Dr. Margaret Sankey, research coordinator in Air University’s Office of Sponsored Programs, will discuss how violence throughout the world is financed during a presentation to the Alabama World Affairs Council on Feb. 7.
Sankey examined the topic in her book, “Blood Money: How Criminals, Militias, Rebels and Warlords Finance Violence,” published in October 2022. The event will kick off with a reception at 5:30 p.m. in the Whitley Hall Gold Room at Troy University’s Montgomery Campus. The presentation is free for Alabama World Affairs Council members and $20 for guests. Registration is available online at https://alwac.org/event-4970094.
Sankey, who earned a Ph.D. in European military history from Auburn University, believes violent non-state actors of the world are hiding in plain sight, fundraising for their efforts through business and scams that take advantage of the existence of globalization in today’s world. While reforms attempt to curtail these options, Sankey maintains these groups’ defiance of rules and their ability to adapt and innovate make them extremely difficult to pin down or prosecute.
Sankey taught military history, security studies and political science at Minnesota State Moorhead before joining the staff at the United States Air Force’s Air War College as the director of research and electives.
Her previous publications include: “Jacobite Prisoners of the 1715: Preventing and Punishing Insurrection in Early Hanoverian Britain,” “Women and War in the 21st Century,” and the North American Conference on British Studies’ Walter D. Love Prize-winning article, co-written with Dr. Daniel Szechi, “Elite Culture and the Decline of Scottish Jacobitism, 1715-1745,” in the historical journal Past and Present.
The Alabama World Affairs Council is a nonprofit organization that sponsors lectures and programs on current and recent events of national and international interest. Through these programs, which take place at Troy University’s Montgomery Campus, the Alabama World Affairs Council aims to promote public awareness and understanding of international affairs as they relate to U.S. interests in the context of political, economic, cultural, historical, and military issues.
