Former Pentagon official and Heritage Foundation foreign policy expert Steven Bucci joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss global security challenges facing the West — from renewed Islamist terror plots to the persistent failures of Western sanctions against Russia and the growing instability in Latin America.
Bucci, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel and former Assistant Secretary of Defense, said recent arrests in Detroit and Paris tied to ISIS-inspired plots highlight a familiar pattern. “Every time there’s a flare-up in the radical world — whether after 9/11, during ISIS’s rise, or now amid the Gaza conflict — you see supporting actions from extremists across the globe,” he explained. Bucci warned that many Western nations continue to underestimate the scale of the problem, treating terrorism purely as a policing issue while avoiding uncomfortable truths about radical networks that thrive within poorly integrated immigrant communities.
He argued that while most Muslims are law-abiding, a significant number of extremists “hide among those who are not integrated into their respective societies,” creating an environment where others “look the other way” instead of alerting authorities. “When people in the West wave it off as just a few one-offs, they’re wrong,” Bucci said. “We need to take these threats seriously, invest in intelligence, and be prepared to act — because ignoring them only lets them grow.”
Turning to Eastern Europe, Bucci assessed the effectiveness of Western sanctions against Russia. With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announcing a 20th round of sanctions, Bucci expressed skepticism about their real impact. “Sanctions hurt ordinary Russians before they hurt Putin,” he said. “Autocratic leaders don’t care how many citizens or soldiers suffer. You can squeeze the economy, but Putin doesn’t feel it the way the people do.”
Bucci described sanctions as a slow and imperfect tool — effective only with consistency and enforcement. “They sound tough, but they’re often porous,” he said. “When European nations continue buying Russian energy, it undermines the entire effort. Sanctions make leaders feel good politically, but they rarely change behavior quickly.”
Proft and Bucci also discussed developments in Latin America, including recent rhetoric from Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro. Bucci dismissed Petro’s saber-rattling as bluster, saying Colombia poses no military threat to the United States but acknowledged the ideological danger of the region’s growing Marxist bloc. “They can’t reach us militarily, but they can destabilize their own neighborhoods and strengthen anti-American regimes,” Bucci said. He added that the U.S. must reassert influence in the Western Hemisphere — not through confrontation, but through strategic partnerships and quiet deterrence. “We need to remind them that if they play those games, we can play too,” he said. “The Trump administration’s approach to reinforcing U.S. interests in the region was the right start.”
Bucci concluded that while the threats facing the West are diverse — terrorism, authoritarian aggression, ideological extremism — they are all rooted in the same problem: complacency. “When we stop defending the principles that built Western civilization, others fill the void,” he said. “Whether it’s jihadists, globalists, or Marxists, the result is the same — a weaker, less secure free world.”