Currently, the financial aspects of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies focus on the necessity of international regulations for limiting the resources available to a certain terrorist/insurgent group or non-state actor. Regulating the banking sector, particularly offshore, as well as various forms of money transfer and illicit dealings forms the main scope of this activity. Though these regulations can be successful at times, success often is a relative term consisting of equal parts reactivity, broad-scoped focus and luck. Additionally, one of the noted downfalls of current “counter-finance” policies is that they fail to be effective in states which lack the necessary institutional strength to adequately implement them. Yet it is exactly these states where funding activity tends to occur most often and most uninterruptedly. Therefore, increasing the amount or scope of regulation logically seems like an ineffective solution to this problem absent drastic improvements in state capability. However, there emerges another option: instead of utilizing a reactive, institutional-level, international set of regulations founded largely upon quantitative data-mining, why not use a more proactive, local, strategic/tactical model based upon qualitative observation? What this allows is an interdisciplinary approach combining the efforts of economists, social-scientists and area specialists that can locate chokepoints vulnerable to a variety of pressures. By incorporating the growing literature on terrorism financing, social network theory, counterterrorism/insurgency strategy and area studies knowledge, this paper will present the case that there exists a more effective alternative for combating conflict than simply regulating financial activity from international high-rises. This alternative provides the tools necessary to help identify financial networks that enable the perpetuation of conflict as the means for closing pathways and curtailing conflict. As such, it buttresses the potential of traditional approaches with in situ knowledge of regional and global financial networks and practices (both illicit and licit) that fund conflict to narrow the focus of activity, thereby maximizing effectiveness while limiting unintended consequences. In order to do so, the adaptive approach places decision-making in the hands of those familiar with the nuances of a nation or region and allows them to trace the financial activity through the networks in which they operate based upon this understanding. From here, economic and social theoretic analysis pinpoints the positions most susceptible to the various forms of intervention (regulation, kinetic action, interdiction or co-optation) which are then carried out by local or international institutions.