Disrupting Threat Finances: Using Financial Information to Disrupt Terrorist Organizations
Abstract
Terrorist financing is a critical issue in the current fight against transnational terrorist networks or groups. Conceptually, this issue is considered one of numerous types of terrorist support activities; however, as the author argues quite persuasively, it may be the most important of these activities. Major Anderson provides an excellent overview of terrorist financing and expands upon how it fits into the broader construct of threat financing. He articulates the significant challenges any government faces in trying to interrupt the terrorist networks' use of the global financial system. The sheer immensity of this system provides ample opportunity for terrorists to operate undetected or unhindered. He also highlights that the very international nature of the global economic system presents enormous challenges to coordinating amongst the almost 200 sovereign states that constitute the current world order. In addition, each of these nations face an internal challenge similar to that facing the United States: how do the individual country's internal security, legal, and financial governmental organizations work together to meet the significant threat that terrorist networks pose to national sovereignty. In the United States, we describe this situation as the interagency process, but it is a challenge facing any bureaucracy, and all governments are a bureaucracy in some fashion. Many of Major Anderson's recommended solutions hinge upon the requirement for significant overhaul in the U.S. national security system and, by implication, systems in many of the world's countries. The appendices contain an exhaustive survey of terrorist financing mechanisms, U.S. authorities, and legal statutes, and a listing of both U.S. and international organizations involved in combating terrorist financing.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA495775
Entities
People
- Wesley J. Anderson
Organizations
- Joint Special Operations University