Military-industrial complex

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The term military-industrial complex usually refers to the combination of the U.S. armed forces, arms industry and associated political and commercial interests, which grew rapidly in scale and influence in the wake of World War II, although it can also be used to describe any such relationship of industry and military. It is sometimes used to refer to the iron triangle that is argued to exist among weapons makers/military contractors (industry), The Pentagon (military), and the United States Congress (government).

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Origin

The term was first used publicly by President of the United States (and former General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

In the penultimate draft of the address, Eisenhower initially used the term military-industrial-congressional complex, indicating the essential role that U.S. Congress plays in propagating the military industry. But, it is said, that the president chose to strike the word congressional in order to avoid offending members of the legislative branch of the federal government. The author of the term was Eisenhower's speech-writer Malcolm Moos.

Vietnam War-era activists referred frequently to the concept. In the late 1990s James Kurth asserted that "[b]y the mid-1980s . . . the term had largely fallen out of public discussion," and opined that "[w]hatever the power of arguments about the influence of the military-industrial complex on weapons procurement during the Cold War, they are much less relevant to the current era."

Contemporary students and critics of American militarism continue to refer to and employ the term, however. For example, historian Chalmers Johnson uses words from the second, third, and fourth paragraphs quoted above from Eisenhower's address as an epigraph to Chapter Two ("The Roots of American Militarism") of a recent volume on this subject (The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004], p. 39).

The expressions permanent war economy and war corporatism are related concepts that have also been used in association with this term.

Although the term was originally coined to describe U.S. circumstances, it has been applied, by extension, to the corresponding situations in other countries. It was not unusual to see it used to describe the arms production industries and political structures of the Soviet Union, and it has also been used for other countries with an arms-producing economy, such as Wilhelminian Germany, Britain, France and post-Soviet Russia. The expression is also sometimes applied to the European Union.

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Causes

The "unwarranted influences" and "misplaced power" of the military industrial complex, it is contended, are the result of the growing size and power of U.S. government. The government makes its citizens pay large sums of taxes, thus enabling the government to grow in power and enticing businesses to acquire deals with the government. The government, it is said, in wishing to maintain said level of power, builds up its military using the wealth it has acquired through taxing its citizens. With the created increase in military power, politicians are then more inclined to use the military to achieve political goals than they might otherwise be.

Since government obtains as much wealth as it does, and since it is well known to appropriate so much of it, businesses are attracted to the government. Members of Congress, in turn, who can gain campaign donations or salaries from these businesses, are more likely to choose to work with these businesses to militarize the nation, especially since it's not their money they're spending, but rather that of the taxpayers.

The ability to gather wealth to cover the costs of government, and its militarization, does not refer to taxation of U.S. citizens alone. It also relies upon the borrowing of the privatized supply of currency used by the United States. This currency is issued at face value debt through treasury bills offered by treasury department, backed by the private corporation known as the Federal Reserve, and these U.S. dollars are then issued and assumed globally for international commerce. The requirement of foreign nations to keep a stockpile of dollars for use in the facilitation of trade, thereby permits, or more appropriately demands, a massive foreign assumption of U.S. debt.

This works as a de facto global taxation, channeling global wealth back to the U.S., which in addition to the taxes collected domestically, further bolsters the U.S. economy, actually alieviates tax duty of its citizens, and in turn, enables expansive deficit spending budgets by its Congress, the majority of which is then appropriated to the military industrial complex which collaboratively enforces this requirement through its military, worldwide in a perpetually circular and self-sustaining manner.

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Critical views

Those who contend that there is no military industrial complex say that just because the government is buying weapons from these industries does not necessitate that the government is being influenced to use them, that proponents of the concept of the military industrial complex are in that regard confusing cause with correlation.

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Cultural references

Cult television show The X-Files displayed a nameless conspiracy of the American government, dominated by the Military-industrial complex's sinister machinations. This conspiracy included everything from tobacco lobbyists to extraterrestrials. Not surprisingly, some conspiracy theorists felt the show was created to disenfranchise their distrust and hide the real conspiracy. In the third season episode of the series "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" series lead David Duchovny satirizes this by accusing a writer's search for the truth regarding a bizarre alien abuduction as an effort made for "the military-industrial-entertainment complex."

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See also

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Sources

  • Eisenhower, Dwight D. Public Papers of the Presidents, 1035-40. 1960.
  • ________. "Farewell Address." In The Annals of America. Vol. 18. 1961-1968: The Burdens of World Power, 1-5. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968.
  • ________. President Eisenhower's Farewell Address, Wikisource.
  • Hartung, William D. "Eisenhower's Warning: The Military-Industrial Complex Forty Years Later." World Policy Journal 18, no. 1 (Spring 2001).
  • Johnson, Chalmers The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004
  • Kurth, James. "Military-Industrial Complex." In The Oxford Companion to American Military History, ed. John Whiteclay Chambers II, 440-42. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
  • Nelson, Lars-Erik. "Military-Industrial Man." In New York Review of Books 47, no. 20 (Dec. 21, 2000): 6.
  • Nieburg, H. L. In the Name of Science, Quadrangle Books, 1970
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External links

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