January 17, 2011 - The term "military-industrial complex" entered the Amerikan lexicon 50 years ago today, when President Dwight Eisenhower warned of its dangers in an unusually frank farewell speech to the nation.
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience," Ike said in a televised address on January 17, 1961. "The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society."
The president added, "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
For years, that warning - issued by a hero of World War II and a Republican president - was heralded by anti-war activists as a sign that "the very structure of our society" was indeed threatened by the merger of weapon-making and profit.
In 2011, as the U.S. - with some 5% of the world's population - spends nearly half of all the money spent in the world on defense, the warning seems prescient to some - and perhaps even too tame for others.
At The Independent, Rupert Cornwell argues that Ike had it right.
Adjusted for inflation, U.S. national security spending has more than doubled since Eisenhower left office. Year after year, the defense budget seems to rise - irrespective of whether the country is actually fighting major wars, regardless of the fact that the Soviet Union, the country's former global adversary, has ceased to be, and no matter which party controls the White House and Congress.
But while Cornwell argues that things could actually be worse - the U.S. spends about 4% of its GDP on national security, compared to about a third for the Soviet Union prior to its collapse - others argue that the U.S. situation has outgrown even what Eisenhower imagined.
The military-industrial complex "has become a ‘Permanent War State,’ with the power to keep the United States at war continuously for the indefinite future," writes Gareth Porter at FireDogLake.
