Shadow Warrior by Jotaro

Author:Jotaro [Jotaro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2011-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Present Indicators

We now find ourselves at the point where the past and the future meet. Strictly speaking, this is a moment of infinite brevity, but for analytical purposes, we will relax this stranglehold and contemplate a slightly wider time frame. While the boundaries of this temporal position are somewhat flexible, it is perhaps best measured in hours and days as opposed to minutes or months. This time frame embraces what is current, what is present, and what is now. It is the point at which the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together of their own accord.

Broadly speaking, the analyst should know what is going on in the world around us. In such fields as finance, politics, intelligence, and the military, we are increasingly becoming inhabitants of a global village. Depreciation in the value of a foreign currency may have a significant impact on the international component of the mutual fund on which many of the financier’s clients depend. American casualties in a peacekeeping action on foreign soil may damage the approval rating of any politician who supported the initiative. And the unexpected death of an elderly despot may present the intelligence officer with opportunity or disaster, either of which will require the making of a quick decision.

Moreover, there is a significant and ever-increasing amount of overlap among the types of events just described. The deployment of troops can have a depressive effect on the economy over the short term because of such factors as decreased incomes for the families of reservists and increased uncertainty with respect to the stability of the markets. On the other hand, the so-called “postwar boom” tends to make up for such recessions with greater numbers of jobs and expenditures required to restock the nation’s arsenal. And some commentators have even suggested that in times of domestic political crisis, a foreign campaign may serve to distract unwanted attention from matters at home.

Keeping one eye on the world stage is not enough, however, for domestic activity, especially in the country on which the forecaster’s attention is presently focused, can be as important as international developments, and in many cases more so. While domestic affairs may have an attenuated effect on the global picture as a whole, their impact will likely be controlling at home. Such domestic matters can even expand beyond national borders on occasion. Major sporting events, for example, and salacious scandals have the power to hypnotize the general public and all forms of media in equal measure. Spillover must also be appreciated on the home front as well. It is well known in financial circles, for instance, that an election year can have a pronounced effect on the economy. Thus, each aspect of the analytical process depends on many others.

No one can hope to track every relevant condition, and even if someone could, it would be impossible, as Lorenz discovered, to predict with any degree of specificity the way in which the system as a whole would evolve. But keeping track of the

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