The Five Pillars of the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex

[Jcrowley]

The Five Pillars of the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex
by Rodrigue Tremblay
  
<snip>
 
Wars, especially modern electronic wars, are very murderous, but they are also synonymous with big cost-plus contracts, big profits and big employment for those who produce the required military gear. Wars are the paradise of profiteers. —Wars are also a way for mediocre politicians to monopolize both the news and the media in their partisan favor by whipping up patriotic fervor and by pushing for narrow-minded nationalism. Indeed, to inflame patriotism and nationalism is an old demagogic trick used to dominate a nation. When that happens, there is a clear danger that democracy and freedom will be eroded, and even disappear, if that development leads to an exacerbated concentration of power and political corruption.
 
<snip>
 
1. The U. S. military establishment
 
In 1991, at the end of the Cold War, the U.S. defense budget was $298.9 billion. In 2006, that budget had increased to $447.4 billion, and this does not include the $100 billion-plus spent in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It is estimated that American military expenditures represent, at a very minimum, close to half of total world military outlays (48 per cent of the world total in 2005, according to official figures), while the U.S. accounts for less than 5 per cent of world population and about 25 per cent of world total output. —As a percentage, the U.S. military expenses gobble up a minimum of 21 per cent of the total American federal budget (2006=$ 2,144.3 billion). Such a military budget is larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of some countries, such as Belgium or Sweden. —It is sort of a government within a government.
 
In 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense employed 2,143,000 people, while it estimates that private defense contractors employ 3,600,000 workers, for a grand total of 5,743,000 defense-related American jobs, or 3.8% of the total labor force. In addition, there are close to 25 million veterans in the United States. Therefore, it is safe to say that more than 30 million Americans receive checks which originate directly or indirectly from the U. S. military budget. Assuming conservatively only two voting-age people per household, this translates into a block of some 60 million American voters who have a financial stake in the American military establishment. Thus the clear danger of a militarized society perpetuating itself politically.
 
3. The political establishment
 
In the U.S., president George W. Bush, a former oil-man, and Vice President Dick Cheney, as former chairman and C.E.O of the large oil service company Halliburton in Houston (Texas), epitomize the image of politicians devoted to the growth and development of the military-industrial complex. Their administration has expanded the military establishment and they have adopted a militarist foreign policy on a scale not seen since the end of the Cold War and even since the end of World War II. Indeed, under the Bush-Cheney administration, the arms industry has become very profitable. Multi billion-dollar contracts to sell planes and tanks to various countries in an increasingly lawless world are going full swing. Close to two-thirds of all arms exports in the world originate from North America.
  
<snip>
 
In conclusion, it is the conjunction of these five pro-war machines, i.e. the bloated military establishment, the large American arms industry, the Neocon pro-war administration with Congress being strongly under the influence of militarist lobbies, the pro-war think tanks network and the pro-war media propagandists that constitutes the framework of the military-industrial complex, of which President Dwight Eisenhower wisely feared the corrosive influence on American society, forty-five years ago, in 1961.
 
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1038

[undergroundpanther]

1. And each pillar will fall,from

the rot within itself,..and with a push from the left,it falls..I hope after this there will be no more"military industial complex" and no more"full spectrum domination" and no more"global hegemony".

[Karenina]

4. There won't be much else either

once Mother Nature is done... k&r.

[Raster]

2. the bush* administration is brought to you by the American Petroleum

Party and the Military/Industrial Complex. When Eisenhower had his Cassandra moment, he had something just like bushco* firmly in mind. These folks don't just plunder and pillage. They strip mine.

[ShortnFiery]

3. K & R! n/t

[tex-wyo-dem]

5. Very important post....

speaks volumes for why the Bush cabal behaves the way is does.

It all comes down to the bottom line: War is enormously profitable...literally trillions of dollars at stake.

Everyone needs to see the movie "Why We Fight":

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

[teryang]

6. two points need to be made on this military industrial analysis

The interests of Armed Forces personnel are not always congruent with those of defense contractors. While senior officers may find a place at the profiteer table if they play the yes man role sufficiently, the military industrial complex is differentiated at the uniformed level. The Army and the Marine Corps are the most different because they bear the brunt of war and have the lowest allocation of defense contractor dollars. When their needs for resources increase, their equipment doesn't get repaired or replaced at least not when it is needed. The Navy Department and Air Force Department are more contractor friendly because of their higher, high ticket procurement contracts, which provide the biggest profits.

The war on terra and the war on Iraq are waged separately from the fixed overhead costs of ridiculous cold war programs that the contractors love and will never give up. Operational war costs provide political cover for these mostly unnecessary cold war pink elephants. The cover is ostensibly provided when massively expensive armadas and air forces are moved to forward areas to fight the "war on terra." This presupposes that task forces, armies, and entire air wings are required to fight "terrorists." The notion is ridiculous on its face. As I understand recent reports such armadas are headed to the levant, Arabian sea, and Persian gulf now to conduct "anti-terrorist" exercises.

Politically, the Army is most differentiated because of its orientation toward the realities of ground warfare, and its independence from the Navy and Air Force departments. Yet, its budget needs for war operations are placed (in a sense) off budget, so that the old super expensive cold war programs of the other two services won't be disturbed. Rumsfeld's new "Army lite" and "tooth to tail" hype are meant to take resources away from uniformed personnel that must fight the wars started to gorge the defense contractors and their political mentors, AT THE EXPENSE OF UNIFORMED PERSONNEL, veterans and their families. Now, it's true that many if not most veterans don't understand this. But it is still a fact. The senior Army leadership understands it, and they are a focal point of the opposition to recent quasi fascist developements in Washington. In fact, this is the crux of the uniformed Army- Rumsfeld dispute, which has of late broken out into the open again, due to the recent democratic hearings to publicize the views of recently retired officers.

The Army as the institutional victim of war profiteers and demogogues and its response thereto is really classic. The Wehrmacht had a similar institutional response to Hitler and Goring. The problem for the Army as an institution is that it is a prisoner of its traditions and an unlikely candidate for political resistance to civilian political authority supported by the other services. (On the other hand, the US Army is the institution of our government which traditionally defined the law of armed conflict and the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. They are totally at odds with the administration definitions because they know they are being corrupted by them.) This is the real reason Rumsfeld won't increase Army ground forces to levels needed to accomplish the kind of war missions they allegedly have been sent to accomplish. Should he do so, the air and naval branches would be eclipsed and the contractors would suffer, and Army political power in opposition to neo-con (fascist)policies would be enhanced. Better to farm out traditional Army functions to mercenaries and contractors.

A second dimension that this article doesn't deal with goes way beyond the traditional concept of the danger of the military industrial complex (the better phrase is Pentagon industrial complex).
The second dimension is the current conception of intelligence and the so called intelligence reform effort. It is a labyrinthine hall of mirrors, the spinning off of countless covert, independent and unnaccountable groups, who are in the words of Cheney, taking off the gloves. Many of these groups are private, lying in the corporate sector, sponsored by government (mostly DoD) intelligence functions of uncertain organizational origin. Many of these countless unnaccountable groups are listening to phone calls, monitoring emails and web sites, kidnapping hapless persons, murdering and torturing others, ripping off the taxpayers, conducting secret operations with warlords, turncoats, drug dealers, gun runners, dishonest bankers and businessmen, terrorists, etc. Many of them are distributing an avalanche of false news releases here and abroad, instigating terrorist events, and building phony histories, evidence and propaganda of terrorist legends for domestic and international consumption. This shadow world is "making history." This is reminiscient of the work of nazis such as Rheinhard Heydrich and his ilk in the events leading up to WWII. Much of it is modeled in CIA activities in Europe and Latin America in the past. The difference now is that it is totally out of control. It has been used to facilitate the attack on the World Trade Center and the anthax attacks on the Congress and the media. These so called intelligence functions, public information activities, and preemptive provocation special operations groups, are proliferating and being used to advance the fortunes of machiavellian characters in the regime, the intelligence community and the corporate sector. They are a threat to the Constitution and are totally out of control. This is a telltale characteristic of a developing dictatorship and totalitarian rule.