Economist’s Satirical ‘Playbook’ on U.S. National Security Coming to ASU

SAN ANGELO, TX - Angelo State University will host Dr. Abigail Hall Blanco, associate professor of economics at the University of Tampa, for a special guest presentation on the role and conduct of U.S. national security leaders on Thursday, April 24, at 5:30 p.m. in the Houston Harte University Center, 1910 Rosemont Drive.

Sponsored by the Texas Tech University Free Market Institute at Angelo State University, Blanco's presentation will take place in the University Center's C.J. Davidson Conference Center and is free and open to the public.

In her presentation based on her co-authored book, "How to Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite," Blanco will deliver a satirical portrait of America's contemporary military-industrial complex, where leaders must learn:

• How to control the narrative - every narrative - in their favor
• How to completely capture the media and effectively quash dissent
• How destroying liberty creates more liberty in the long run
• Why top-down economic planning, here and abroad, is your best friend
• How to flout international and domestic law and get away with it, and much more

Blanco will also give her views on how, in those leaders' ideal world, the public would simply accept whatever their leaders told them and comply with restrictions and mandates, not as a matter of mere obedience, but as a matter of unquestionable patriotic duty. But we don't live in that ideal world.

Also an affiliated scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute in California, Blanco's broader research interests include political economy and public choice, defense and peace economics, and institutions and economic development. Her work includes topics like domestic extremism, weapons as foreign aid, the cost of military mobilization and the political economy of military technology. She is also a Resident Fellow with Defense Priorities, as well as a Public Choice and Public Policy Fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research, and she has written extensively on the domestic consequences of foreign intervention and the economics of propaganda. Her current research relates to the U.S. intervention in Latin America and the economics of peace and conflict. She earned her Ph.D. in economics at George Mason University.

The TTU Free Market Institute at ASU aims to advance research and teaching related to the free enterprise system and the institutional environment necessary for it to function well, and to support the missions of the ASU Norris-Vincent College of Business. The institute also develops and operates student and public programming for the benefit of ASU students and the San Angelo community.