The All-Pervasive Military/Security
Complex
The All-Pervasive Military/Security
Complex
The article below by Professor Joan
Roelofs is reproduced with permission from CounterPunch.
The article appeared in the print
edition of CounterPunch Vol. 25, No. 3, and is available online at https://joanroelofs.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/insecurity-blanket.pdf
The article is long but very
important and is worth a careful read. It shows that the military/security
complex has woven itself so tightly into the American social, economic, and
political fabric as to be untouchable. President Trump is an extremely brave or
foolhardy person to take on this most powerful and pervasive of all US
institutions by trying to normalize US relations with Russia, chosen by the
military/security complex as the “enemy” that justifies its enormous budget and
power.
In 1961 President Eisenhower in his
last public address to the American people warned us about the danger to
democracy and accountable government presented by the military/industrial
complex. You can imagine how much stronger the complex is 57 years later after
decades of Cold War with the Soviet Union.
The Russian government, Russian
media, and Russian people desperately need to comprehend how powerful the US
military/security complex is and how it is woven into the fabric of America. No
amount of diplomacy by Lavrov and masterful chess playing by Putin can possibly
shake the control over the United States exercised by the military/security
complex.
Professor Roelofs has done a good
deed for the American people and for the world in assembling such extensive
information documenting the penetration into every aspect of American life of
the military/security complex. It is a delusion that a mere President of the
United States can bring such a powerfull, all-pervasive institution to heel and
deprive it of its necessary enemy.
The Political Economy of the Weapons
Industry
Guess Who’s Sleeping With Our Insecurity Blanket?
By Joan Roelofs
For many people the
“military-industrial-complex (MIC)” brings to mind the top twenty weapons
manufacturers. President Dwight Eisenhower, who warned about it in 1961, wanted
to call it the military- industrial-congressional-complex, but decided it was
not prudent to do so. Today it might well be called the
military-industrial-congressional-almost-everything-complex. Most departments
and levels of government, businesses, and also many charities, social service,
environmental, and cultural organizations, are deeply embedded with the
military.
The weapons industry may be
spearheading the military budget and military operations; it is aided immensely
by the cheering or silence of citizens and their representatives. Here we will
provide some likely reasons for that assent. We will use the common typology of
three national sectors: government, business, and nonprofit, with varying
amounts of interaction among them. This does not preclude, though it masks
somewhat, the proposition that government is the executive of the ruling class.
Every kind of business figures in the
Department of Defense (DoD) budget. Lockheed is currently the largest
contractor in the weapons business. It connects with the worldwide MIC by
sourcing parts, for example, for the F-35 fighter plane, from many countries.
This helps a lot to market the weapon, despite its low opinion among military
experts as well as anti-military critics. Lockheed also does civilian work,
which enhances its aura while it spreads its values.
