How Corruption Threatens National Security
By Daniel Stark, Marketing –
When armed forces battled it out in Iraq, the superior force lost due to corruption.
Last June, a militant Islamic group faced the U.S.-trained and equipped Iraqi military. The militant army was 12,000 strong, while the U.S.-trained Iraqi army numbered 200,000. Despite overwhelming odds in favor of the U.S.-trained soldiers, the militant Islamic group thoroughly defeated the much-larger force.
What was the root cause of an otherwise implausible loss? It was corruption within the military ranks. A perilous quantity of Baghdad’s army sold their weapons on the black market for personal profit. As we can see from this example, corruption isn’t exclusively a moral issue. It’s a national security issue.
Sarah Chayes, a former NPR reporter who worked for 10 years developing the Afghanistan economy, identifies two ways corruption cripples national security: 1) It benefits radical revolutionaries’ quest to gain support from resentful citizens, and 2) It makes America-friendly governments unable to defend themselves against radical revolutionaries, criminal cartels or foreign invaders.
Public polling proves few Afghans support the Taliban, yet the Taliban are always able to increase recruiting numbers. Why? Conventional wisdom informs citizens the Afghan government is unchangeably corrupt. The Taliban is undeniably unpopular, but at least its members don’t steal from them as the Afghan government does. Chayes reported public reconstruction projects often fail due to the governors’ hoarding the funds for themselves.
American aid often worsens Afghan corruption, funding the bad habits of the corrupt in the government. The Afghani economy benefits from only 44 percent of the received U.S. aid due to government corruption.
The Taliban are by no means unique in leveraging advantage from corruption. Al Qaeda and the Islamic state both pledge to stamp out corruption in various respected contexts, yet both benefit the corruption in place.
Corruption continues to plague national security and public opinion beyond the Middle East. The New York Times reported Russians have become so used to corruption it’s become just a way of life. Russian bureaucrats frequently request massive bribes from companies bidding for contracts. This further deepens the cost the state must pay. Drug traffickers in Mexico often successfully bribe law enforcement to either overlook or even assist their criminal activities.
Deception Detection – A Helpful Tool
By no means is there an easy fix to rampant corruption, but deception detection technology could play a significant role in keeping state leaders, employees and others accountable for crimes they commit.
EyeDetect® is the newest development in deception technology. EyeDetect detects deceit by examining an individual’s pupil dilation when answering a series of questions. The individual goes through 30-40 minutes of true or false questions. Results from dilation are recorded and stored in the cloud. EyeDetect has been proven to hold an 85 percent accuracy rate. It’s far more reliable than any individual depending solely on intuition. Through EyeDetect, corrupt officials could be caught and stopped before crimes continue to occur.
