Financial Access Denial: An Irregular Approach to Integrated Deterrence

As a modern fighting force, the U.S. Army struggles with understanding and articulating what it does to “compete” beyond security assistance, combined exercises, and force posture. Unfortunately, our adversaries do not, as they masterfully integrate economic statecraft with military coercion to advance their interests in the gray zone short of war. Economic statecraft is a critical adversary capability allowing access to targeted states, but its associated corruption is an exploitable vulnerability. Military finance capabilities must complement traditional warfighting to capitalize on this liability to expand the U.S. coercive arsenal—fully integrated with interagency partners in the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and State.