WAR AND MILITARY JOURNALISM

War and Military Journalism

War and Military Journalism

Introduction

The Iraq war is considered as a major event that shook the global financial markets and disrupted the economies in the region. The war has also undermined the regional stock markets, and has caused political, regional, economical, and financial risks in the world and regional Middle Eastern economies. Salameh argues that the Iraq war has impacted on the global oil production capacity by creating instability in the Middle East and thus increasing the risk of investing in the region. Shachmurove states that the countries surrounding Iraq are faced with greater uncertainty and the impact of the war is of an immediate concern. He states that the ongoing outcomes of the war has undermined regional stock markets and caused further political, regional, economical, and financial risks, and affected many significant components of the regional and international economic activities. Leippold and Lohre test for the dispersion effect in many companies in a sample of 16 emerging equity markets, 15 European markets, and the U.S. equity market, covering the period from 1987 to 2007. They find one of the breakpoint coincides with the dawn of the Iraq war in March 2003 (John, David & Erica, 2007, 195-220).

The impact of the war and the regional instability of the Middle Eastern region have caused serious outcomes on the world economies. Leigh argue that the negative effects of the Iraq war are larger for the regional countries that depend heavily on oil imports. Fernandez studies the volatility of worldwide stock markets primarily caused by the invasion of Iraq and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict (John, David & Erica, 2007, 195-220). Her findings show that the greatest impact of such political instability was around the beginning of the Iraq war, and that the major international stock markets were those which became relatively more volatile around that time. Rigobon and Sack find that in ten weeks before the start of the war on Iraq, the risk of war explains between 13 and 63 percent of the variance of financial variables such as the S&P 500 index, oil prices, gold prices and the US dollar. Leigh find that the U.S. stock market was extremely sensitive to changes in the probability of war; a 10% rise on the probability of war was accompanied by a 1.5% decline in the S&P 500. Nell and Simmler claim that the Iraq war was a major cause of uncertainty throughout the world and has seriously damaged many weak economies that cannot afford an increase in their oil imports (John, David & Erica, 2007, 195-220).

World War I proved an aberration. The press and public were slow to support American belligerence, even after Congress voted overwhelmingly for a declaration of war in April 1917. America had supported neutrality, and President Woodrow Wilson had won a second term in 1916 by campaigning on the theme of having kept the United States out of war. In the first six weeks after the congressional declaration, only 73,000 Americans volunteered for ...