Tackling Threat Finance: A Labor for Hercules or Sisyphus?

In Greek mythology, the Gods gave the hero Hercules twelve, tremendously difficult labors, which he accomplished through clever strategy, tactics, guile, and divine support.1 In contrast, they condemned Sisyphus, a Greek king, to an eternity at hard and frustrating labor. His assignment was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. Only every time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil, attained the summit, the stone rolled back down again. Depending on the interagency strategy and policy approach chosen to address threat finance, the US government’s resolution of it could produce either a Herculean or Sisyphean outcome. While considered less critical than kinetic operations and therefore somewhat neglected, threat finance is an important subject in the US national security field with both domestic and international implications. Conceptually, the global financial network is a domain similar to its air, land, maritime, and cyber counterparts, requiring similar strategic and interagency approaches. Threat financiers exploit this sphere to the overall detriment of US national security interests. Hence a host of terrorism theorists, military operators, and intelligence officials all posit that the financing of terrorists and cartel groups is so pivotal to sustaining their operations, that their money systems have to become key targets in counter operations.2 In reality, this aspiration proves exceedingly difficult to execute. This article will explore threat finance by defining it, and then differentiating between its two subcomponents of terrorist financing and cartel money laundering. While acknowledging both the similarities and differences between these subelements of threat finance, this article will then detail the challenges of monitoring the financial networks supporting these illicit global flows, and show the difficulties in combating these criminal money transfers. After highlighting the progress to date, the article will then move beyond the foundational discussion to provide concrete interagency proposals and policy recommendations for further addressing the growing financial nexus between terrorist movements and criminal enterprises.