Subversive Economics in Grey Zone conflict

That article, No. The concept, Yes.

When ISIS was at the height of its power, the conventional wisdom was that ISIS was funding itself either through illicit oil exports, and/or illicit donations coming in.

The truth (courtesy of some excellent reporting from The Atlantic) was more interesting: Showing an inadvertent understanding of chartalist economics (and, unknowingly copying a technique that insurgent groups have used multiple times historically, including our own American Revolutionaries), ISIS was essentially creating their own currency (bills stolen from the Iraqi central bank branch in Mosul), allowing/forcing people to pay taxes using that new currency, and then taxing as many commercial transactions that they could enforce taxing. This allowed ISIS to keep a functioning/stable economy going, the stability of which sadly helped bolster that murderous group.

There are ways to do this properly as well as undermine it. The British, for example, undermined the Continental dollar by counterfeiting it so much during the American Revolution that the Continental Congress was forced to devalue it massively (in 1780, making a Continental Dollar worth ~¢2.5). As for how to do this properly....that's a longer conversation. Doable (if you say, want to rebuild an economy from scratch), but harder.

I'm a USAR logistician (and former Guard Finance Officer) thinking about maybe becoming a 38G one day. Civilian side, working on a PhD in sociology, research political and economic historical sociology. Feel free to reach out if you'd like: jon.c.phoenix.mil@army.mil.