Military–industrial complex

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The expression military–industrial complex (MIC) describes the relationship between a country's military and the defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy. [1] [2] [3] [4] A driving factor behind the relationship between the military and the defense-minded corporations is that both sides benefit—one side from obtaining weapons, and the other from being paid to supply them. [5] The term is most often used in reference to the system behind the armed forces of the United States, where the relationship is most prevalent due to close links among defense contractors, the Pentagon, and politicians. [6] [7] The expression gained popularity after a warning of the relationship's detrimental effects, in the farewell address of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961. [8] [9]

Contents

Conceptually, it is closely related to the ideas of the iron triangle in the U.S. (the three-sided relationship between Congress, the executive branch bureaucracy, and interest groups) and the defense industrial base (the network of organizations, facilities, and resources that supplies governments with defense-related goods and services). [10] [11]

Etymology

In his farewell address, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned U.S. citizens about the "military-industrial complex". Dwight D. Eisenhower, official photo portrait, May 29, 1959.jpg
In his farewell address, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned U.S. citizens about the "military–industrial complex".
Eisenhower's farewell address, January 17, 1961. The term military–industrial complex is used at 8:16. Length: 15:30

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower originally coined the term in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961: [12]

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. [emphasis added]

The phrase was thought to have been "war-based" industrial complex before becoming "military" in later drafts of Eisenhower's speech, a claim passed on only by oral history. [13] Geoffrey Perret, in his biography of Eisenhower, claims that, in one draft of the speech, the phrase was "military–industrial–congressional complex", indicating the essential role that the United States Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry, but the word "congressional" was dropped from the final version to appease elected officials. [14] James Ledbetter calls this a "stubborn misconception" not supported by any evidence; likewise a claim by Douglas Brinkley that it was originally "military–industrial–scientific complex". [14] [15] Henry Giroux claims that it was originally "military–industrial–academic complex". [16] The actual authors of the speech were Eisenhower's speechwriters Ralph E. Williams and Malcolm Moos. [17]

The MIC and the Cold War

Attempts to conceptualize something similar to a modern "military–industrial complex" did exist before 1961, as the underlying phenomenon described by the term is generally agreed to have emerged during or shortly after World War II. [18] For example, a similar phrase was used in a 1947 Foreign Affairs article in a sense close to that it would later acquire, and sociologist C. Wright Mills contended in his 1956 book The Power Elite that a democratically unaccountable class of military, business, and political leaders with convergent interests exercised the preponderance of power in the contemporary West. [14] [19] [20]

Following its coinage in Eisenhower's address, the MIC became a staple of American political and sociological discourse. Many Vietnam War–era activists and polemicists, such as Seymour Melman and Noam Chomsky employed the concept in their criticism of U.S. foreign policy, while other academics and policymakers found it to be a useful analytical framework. Although the MIC was bound up in its origins with the bipolar international environment of the Cold War, some contended that the MIC might endure under different geopolitical conditions (for example, George F. Kennan wrote in 1987 that "were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military–industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented."). [21] The collapse of the USSR and the resultant decrease in global military spending (the so-called 'peace dividend') did in fact lead to decreases in defense industrial output and consolidation among major arms producers, although global expenditures rose again following the September 11 attacks and the ensuing "War on terror", as well as the more recent increase in geopolitical tensions associated with strategic competition between the United States, Russia, and China. [22]

Eras

First era

Some sources divide the history of the United States military–industrial complex into three eras. [23] From 1797 to 1941, the U.S. government only relied on civilian industries while the country was actually at war. The government owned their own shipyards and weapons manufacturing facilities which they relied on through World War I. With World War II came a massive shift in the way that the U.S. government armed the military.

In World War II, the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Production Board to coordinate civilian industries and shift them into wartime production. Arms production in the U.S. went from around one percent of annual Gross domestic product (GDP) to 40 percent of GDP. [23] U.S. companies, such as Boeing and General Motors, maintained and expanded their defense divisions. [23] These companies have gone on to develop various technologies that have improved civilian life as well, such as night-vision goggles and GPS. [23]

Second era

The second era is identified as beginning with the coining of the term by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This era continued through the Cold War period, up to the end of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union. A 1965 article written by Marc Pilisuk and Thomas Hayden says benefits of the military–industrial complex of the U.S. include the advancement of the civilian technology market as civilian companies benefit from innovations from the MIC and vice versa. [24] In 1993, the Pentagon urged defense contractors to consolidate due to the fall of communism and a shrinking defense budget. [23]

Third era

In the third era, U.S. defense contractors either consolidated or shifted their focus to civilian innovation. From 1992 to 1997 there was a total of US$55 billion worth of mergers in the defense industry, with major defense companies purchasing smaller competitors. [23] The U.S. domestic economy is now tied to the success of the MIC which has led to concerns of repression as Cold War-era attitudes are still prevalent among the American public. [25] Shifts in values and the collapse of communism have ushered in a new era for the U.S. military–industrial complex. The Department of Defense works in coordination with traditional military–industrial complex aligned companies such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Many former defense contractors have shifted operations to the civilian market and sold off their defense departments. [23] In recent years, traditional defense contracting firms have faced competition from Silicon Valley and other tech companies, like Anduril Industries and Palantir, [26] over Pentagon contracts. This represents a shift in defense strategy away from the procurement of more armaments and toward an increasing role of technologies like cloud computing and cybersecurity in military affairs. [27] From 2019 to 2022, venture capital funding for defense technologies doubled. [28]

Military subsidy theory

A pie chart showing global military expenditures by country for 2019, in US$ billions, according to SIPRI. Note that this is not shown as a percentage of GDP. Military Expenditures by Country 2019.svg
A pie chart showing global military expenditures by country for 2019, in US$ billions, according to SIPRI. Note that this is not shown as a percentage of GDP.

According to the military subsidy theory, the Cold War–era mass production of aircraft benefited the U.S. civilian aircraft industry. The theory asserts that the technologies developed during the Cold War along with the financial backing of the military led to the dominance of U.S. aviation companies. There is also strong evidence that the United States federal government intentionally paid a higher price for these innovations to serve as a subsidy for civilian aircraft advancement. [29]

Current applications

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), total world spending on military expenses in 2022 was $2.240 trillion. 39% of this total, or $837 billion, was spent by the United States. China was the second largest spender, with $292 billion and 13% of the global share. [30] The privatization of the production and invention of military technology also leads to a complicated relationship with significant research and development of many technologies. In 2011, the United States spent more (in absolute numbers) on its military than the next 13 countries combined. [31]

The military budget of the United States for the 2009 fiscal year was $515.4 billion. Adding emergency discretionary spending and supplemental spending brings the sum to $651.2 billion. [32] This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department's budget. Overall, the U.S. federal government is spending about $1 trillion annually on military-related purposes. [33]

In a 2012 story, Salon reported, "Despite a decline in global arms sales in 2010 due to recessionary pressures, the United States increased its market share, accounting for a whopping 53 percent of the trade that year. Last year saw the United States on pace to deliver more than $46 billion in foreign arms sales." [34] The U.S. military and arms industry also tend to contribute heavily to incumbent members of Congress. [35]

U.S. President Joe Biden signed a record $886 billion defense spending bill into law on December 22, 2023. [36]

Political geography

The 20 largest US defense contractors as of 2022 ranked by their defense revenue. Defense US top20 2022.png
The 20 largest US defense contractors as of 2022 ranked by their defense revenue.

The datagraphic represents the 20 largest US defense contractors based on the amount of their defense revenue. Among these corporations, 53.5% of total revenues are derived from defense, and the median proportion is 63.4%; 6 firms derive over 75% of their revenue from defense. According to the Wikipedia entries for the companies, the headquarters of 11 of these corporations are located in the Washington metropolitan area, of which 5 are in Reston, Virginia.

Similar concepts

A thesis similar to the military–industrial complex was originally expressed by Daniel Guérin, in his 1936 book Fascism and Big Business, about the fascist government ties to heavy industry. It can be defined as, "an informal and changing coalition of groups with vested psychological, moral, and material interests in the continuous development and maintenance of high levels of weaponry, in preservation of colonial markets and in military-strategic conceptions of internal affairs." [38]

An exhibit of the trend was made in Franz Leopold Neumann's book Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism in 1942, a study of how Nazism came into a position of power in a democratic state.

Within decades of its inception, the idea of the military–industrial complex gave rise to the ideas of other similar industrial complexes, including: [39] :ix–xxv

Virtually all institutions in sectors ranging from agriculture, medicine, entertainment, and media, to education, criminal justice, security, and transportation, began reconceiving and reconstructing in accordance with capitalist, industrial, and bureaucratic models with the aim of realizing profit, growth, and other imperatives. According to Steven Best, all these systems interrelate and reinforce one another. [39]

The concept of the military–industrial complex has been also expanded to include the entertainment and creative industries as well. For an example in practice, Matthew Brummer describes Japan's Manga Military and how the Ministry of Defense uses popular culture and the moe that it engenders to shape domestic and international perceptions. [41]

An alternative term to describe the interdependence between the military-industrial complex and the entertainment industry is coined by James Der Derian as "Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment-Network". [42] Ray McGovern extended this appellation to Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex, MICIMATT. [43]

Tech–industrial complex

In his 2025 farewell address, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden warned of a 'tech–industrial complex', stating that "Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power." [44] Commentators noted that this statement was made following Elon Musk's upcoming role in the second Donald Trump administration and public overtures towards Trump by technology industry leaders including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, including the dismantling of Facebook's fact-checking program. [45] [46] [47]

See also

Economics of national defense efforts
Literature and media
Other complexes or axes
Miscellaneous

References

Citations

  1. "military industrial complex". American Heritage Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  2. "definition of military-industrial complex (American English)". OxfordDictionaries.com . Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  3. "Definition of Military–industrial complex". Merriam-Webster . Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  4. Roland, Alex (2009). "The Military-Industrial Complex: lobby and trope". In Bacevich, Andrew J. (ed.). The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II. Columbia University Press. pp. 335–370. ISBN   978-0231131599.
  5. "What is the Military-Industrial Complex?" . Retrieved February 5, 2017.
  6. "Ike's Warning Of Military Expansion, 50 Years Later". NPR. January 17, 2011. Retrieved March 27, 2019.
  7. "SIPRI Year Book 2008; Armaments, Disarmaments and International Security" Oxford University Press 2008 ISBN   978-0199548958
  8. "The Military–Industrial Complex; The Farewell Address of Presidente Eisenhower" Basements publications 2006 ISBN   0976642395
  9. Held, David; McGrew, Anthony G.; Goldblatt, David (1999). "The expanding reach of organized violence". In Perraton, Jonathan (ed.). Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. Stanford University Press. p.  108. ISBN   978-0804736275.
  10. Adams, Gordon; D'Onofrio, Christine; Sokoloff, Nancy (1981). The iron triangle: the politics of defense contracting. Studies / Council on Economic Priorities. New York: Council on Economic Priorities. ISBN   978-0-87871-012-6.
  11. Nicastro, Luke. The U.S. Defense Industrial Base: Background and Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service. October 12, 2023. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47751
  12. "President Dwight Eisenhower Farewell Address". C-Span. January 17, 1961.
  13. John Milburn (December 10, 2010). "Papers shed light on Eisenhower's farewell address". Associated Press . Retrieved January 28, 2011.
  14. 1 2 3 Ledbetter, James (January 25, 2011). "Guest Post: 50 Years of the "Military–Industrial Complex"". Schott's Vocab. New York Times . Retrieved January 25, 2011.
  15. Brinkley, Douglas (September 2001). "Eisenhower; His farewell speech as President inaugurated the spirit of the 1960s". American Heritage . 52 (6). Archived from the original on March 23, 2006. Retrieved January 25, 2011.
  16. Giroux, Henry (June 2007). "The University in Chains: Confronting the Military–Industrial–Academic Complex". Paradigm Publishers. Archived from the original on August 20, 2007. Retrieved May 16, 2011.
  17. Griffin, Charles "New Light on Eisenhower's Farewell Address", in Presidential Studies Quarterly 22 (Summer 1992): 469–479
  18. Brunton, Bruce G. (1988). "Institutional Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex" . Journal of Economic Issues. 22 (2): 599–606. doi:10.1080/00213624.1988.11504790. ISSN   0021-3624. JSTOR   4226018.
  19. Riefler, Winfield W. (October 1947). "Our Economic Contribution to Victory". Foreign Affairs. 26 (1): 90–103. doi:10.2307/20030091. JSTOR   20030091.
  20. Brunton, Bruce G. (1988). "Institutional Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex" . Journal of Economic Issues. 22 (2): 599–606. doi:10.1080/00213624.1988.11504790. ISSN   0021-3624. JSTOR   4226018.
  21. Kennan, George Frost (1997). At a Century's Ending: Reflections 1982–1995. W.W. Norton and Company. p. 118. ISBN   978-0393316094.
  22. Nicastro, Luke. The U.S. Defense Industrial Base: Background and Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service. October 12, 2023. Pp. 4-5. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47751
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Lynn III, William (2017). "The End of the Military-Industrial Complex". Foreign Affairs. 93: 104–110 via EBSCOhost.
  24. Pilisuk, Marc; Hayden, Thomas (July 1965). "Is There a Military Industrial Complex Which Prevents Peace?: Consensus and Countervailing Power in Pluralistic Systems". Journal of Social Issues. 21 (3): 67–117. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1965.tb00506.x. ISSN   0022-4537.
  25. Moskos, Charles C. Jr. (April 1974). "The Concept of the Military-Industrial Complex: Radical Critique or Liberal Bogey?". Social Problems. 21 (4): 498–512. doi:10.2307/799988. ISSN   0037-7791. JSTOR   799988.
  26. Schwarz, Elke (January 20, 2025). "Silicon Valley venture capital blowing up the US defense industry". Asia Times. Retrieved May 7, 2025.
  27. Sindreu, Jon. "How Silicon Valley and a New Pentagon Strategy Are Breaching the Defense Business". WSJ. Retrieved May 7, 2025.
  28. Kinder, Tabby (June 20, 2023). "Silicon Valley VCs rush into defence technology start-ups". Financial Times. Retrieved May 7, 2025.
  29. Gholz, E. (January 6, 2011). "Eisenhower Versus the Spin-off Story: Did the Rise of the Military-Industrial Complex Hurt or Help America's Commercial Aircraft Industry?". Enterprise and Society. 12 (1): 46–95. doi:10.1093/es/khq134. ISSN   1467-2227.
  30. Assis, Ana; Tian, Nan; Lopes da Silva, Diego; Liang, Xiao; Scarazzato, Lorenzo; Béraud-Sudreau, Lucie (April 2023). "Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2022". Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Stockholm. doi: 10.55163/pnvp2622 .
  31. Plumer, Brad (January 7, 2013), "America's staggering defense budget, in charts", The Washington Post
  32. Gpoaccess.gov Archived 2012-01-07 at the Wayback Machine
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  35. Jen DiMascio (September 27, 2010). "Defense goes all-in for incumbents - Jen DiMascio". POLITICO.
  36. "Biden signs record $886 billion defense bill into law". Axios. December 23, 2023.
  37. "Top 100 | Defense News, News about defense programs, business, and technology".
  38. Pursell, C. (1972). The military–industrial complex. Harper & Row Publishers, New York, New York.
  39. 1 2 Steven Best; Richard Kahn; Anthony J. Nocella II; Peter McLaren, eds. (2011). "Introduction: Pathologies of Power and the Rise of the Global Industrial Complex". The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination. Rowman & Littlefield. p. xvi. ISBN   978-0739136980.
  40. Nicholas Freudenberg (2014). Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health. Oxford University Press. pp. 95–123. ISBN   9780190495374.
  41. Brummer, Matthew (January 2016). "Japan: The Manga Military". The Diplomat. Retrieved January 22, 2016.
  42. "Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment-Network". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  43. "Once We Were Allies; Then Came MICIMATT". consortium news. May 8, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
  44. Holland, Steve; Singh, Kanishka (January 15, 2025). "Biden takes aim at 'tech industrial complex,' echoing Eisenhower". Reuters. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
  45. Falconer, Rebecca (January 16, 2025). "Biden warns against extreme wealth and rise of "tech industrial complex" in farewell address". Axios. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
  46. Johnson, Ted (January 16, 2025). "Joe Biden Warns Of "Tech Industrial Complex" In Farewell Speech: "Americans Are Being Buried Under An Avalanche Of Misinformation And Disinformation"". Deadline. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
  47. Green, Erica L. (January 15, 2025). "In Farewell Address, Biden Warns of an 'Oligarchy' Taking Shape in America". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 16, 2025. The Biden version referred to the "tech-industrial complex," in which he warned of the erosion of truth itself, brought forth by unchecked social media platforms — a reference to Meta doing away with fact-checkers this week — and artificial intelligence.

Sources

Further reading

From the National Archives