security will always be an evolving mechanism one that needs to use increasingly more sophisticated predictive, over the horizon assessments, old school on the ground human intelligence, and a long reaching cyber blanket that has to contend with a younger more tech savvy type of criminal.

The shield is being stretched but remains firmly in place...

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Aran Dharmeratnam is a private security consultant and a specialist in self-protection training. He also works with security companies involved in risk intelligence.

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