How powerful are American arms dealers?
World War II changed many things in America forever. One is that the huge American war machine has been built and has become a permanent part of American life; Once the structural connection and relationship between the war machine and its economic system are firmly established, there is no possibility of a comprehensive retrogression.
At the end of the 1920s, the United States fell into the Great Depression, and the various stimulus plans implemented by Roosevelt's New Deal during the period of 10 did not really get the United States out of trouble. It was because of the huge demand for military industry in World War II that the American economy really got rid of the Great Depression and returned to prosperity. This situation will naturally encourage the so-called "military Keynesianism", that is, the idea and logic that military spending leads to economic expansion (rather than extracting economic resources).
The public opinion atmosphere in the United States has also changed greatly because of the war. Before the war, the accusations and fears against arms dealers seemed to vanish overnight, because the war made American private military industry win the reputation of "democratic arsenal" at home and abroad, and its huge production capacity played an undeniable role in defeating fascism.
The cold war further strengthened all these trends. In the whole 50-year arms race, the private military industry of the United States entered the longest golden period in history, while the small-scale state-owned arms industry that existed from the founding of the People's Republic of China to World War II disappeared in the privatization movement in the 1950s.
This process reflects the economic and technological laws of modern military machinery: the R&D and production of modern military equipment must integrate the resources and capabilities of many industries and industrial fields, but the inherent self-sufficiency and closeness of the enterprises affiliated to the military service make it unable to meet the efficiency requirements.
This process also reflects the growth of the private sector's right to speak: it urges Congress and the government to "privatize" public military enterprises on the grounds that they are inefficient and do not conform to the principle of "free enterprise system" in the United States, thus eliminating their weak competitors.
In this way, during most of the Cold War, about 40% to 50% of the US government budget went to the private sector, and the military-industrial complex formed and existed for a long time.
On the one hand, General Dynamics Company, Lockheed Company, General Electric Company, McDonnell Douglas Company, AT&T Company, Boeing Company, Rockwell Company, General Motors Company, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and other large companies involved in military production to varying degrees, on the other hand, the Ministry of National Defense and its US military under its jurisdiction form the basic relationship of the military complex on the basis of the "buyer-seller" contractual relationship.
Important emerging industrial fields in the United States after the war, such as aviation, aerospace, energy, electronics, information technology, bioengineering, etc. Are closely related to national defense contracts. Take IBM as an example. /kloc-in the 1950 s, half of the income came from the Ministry of national defense.
In the strengthened relationship between the government, the army and the industry, there are complex public relations activities and informal interpersonal networks in addition to clear contracts. The Enterprise Department deliberately conducts so-called "market intelligence" activities aimed at the Pentagon, and obtains information and contacts on the arms purchase plan by making friends with officials of the Ministry of National Defense.
A special survey conducted by the House of Representatives from 65438 to 0959 found that military enterprises did consciously adopt the "banquet persuasion strategy". Due to the special weight of Congress in the distribution of weapons, the business community often adopts a strategy, that is, lobbying a key member of Congress before submitting a new weapons plan to the Pentagon to gain an early favorable position in its weapons plan. Since the late 1950s, people have paid special attention to the revolving door between the army and enterprises.
1969, a special committee of the Senate found through investigation that the largest 100 enterprises involved in military order contracts employed more than 2,000 retired officers with more than colonels. These veterans have easy access to the army and the Pentagon, and their influence on the arms purchase plan can be imagined.
It is not uncommon for people to flow from business to government agencies. Wilson, general manager of General Motors, and McNamara, general manager of Ford Motor Company, served as defense ministers during Eisenhower and Kennedy, respectively, which are two most prominent examples.
In fact, the military-industrial complex can hardly be regarded as an interest group in the usual sense, but a comprehensive relationship network composed of many factors. In addition to the relationship between enterprises and the government and the army, it also contains or involves other elements and phenomena.
In Washington, besides the Pentagon, there are also many activities on Capitol Hill, including at least members of Congress related to the interests of the military industry and lobbying groups representing the military industry. States (such as California), cities and communities, and trade unions in industries and enterprises related to national defense are highly consistent with the interests of military enterprises.
There are various think tanks and consulting companies for the Pentagon inside and outside Washington. They undertake research project contracts on military technology, policies and strategies from the military or the government, and Rand Corporation is one of the most famous ones. Across the country, more than a dozen national laboratories and technology centers with stable contractual relations with the Ministry of Energy often participate in military technology projects.
However, various research institutions and scholars in universities that undertake research contracts from the Pentagon are often considered to be part of the "military-industrial-academic complex" (in fact, military institutions are intertwined with knowledge and academic fields, so that some people think that the term "military-industrial-academic complex" should be used to explain the problem).
Military-industrial complex reshapes America
The existence of the military-industrial complex has injected new factors into American politics, economy and society, and also partially reshaped its power elite system. It squeezes the arrangements and practices that Americans are used to, and squeezes the principles and beliefs they uphold, thus causing anxiety, discomfort, and even anxiety and crisis. Eisenhower's theory of military-industrial complex reflects the tangled emotions and complex mentality of American society in the face of this change.
Since Eisenhower's farewell speech, the existence of the military-industrial complex has not been greatly impacted, but the attention of American society has not disappeared. Congress and other institutions have conducted many related investigations. The criticism of the military-industrial complex in the late Vietnam War was once very intense and extensive. In the post-cold war period, the United States launched many local wars, and related disputes often involved the influence of the military-industrial complex.
On the whole, however, the military-industrial complex has been deeply embedded in the open and pluralistic social and economic system of the United States, and it has also been supervised and balanced by American society, and has not caused the serious imbalance of power structure and the excessive militarization of social economy that Eisenhower and others were worried about.
However, people in the United States and other parts of the world still have reason to feel uneasy and even ominous about its existence and influence, because it is the most basic and difficult substantive force to maintain and expand the world's largest war machine. The military-industrial complex is attached to a military tradition and strategic culture cultivated by the United States after World War II and the Cold War, and a unique temperament of the United States that mixes the styles of soldiers, company managers and technical experts.