Welcome to the cast listeners. I'm Captain Jake Moraldi, and this is the Modern War Institute podcast.

In this episode, we'll be talking to Major John Bate, an economics instructor here at West Point in the Department of Social Sciences.

We're talking to him about his recently published paper on tactical economics, which can be found on the Modern War

Institute website at MW.U.usma.edu. In his paper, Major Bates looks at the economic considerations

of modern war and how programs like Serp and other economic programs were used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So please stay tuned and make sure you check out his paper on the Modern War

Institute website.

At the Modern War Institute website, you can also find lots of new blog content

and make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

As always, the opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the respective participants

and do not constitute the position of the United States government.

This is the Modern War Institute podcast.

Well, Major Bait, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Jake. I think it's important up front to define

what tactical economics means. So if you could define that for us, please. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important up front to define what tactical economics means. So if you

could define that for us, please. Yeah, absolutely. So there's really two separate parts to it. So the

tactical part, obviously, is it's an array of programs used by tactical units. So typically

division and below, or really brigade and below. So maneuver units that are affecting local populations.

And the economic side is really the way we use scarce resources in a combat zone to affect human behavior.

And in this way, we're really talking about microeconomics.

So how do we affect individual behavior and behavior of firms and businesses that make up societies.

So we're really trying to shape human behavior in pursuit of security objectives through

...