Terrorist Financing Issue - Essay Example

In the recent past, terrorist financing activities have been on the rise. The funding activities are diverse. This is attributed to the fact terrorism activities are financially demanding. Therefore, terrorists try and adopt all the possible ways to acquire the necessary resources. Every mission requires money to obtain essential supplies. A lot of diverse resources get invested in any terrorism endeavor. These include human resources, which are vital in championing their goals and purposes. Also, a wide range of equipment is massively needed for the success of any mission. Furthermore, the terrorists invest a lot in hiring the necessary expertise, such as researchers who work behind the scenes to ensure the attainment of their goals and plans. As a result, the massive requirement for finances has forced these groups to engage in illegal activities to solicit finances. Therefore, this paper discusses the impacts of the terrorist financing issue in the economy of the nation or state in which they operate.

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Terrorist groups acquire their finances from diverse economic activities, which are illegal in most cases (Freeman, 2011). One of the critical modes of financing that has been utilized by most terrorist groups is the trading sector. It is where these terror groups introduce illegal goods into the market. They trade on ordinary commodities that are counterfeit hence enabling them to sell at reduced prices, thus dominating the market. Terror trading activities have yielded several problems in the economy.

First, there has been a detrimental decline in the flow of money in the economy. The terror groups operate in the open market alongside other genuine traders (Perri & Brody, 2011). Most of the money they receive is not channeled back to the economy through a continuous trading process as they usually operate for a specified short period. In most cases, their target is to collect money to meet a particular mission, after which they stop trading. Furthermore, once they have sold all their goods, more often, they quit their businesses either permanently or for a short time. As a result, the money they collect is hoard for investment in terror activities. It leads to the slowdown of the trading activities.

Consequently, the prices of other legitimate goods and services gradually increase (Irwin et al., 2012). It is the case because the economy is trying to adjust to normalcy. These have an impact on the population's living standards. The citizens of the affected nation or state struggle to acquire the necessary basics of life, making it generally hard to live. It also has a long-term effect on public health since people survive only on what is available to them.

Also, terror trading activities lead to the introduction of many counterfeit goods (Sullivan et al., 2014). As a result, there is a general rise in the trade and consumption of counterfeit products. These products negatively influence the production of genuine and quality products in the economy as it is not economically feasible to trade with them. Hence, most of the production companies are paralyzed and forced out of operations. It implies that the mode of income generation that a nation relies on gets paralyzed, making her more vulnerable to terror groups. Furthermore, these terror groups use counterfeit money to do business. Most of the monetary terms they are using to trade in the open market are notes and coins that are both illegitimate and illegal.

Since these terror trading activities have huge damaging impacts on the economy, there is a need for remedies to curb them. First, the ruling government should protect her market. It can get done through the formulation of strict rules and regulations that govern entry into the market. These rules and regulations serve as a way of authorizing the trading activities and goods that get traded therein. As a result, the government can detect and prevent any entry of illegal goods and terror groups to the economy. Hence, the legal traders and producers are assured of a secure market environment to operate, thus enabling them to increase their business investments. It also attracts more and more entrepreneurs into the trading venture because of the lesser risks of losses or, worse, being withdrawn from the market by the cheaply sold counterfeit products.

Also, the government should consider changing the currency to a more standardized materially made liquid cash. It serves to prevent or reduce the possibility of being reprinted or producing a counterfeit material with a close resemblance with the original notes or coins. This would have an impact on preventing the terror groups from trading with fake notes and coins hence paralyzing their ability to acquire the necessary resources.

The government should provide incentives to traders dealing with basics for human survival in the case of previous incidences of smuggling in illegal goods. It will encourage more traders into the sector hence readily availing these goods to the whole population. Furthermore, these commodities shall get sold at a lower price, which is affordable to ordinary citizens. This framework helps to alleviate citizens' living standards through the acquisition of life's basic needs.

In conclusion, indeed, terror financing is critical for the success of any terrorist group. They use various means to solicit the necessary funding. One of the essential methods of financing is through trading activities. They use diverse ways under the trading arena to dominate the market and acquire as much money through profits as possible. As a remedy, one of the key measures is where the government protects the market by imposing strict procedures of entrance into the market. These serve to paralyze them from gaining entry into the markets and subsequent reduction in their funding.

References

Freeman, M. (2011). The sources of terrorist financing: Theory and typology. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 34(6), 461-475. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36739856.pdf

Irwin, A. S. M., Choo, K. K. R., & Liu, L. (2012). An analysis of money laundering and terrorism financing typologies. Journal of Money Laundering Control.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angela_Irwin2/publication/235292423_An_analysis_of_money_laundering_and_terrorism_fnancing_typologies/links/0f31753a9667bb3919000000.pdf

Perri, F. S., & Brody, R. G. (2011). The dark triad: organized crime, terror, and fraud. Journal of Money Laundering Control. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Perri/publication/228617784_The_dark_triad_organized_crime_terror_and_fraud/links/547cbf4b0cf285ad5b08857a/The-dark-triad-organized-crime-terror-and-fraud.pdf

Sullivan, B. A., Chermak, S. M., Wilson, J. M., & Freilich, J. D. (2014). The nexus between terrorism and product counterfeiting in the United States. Global Crime, 15(3-4), 357-378. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17440572.2014.919227