Book Review: Terrorism Financing and State Responses
Peter Molin - Military Review
Feb 01, 2008
TERRORISM FINANCING AND STATE RESPONSES: A Comparative Perspective, Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2007,365 pages, $24.95.
Where do terrorists get their money? Have we done all we can in the global War on Terrorism to deny our enemies' financial solvency and the ability to maneuver? What role does the U.S. military play in counterterrorism financing? These are questions prompted by Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective, a collection of essays first presented as papers at a 2004 conference at the Naval Postgraduate School. The book attempts, in the editors' words, a "comprehensive assessment of the state of our knowledge about the nature of terrorism financing, the evolution of terrorist strategies and government responses, and the effectiveness of both." Unfortunately, none of the essays directly addresses the large-scale sectarian insurgencies that confront the military today in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book does, however, plumb the murky financial infrastructures and processes of such terrorist organizations as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Herein lies the book's value.
Terrorism Financing and State Responses is not a manual for teaching Soldiers in the field how to target enemy financial lines of support, although it does provide terms, concepts, and historical examples for those interested in such a potentially useful activity. Editors Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas are both associated with the National security Affairs Department at the Naval Postgraduate School. Contributors include terrorism, criminal finance, and foreign policy experts affiliated with think tanks located in both academia and the government. The first five essays constitute an overview labeled "The Nature of the Problem and the Response." The last 11 essays are case studies of specific efforts to attack regional and ideologically based terrorist finance networks. Giraldo and Trinkunas provide introductory and concluding essays that define broad themes and offer cautious recommendations.
Essays on Islamic terrorist finances downplay crime and state sponsorship as sources of operational funds and debunk the idea that ideologically driven terrorists operate without financial constraints. They suggest that personal vices and limitations sometimes degrade the terrorist's religious idealism.
Several authors describe the flow of money into terrorist hands through the channels of haalwa (informal money transfer networks) and zakat (charitable giving practices prescribed by the Qur'an). Because haalwa and zakat practices are virtually unmonitored by state and international agencies, they enable the relatively easy movement of money from law-abiding citizens to violent extremists. Suppressing such unregulated money movement is difficult. Several authors recommend allowing the networks to survive, but putting them under close observation in order to gain information about key players, processes, and planned attacks. As one contributor writes, observation and analysis of haalwa and zakat networks can "illuminate and crystallize what had hitherto been uncertain." The suggestion is that terrorist financial operations are untapped sources of intelligence and areas of vulnerability that organizations at many levels might exploit.
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