The global financial sector is increasingly vulnerable to penetration by criminal money-launderers, financiers of terrorism, and proliferators of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, it offers instruments that can be usefully employed to pursue foreign and security policy objectives. It is thus hardly surprising that finance has emerged as an arena of intense competition, if not conflict, between those seeking to exploit or attack this vital element of state power and those tasked with defending its integrity or harnessing it for legal purposes.

Navias assesses the key threats to financial systems and shows how the public and private sectors are co-operating to contain them. He analyses the main characteristics of criminal money-laundering and terrorist financing, and reviews major multilateral and national regimes locked in the perpetual battle to shore up the financial sector against these constantly evolving security challenges. He also considers the uses of finance in support of key sanctions, counter-proliferation, and arms embargo policies.

Uniquely, Finance and Security views these financial threats and weapons through a security and war studies prism. It will be equally invaluable to scholars of security and international relations and to professionals working in the legal, banking and compliance professions.