Military Industrial Complex

The military-industrial complex is the connections between the government, the 'defense industry' businesses like Northrop Grummen that make the products the military uses (surveillance tech, weapons, aircrafts etc.).

It may sound boring or unimportant, but this inter-dependance between government, military, and private industries is actually quite dangerous and has lead to severe corruption. To understand why, consider the following:

In his 1961 farewell address, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned the public of the nation’s increasingly powerful military-industrial complex and the threat it posed to American democracy. Today, the United States routinely outspends every other country for military and defense expenditures.

In times of war the US government can take over businesses (their factories, farms etc.) and just make what the troops need. However the government usually doesn't do this, and instead pays businesses a ton of tax payer money to make what they need, and the businesses make a huge profit and are very happy.

But then the war ends. And the businesses go "Hey, we made all that money when the government was buying from us, lets keep that shit going"

Now normal people would go "But wait! There's no more war! Why waste tax payers dollars on stuff the military doesn't really need, and will just end up not using - or worse put our troops in more conflicts?"

But businesses are not people. They have to make profit, and the bigger the better. So they say "Fuck you" and use their immense wealth to fund politicians that are likely to support more funding for the military, more military action, and start more conflicts. They usually do this via Super PACs and dark money in almost unlimited amounts. This is legal because the Supreme Court said businesses are people in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and people can donate as much as they want! This means businesses will have far more impact on which candidates succeed or fail than the average person ever could dream of. So politicians kinda have to pander to these businesses if they want to get to office. They can also affect policy through lobbying, bribes, and cutting deals with the department of defense.

But wait! It gets worse!

So once politicians who owe these big defense companies their wins get in office, they allocate more and more (tax payer) money to the military, usually under the guise of patriotism, supporting our troops, fighting a war against terror, stimulating the economy via defense contracts, or some other meaningless slogan. In turn, the military sets up contracts with these businesses, and they get paid handsomely.

Now a couple people saw the flaw in this system and said "woah woah, yall we need some oversight here" and regulatory agencies were created to oversee these businesses and make sure they weren't influencing policies. Which sounds great until you find out that businesses pay the government to fund these agencies, meaning the people meant to be watching the businesses, are being paid by those same businesses. Making all the oversight they do compromised, and highly susceptible to corruption.

The end result? The US funds its military more than double what the next greatest superpower countries do. We have 800 military bases around the world, while most countries, even the powerful ones, have a couple, or none at all. In turn, our country's social services, infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and more are deeply underfunded. Our troops end up in conflicts they never needed to set foot in, and all that excess gear and weapons is sold at a huge loss to local police departments, creating the militarization of police we see today. That's why every cop can have riot gear and a grenade launcher, but hospital workers wear plastic bags during a pandemic.

Short Readings:

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Books:

• The Shock Doctrine