| Military-industrial Complex |
Website Links For Complex |
Information AboutMilitary-industrial Complex |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX | |
| dwight d. eisenhower | |
| military economics | |
| military industry | |
| political economy | |
|
The term military-industrial complex (MIC) refers to a close and Symbiotic relationship among a nation's Armed Forces , its Private Industry , and associated Political and commercial interests. In such a system, the military is dependent on industry to supply material and other support, while the defense industry depends on government for revenue. The term is most often used in reference to the United States , where it gained popularity after its use in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower . As Pejorative terms, the "MIC" or the " Iron Triangle " refer to an institutionalised Collusion among Defense Contractor s (industry), The Pentagon (military), and the United States Government ( Congress , Executive Branch ), as a Cartel that works against the Public Interest , and whose motivation is Profiteering . The sociologist C. Wright Mills had in the book '' The Power Elite '', described how an elite consisting of men from the higher circles of Economic, Military and Political order were the real rulers, beyond democratic control. In an earlier draft of this farewell address, term read military-industrial-congressional complex. When Congressional leaders saw it, they requested that he remove ' Congressional ' and Eisenhower did. HISTORY According to historian William H. McNeill , the 2nd modern MICs arose in Britain and France in the 1880s and 1890s. The naval rivalry between these two powers was of utmost significance in the fermentation, growth and development of these MICs. Conversely, the existence of these two nations' respective MICs may have been the source of these military tensions. Officers like John Fisher influenced the shift toward faster technological integration (which meant closer relationships with private, innovative companies). Similar MICs soon followed in nations like Germany , Japan , and the United States. Industrialists who played a part in the arms industry of this era included Alfred Krupp , Samuel Colt , William Armstrong , Alfred Nobel , and Joseph Whitworth . Technology has always been a part of War fare. Neolithic tools were used as weapons before recorded history. The Bronze Age and Iron Age saw the rise of complex industries geared towards the manufacture of weaponry. These industries also had practical peacetime applications, as well. However, it was not until the 19th or 20th century that military weaponry became sufficiently complicated as to require a large subset of industrial effort solely dedicated to warfare. Firearms , Artillery , Steamships , and later Aircraft and Nuclear Weapons were markedly different from medieval Sword s -- these new weapons required years of specialized labor, as opposed to part-time effort. Furthermore, the length of time necessary to build large weapons required pre-planning and construction even during times of peace. This trend of coupling some industries towards military activity gave rise to the concept of a "partnership" between the military and private enterprise. In the case of the United States, it is difficult to estimate the degree of dependence of the U.S. economy on its military and defense spending, but it is clearly enormous, and legislators fiercely resist defense cuts that affect their districts. In Washington State, an economist estimated in 2002 that in Western Washington 166,000 jobs, or about 15% of the workforce, depended directly or indirectly on military installations alone, not counting defense industries. In Washington State overall in FY2001, about $7.06 billion arrived in U.S. Department of Defense payroll, pensions, and procurement contracts—and Washington State was only seventh among the fifty states in this regard. Sustaining political support for the military-industrial complex has been a challenge for political élites. In 1977, after the Vietnam war and the Watergate crisis, President Jimmy Carter began his presidency with what historian Michael Sherry has called "a determination to break from America's militarized past" (''In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s'' Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1995 , p. 342). But the so-called "Reagan Revolution" successfully restored the preeminence of the military-industrial complex. By linking what Hugh Heclo of George Mason University has called a sacramental vision of America with the defense establishment, Reagan cloaked the nation and its national security state in the mantle of the Protestant Covenant Theology in a way that has become since the 1980s a shibboleth of the Republican Party—and of large parts of the Democratic Party as well. ORIGIN OF THE TERM The first public use of the term was by the Union Of Democratic Control , formed by Sir Charles Trevelyan in the United Kingdom on 5 August 1914. Point Four of their Pacifist manifesto declared: 4. National armaments should be limited by mutual agreement, and the pressures of the military-industrial complex regulated by the nationalisation of armaments firms and control over the arms trade.DeGroot, Gerard J. Blighty: British Society in the Era of the Great War, 144, London & New York: Longman, 1996, ISBN 0-582-06138-5 on January 17 , 1961 :
In the penultimate draft of the address, Eisenhower initially used the term ''military-industrial-congressional complex'', and thus indicated the essential role that the United States Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry. But, it is said, that the president chose to strike the word ''congressional'' in order to placate members of the legislative branch of the federal government. The actual authors of the term were Eisenhower's speech-writers Ralph Williams and Malcolm Moos .Griffin, Charles "New Light on Eisenhower's Farewell Address," in Presidential Studies Quarterly 22 (Summer 1992): 469-479 , they are much less relevant to the current era." Contemporary students and critics of American 's book concerning Private Military Companies illustrates contemporary ways in which industry, particularly an information-based one, still interacts with the U.S. Government and the Pentagon.Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003. The expressions Permanent War Economy and War Corporatism are related concepts that have also been used in association with this term. The term is also used to describe comparable collusion in other political entities such as the German Empire (prior to and through the first world war), Britain, France and (post-Soviet) Russia . CULTURAL REFERENCES
SEE ALSO
SOURCES
NOTES FURTHER READING
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|