Terrorism Strategy

Terrorism has become a constant issue over the past decade for countries all around the world. It has been defined as, “the deliberate use or the threat to use violence against civilians in order to attain political, ideological and religious aims” (Ganor, 2002, p. 288). This vehicle to gain an objective for the group has become more popular in modern times as the audience for violent acts has increased with globalization and technology. The world was shocked when a terrorist organization was able to bring down the World Trade Center in 2001 as well as attack other targets inside the United States simultaneously. This prompted a response by the United States, where they declared a war on terror and established military operations in the Middle …show more content…
However, any group whether it is a country, business, organization, or charity relies on money to keep it running and promote growth. Terrorist organizations are no different, “terrorist groups have budgets that can range up to hundreds of millions of dollars per year, especially for the larger and more active groups” (Freeman, 2011, p.462). They need to have incoming funds to pay fighters, supply them with weapons, equipment, and recruit more members. An effective strategy to diminish the power of a terrorist organization is to cut its money supply. This is difficult to implement however since they have a variety of different sources that they can make money from. Diminishing an organizations budget by just a small percentage can have a large impact in the long run and end up creating a snowball effect. Cutting their finances limits the amount of large scale attacks they can commit and by doing that it can also limit the amount they can raise from their supporters; it is estimated that the September 11th attacks costed between $350,000 and $500,000 due to the need for flight training and funds for at least nineteen hijackers, that high profile attack was able to raise a lot of money and support for Al Qaeda, if they didn’t have the cash to commit that attack they would not …show more content…
These can be grouped in four main categories: state sponsorship, illegal activities, legal activities, and popular support (Freeman, 2011, p.465). Most organizations use a dynamic combination of these main sources to fund their activities. By determining the financial makeup of a specific terrorist organization, it is possible to restrict its main revenue points and as a result force them to either retract or alter their organization, potentially opening up a vulnerability. Understanding the ways they can finance their operations is the first step to determining a course of