Financing the Taliban

<p>The present challenge to the nation-state system broadly and USG specifically consists of non-state actors operating within the context of weak governance and unofficial economy. This thesis explores USG effectiveness in disrupting terrorist or insurgent attempts to exploit financial asymmetry against the United States. The phenomenon of terrorist financing and the associated destabilizing attributes of counter-state organizations provide significant challenges to U.S. security. Terrorist financing relies upon both formal and informal value transfers enabled by access to sources of financing unique to the respective economic environment. Contemporary conflicts such as Afghanistan and Iraq illustrate the enemy's ability to adapt operations based upon cost efficiency models in an attempt to conduct operations that maximize potential cost to value ratios in their favor. The Taliban are an example of the organizational resiliency possible through sustained financing efforts and serve as a contemporary model for the study of USG counter-finance policy. USG counter-finance actions against terrorist organizations must be pursued with diligent fervor to detect and disrupt value streams associated with the adversarial threat.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>