Abstract
President Eisenhower’s warning that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence” of the military-industrial complex is more relevant today than when it was issued nearly half a century ago. The steadily rising—and now perhaps overwhelming—power and influence of the complex over both domestic and foreign policies of the United States is testament to President Eisenhower’s felicitous advice.
The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a huge arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, and even spiritual—is felt in every city, every state house, and every office of the federal government… In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
—President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 17, 1961
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Notes
Congress of the United States of America, June 1784, as quoted by Sidney Lens, The Military-Industrial Complex (Kansas City, MO: Pilgrim Press and the National Catholic Reporter, 1970), 13.
Chalmers Johnson, “America’s Empire of Bases,” tomdispatch.com (January 15, 2004): <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5537.htm>.
James Cypher, “Return of the Iron Triangle: The New Military Buildup,” Dollars and Sense, no. 239 (January/February 2002): 17.
Nicholas Turse, “The Military-Academic Complex: Who’s the Real Champion?” tomdispatch.com (April 27, 2004): <http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1385>.
Summary Federal Budget Tables, fiscal year 2005: <Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.>; Robert Higgs, “The Defense Budget Is Bigger than You Think,” The San Francisco Chronicle (January 18, 2004): <http://www.independent.org/tii/news/031222Higgs.html>.
Carlton Meyer, “Slash Military Spending,” G2mil, The Magazine of Future Warfare (October 2003): <http://www.g2mil.com/Oct2003.htm>.
Carlton Meyer, “Freeze the Military Budget,” G2mil, The Magazine of Future Warfare (March 2004): <http://www.g2mil.com/Mar2004.htm>.
Matt Moore, “Global Military Spending Soars,” veteransforpeace.org (June 9, 2004): <http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Global_military_060904.htm>.
Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004), 57.
Kelly Patricia O’Mear, “Rumsfeld Inherits Financial Mess,” InsightMagazine.com (August 2001); as cited by Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 58.
William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, “The Military-Industrial-Think Thank Complex,” Multinational Monitor, 24, nos. 1 and 2 (January/February 2003): <http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03jan-feb/jan-feb03corp2. html#name>.
Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism: Civilian and Military (London: Hollis & Carter, 1959), 463.
Greg Palast, “Adventure Capitalism,” tompaine.com (October 26, 2004): <http://www.tompaine.com/articles/adventure_capitalism.php>.
For more on this issue see, for example, Charley Reese, “War Propaganda,” antiwar.com (May 3, 2004): <http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid= 2453>.
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© 2006 Ismael Hossein-zadeh
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Hossein-zadeh, I. (2006). The Military-Industrial Giant: An Empire in Itself. In: The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983428_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983428_2
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