26/10/18: De-democratization of our values?

Do you, my friends love that smell of napalm in the mornings? Does it fill you with confidence about the future - your own and that of the rest of the world? For if you do answer 'Yes' to both of these questions, congratulations: you've made it into the American values (on average).

Here is the data from Pew Research on public trust in institutions:

Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/18/most-americans-trust-the-military-and-scientists-to-act-in-the-publics-interest/ft_16-10-18_trustinstitutions_overview/.

Democratic cornerstones of political leadership and the media are trusted by less than 50 percent of the Americans, 27 percent to 41 percent. Command & control institution of the military is trusted by 79 percent. Scepticism over coercive power and centralized counter-democratic system based on rank-command trumps all the softy stuff. even educators are more trusted in the settings involving more deterministic decision-making (e.g. medical sciences and sciences) than in more polemical setting (e.g. general education).

But if you thought European are all softy-dofty democratically minded, think again. In fact, there is not much of difference between the American population and the European ones on the same topic:

Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/04/trust-in-the-military-exceeds-trust-in-other-institutions-in-western-europe-and-u-s/.

Yes, yes, I hear you, the choir of Patriots: but in a democratic society, military is subject to democratic checks and balances, so why is this degree of confidence in military a matter for concern?

Let me explain why:

• Firstly, irrespective of the democratic or other checks and balances, military is not a pluralist institution that encourages debates, inquiries, and discoveries through dissent. In other words, while military may be framed into the broader democratic constraints, it cannot by itself be a genuinely democratic institution. There is no democracy in command systems. 
• Secondly, to anyone pontificating on democratic checks and balances, may I suggest revisiting the entire modern history of the U.S. to identify exactly at what point in time did democratic checks and balances imposed onto military do their jobs before the damages were incurred? In Vietnam? Nope. In multiple military engagements in Latin America? Nope, again. In the Balkans? Not really. In Afghanistan or Iraq? Not at all. 

Thus, in real terms, checks and balances do not define a democratic set of values that put strong public preference in favour of the military ahead of much weaker preferences in favour of the immediate democratic and pluralist institutions, such as politics, media, business, education.

What is happening, thus, as revealed by the above data, is the strong drift in public preferences away from democratic and liberal foundations of our modern states and toward more command and control, more coercive power-based institutions, such as military. To paraphrase one semi-failed leader of the past: it's public values de-democratization, stupid.

20/11/17: Tallying the Costs: U.S. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan & Pakistan

The folks at Brown University have carried out the most detailed assessment of the disastrous costs of the U.S. wars fought since 9/11. The details can be found here: http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/. These are a must read!  While Russia stands accused by the U.S. of triggering the humanitarian crisis through its intervention in Syria (the civil war that started with the U.S. support and blessing), here is Brown University's conclusion about the real refugees crisis:

Not to say that one wrong (U.S.) makes another wrong right (Russia), but 10.1 million estimated refugees caused by the U.S. wars? This got to stand out, folks.

The U.S. has spent estimated USD5.6 trillion from 9/11 through fiscal year 2018 according to the study.

Enough to buy healthcare for every American, or to pay all outstanding student debt. Hell, in fact, it would have allowed for both.

And the above costs and impacts do not account for Libya, Egypt, Yemen and other direct and indirect 'minor' conflicts the U.S. has been involved in. The statistics do not include Syria.

In a recent post, I mused about the asymmetric warfare and the fact that, seemingly, outspending the entire world in terms of defense expenditures, the U.S. appears incapable of achieving its core objectives (see the post here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2017/09/12917-asymmetric-conflicts-and-us.html).

There appears to be no learning curve from the past 16 years - neither in the public minds (who support increasing expenditure on military industrial complex) and in the mind of the Washington politicians (see http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176335/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_how_we_learned_not_to_care_about_america%27s_wars/#more).

And there is neither an increase in transparency in the American policies post-9/11, nor an increase in scrutiny of choices made (see http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2017/Linda%20J%20Bilmes%20_Credit%20Card%20Wars%20FINAL.pdf):

As folks from Brown University project conclude: "The wars have been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties, in the US and abroad. The wars did not result in inclusive, transparent, and democratic governments in Iraq or Afghanistan... The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century. US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has totaled over $170 billion. Most of those funds have gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse."

This is genuinely frightening!

26/5/17: Defense Stocks Valuations: U.S. Budgets and Military Conflicts Engagements

Our new paper on U.S. Defense Budgets, military conflicts engagements and their impact on defense industry equity valuations is now available on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2975368.