The Military–Industrial Complex: 1961–2011

What do George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower have in common? Both made memorable farewell speeches. Washington said the U.S. must “…avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.”

Eisenhower went further. Fifty years ago he warned against “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex.”

This phrase almost immediately entered the political lexicon and was widely interpreted as meaning that a permanent ruling class, encompassing the Pentagon and its corporate suppliers, was on the verge of controlling the American government, even in peacetime.

Ike was far from a peacenik but a solid Cold Warrier who, like his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, believed in massive retaliation and even opposed containment of the Soviets. He was a firm supporter of the domino theory and of the Vietnam war, both under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. The purpose of his remarks was merely to prevent the military from wasting money.

Source: David Greenberg in Slate, January 14

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Is President Obama a tool of the military–industrial complex? He firmly denounced the Iraq war from the beginning, but during his presidential campaign he made the war in Afghanistan his war because, unlike Iraq, he considered it a “good” war. But many analysts at the time took the view that the war, even though it followed 9/11 and was a NATO enterprise, was not winnable and that the reasons prompting the exit from Iraq also applied to Afghanistan. Why did he not agree with them?

Probably because he assumed the Pentagon would not agree with them. He believed that without its support he would not be able to implement the policies that he considered essential.

Obama no doubt knew all about the threat General MacArthur posed to the Truman administration.

The truth is that no government, anywhere in the world, unless it has in place solid civilian controls, can be effective without the support of its military–industrial complex.