Military–industrial complex

The expression military–industrial complex (MIC) describes the relationship between a country's military and the defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy.[1][2][3][4] A driving factor behind the relationship between the military and the defense corporations is that both sides benefit—one side from obtaining weapons, and the other from being paid to supply them. The term is most often used in reference to the system behind the armed forces of the United States, where the relationship is most prevalent due to close links among defense contractors, the Department of Defense, and politicians.[5][6] The expression gained popularity after a warning of the relationship's harmful effects, in the farewell address of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961.[7] The term has also been used in relation to Russia, especially since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Origin of the term

In his farewell address, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned U.S. citizens about the "military–industrial complex".
Eisenhower's farewell address, January 17, 1961. The term military–industrial complex is used at 8:16. Length: 15:30

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the term in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction... This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. 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. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. 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.[8] [emphasis added]

The speech was authored by Ralph E. Williams and Malcolm Moos and was foreshadowed by a passage in the 1954 book Power Through Purpose coauthored by Moos. The degree to which Eisenhower and his brother Milton shaped the speech is unclear from surviving documents. Planning commenced in early 1959; however, the earliest archival evidence of a military–industrial complex theme is a late-1960 memo by Williams that includes the phrase war based industrial complex. A wide range of interpretations have been made of the speech's meaning. [9]

While the term military–industrial complex is often ascribed to Eisenhower, he was neither the first to use the phrase, nor the first to warn of such a potential danger.[10]: 15  Attempts to conceptualize something similar to a modern "military–industrial complex" did exist before 1961, as the underlying phenomenon described by the term is generally agreed to have emerged during or shortly after World War II.[11] For example, a similar phrase was used in a 1947 Foreign Affairs article in a sense close to that it would later acquire, and sociologist C. Wright Mills contended in his 1956 book The Power Elite that a democratically unaccountable class of military, business, and political leaders with convergent interests exercised the preponderance of power in the contemporary West.[10][12][11]

United States

Some sources divide the history of the United States military–industrial complex into three eras.[13]

First era

From 1797 to 1941, the U.S. government only relied on civilian industries while the country was actually at war. The government owned their own shipyards and weapons manufacturing facilities which they relied on through World War I. With World War II came a massive shift in the way that the U.S. government armed the military.

In World War II, the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Production Board to coordinate civilian industries and shift them into wartime production. Arms production in the U.S. went from around one percent of annual Gross domestic product (GDP) to 40 percent of GDP.[13] U.S. companies, such as Boeing and General Motors, maintained and expanded their defense divisions.[13] These companies have gone on to develop various technologies that have improved civilian life as well, such as night-vision goggles and GPS.[13]

Second era (Cold War)

The second era is identified as beginning with the coining of the term by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This era continued through the Cold War period, up to the end of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The phrase rose to prominence in the years following Eisenhower's farewell address, as part of opposition to the Vietnam War.[14]: 21 [15]: 10  John Kenneth Galbraith said that he and others quoted Eisenhower's farewell address for the "flank protection it provided" when criticizing military power given Eisenhower's "impeccably conservative" reputation.[16]: 283 

Following Eisenhower's address, the term became a staple of American political and sociological discourse. Many Vietnam War–era activists and polemicists, such as Seymour Melman and Noam Chomsky employed the concept in their criticism of U.S. foreign policy, while other academics and policymakers found it to be a useful analytical framework. Although the MIC was bound up in its origins with the bipolar international environment of the Cold War, some contended that the MIC might endure under different geopolitical conditions (for example, George F. Kennan wrote in 1987 that "were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military–industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented.").[17] The collapse of the Soviet Union and the resultant decrease in global military spending (the so-called 'peace dividend') did in fact lead to decreases in defense industrial output and consolidation among major arms producers, although global expenditures rose again following the September 11 attacks and the ensuing "War on terror", as well as the more recent increase in geopolitical tensions associated with strategic competition between the United States, Russia, and China.[18]

A 1965 article written by Marc Pilisuk and Thomas Hayden says benefits of the military–industrial complex of the U.S. include the advancement of the civilian technology market as civilian companies benefit from innovations from the MIC and vice versa.[19] In 1993, the Pentagon urged defense contractors to consolidate due to the fall of communism and a shrinking defense budget.[13]

Third era

A placard saying that war only benefits the military industrial complex is held by a woman who smiles into the camera. Another protestor holds a peace symbol placard saying "Peace with Iran". Protestors are wearing winter clothing and the trees have no leaves. The background is filled with the walls of brick buildings.
Anti-war protestor with sign criticizing the military–industrial complex

In the third era, U.S. defense contractors either consolidated or shifted their focus to civilian innovation. From 1992 to 1997 there was a total of US$55 billion worth of mergers in the defense industry, with major defense companies purchasing smaller competitors.[13] The U.S. domestic economy is now tied to the success of the MIC which has led to concerns of repression as Cold War-era attitudes are still prevalent among the American public.[20] Shifts in values and the collapse of communism have ushered in a new era for the U.S. military–industrial complex. The Department of Defense works in coordination with traditional military–industrial complex aligned companies such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Many former defense contractors have shifted operations to the civilian market and sold off their defense departments.[13] In recent years, traditional defense contracting firms have faced competition from Silicon Valley and other tech companies, like Anduril Industries and Palantir,[21] over Pentagon contracts. This represents a shift in defense strategy away from the procurement of more armaments and toward an increasing role of technologies like cloud computing and cybersecurity in military affairs.[22] From 2019 to 2022, venture capital funding for defense technologies doubled.[23]

Military subsidy theory

A debate exists between two schools of thought concerning the effect of U.S. military spending on U.S. civilian industry. Eugene Gholz of UT Austin said that Cold War military spending on aircraft, electronics, communications, and computers has been credited with indirect technological and financial benefits for the associated civilian industries. This contrasts with the idea that military research threatens to crowd out commercial innovation. Gholz said that the U.S. government intentionally overpaid for military aircraft to hide a subsidy to the commercial aircraft industry. He presents development of the military Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker alongside the Boeing 707 civilian jetliner as the canonical example of this idea. However, he said that the actual benefits that accrued to the Boeing 707 from the KC-135 program were minimal and that Boeing's image as an arms maker hampered commercial sales. He said that Convair's involvement in military aircraft led it to make disastrous decisions on the commercial side of its business. Gholz concluded that military spending fails to explain the competitiveness of the American commercial aircraft industry.[24]

Connotations in U.S. politics

James Ledbetter and certain other scholars describe the phrase military–industrial complex as pejorative.[25][26][27] Some scholars suggest that it implies the existence of a conspiracy.[28][29][30] David S. Rohde compares its use in U.S. politics by liberals to that of the phrase deep state by conservatives.[31][32][33] Ledbetter further describes the phrase:[34]

In the half century since Eisenhower uttered his prophetic words, the concept of the military–industrial complex has become a rhetorical Rorschach blot—the meaning is in the eye of the beholder. The very utility of the phrase, the source of its mass appeal, comes at the cost of a precise, universally accepted definition.

Russia

Further information: Arms industry of Russia

Russia's military–industrial complex is overseen by the Military-Industrial Commission of Russia. As of 2024, Russia's military–industrial complex is made up of about 6,000 companies and employs about 3.5 million people, or 2.5% of the population.[35] In 2025, nearly 40% of Russian government spending will be on national defense and security.[35] This record-high allocation of 13.5 trillion rubles ($133.63 billion) is more than the spending allocated to education, healthcare, social programs and economic development.[36]

Russia ramped-up weapons production following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and factories making ammunition and military equipment have been running around the clock. Andrei Chekmenyov, the head of the Russian Union of Industrial Workers, said that "practically all military–industrial enterprises" were requiring workers to work additional hours "without their consent", to sustain Russia's war machine.[35] In January 2023, Russia's president Vladimir Putin said that Russia's large military–industrial complex would ensure its victory over Ukraine.[37]

According to Philip Luck of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Russia's war against Ukraine has "created a new class of economic beneficiaries—industries and individuals profiting from the war—who now have a vested interest in sustaining Putin's war economy".[38] Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann refers to this as a new "military–industrial class" whose welfare depends on the continuation of the war.[39] Likewise, Luke Cooper of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform writes that "Russia has created a rent-based military industrial complex whose elites have an interest in large scale military spending". He says that while this military–industrial complex would have an incentive to oppose peace negotiations, "it seems plausible that the militarisation of the economy would remain a priority in a post-war situation regardless", justified by the "threat" from the West.[40]

However, Russia's military–industrial complex has been severely hindered by international sanctions and by the demands of the war in Ukraine. This has highlighted Russia's dependence on Western components. Although Russia has bypassed some sanctions, and its military industry is resilient, this is not sustainable for long.[41]

Connotations in Russian

The connotations of military–industrial complex are different in English and in Russian. The English term implies a coalition of industrial and military interests. The Russian term refers to the military industries taken together as a group, or what is known as a defense industrial base in English.[42]

While there are many references to a Russian or Soviet military–industrial complex, this is partly the result of word-for-word translation that fails to account for the nuances of Russian and English grammar. Voenno-promyshlennyi kompleks [ru] is the Russian term commonly translated into English as military–industrial complex. However, the adjectival voenno- (military) modifies promyshlennyi (industrial) rather than the complex. In other words, it refers to a complex of the interests of military industries; not to the collective interests of military and industry.[42]

Similar terms

See also: Industrial complex and List of industrial complexes

A related term is "defense industrial base" – the network of organizations, facilities, and resources that supplies governments with defense-related goods and services.[18] Another related term is the "iron triangle" in the U.S. – the three-sided relationship between Congress, the executive branch bureaucracy, and interest groups.[43]

A thesis similar to the military–industrial complex was originally expressed by Daniel Guérin, in his 1936 book Fascism and Big Business, about the fascist governments' ties to heavy industry. It would be defined as "an informal and changing coalition of groups with vested psychological, moral, and material interests in the continuous development and maintenance of high levels of weaponry, in preservation of colonial markets and in military-strategic conceptions of internal affairs."[44] An exhibit of the trend was made in Franz Leopold Neumann's book Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism in 1942, a study of how Nazism came into a position of power in a democratic state.

In The Global Industrial Complex, edited by American philosopher and activist Steven Best, the "power complex" first analyzed by sociologist Charles Wright Mills 1956 work The Power Elite, is shown to have evolved into a global array of "corporate-state" structures, an interdependent and overlapping systems of domination.[45]

Matthew Brummer, associate professor at Tokyo's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, has pointed out in 2016 Japan's "Manga Military" to denote the effort undertaken by the country's Ministry of Defense, using film, anime, theater, literature, fashion, and other, along with moe, to reshape domestic and international perceptions of the Japanese military–industrial complex.[46]

James Der Derian's book Military–Industrial–Media–Entertainment Network relates the convergence of cyborg technologies, video games, media spectacles, war movies, and "do-good ideologies" into what generates a mirage, as he claims, of high-tech, and low-risk "virtuous wars."[47] American political activist and former Central Intelligence Agency officer Ray McGovern denounces the fact that, as he claims, American citizens are vulnerable to anti-Russian propaganda since few of them know the Soviet Union's major role in World War II victory, and blames for this the "corporate-controlled mainstream media." He goes on to label the culprits as the Military–Industrial–Congressional–Intelligence–Media–Academia–Think-Tank complex.[48]

In the decades of the term's inception, other industrial complexes appeared in the literature:[45]: ix–xxv 

Tech–industrial complex

In his 2025 farewell address, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden warned of a "tech–industrial complex," stating that "Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power."[51]

The statement was made following Elon Musk's appointment in the second Donald Trump administration and the public overtures towards Trump by technology industry leaders, including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, as well as the dismantling of Facebook's fact-checking program.[52][53][54]

Military–entertainment complex

The scope of the military–industrial complex has broadened to include cultural and media sectors, giving rise to what modern scholarship has dubbed the military–entertainment complex. This term refers to forms of cooperation between military institutions and entertainment industries, in which the military may provide equipment, personnel, technical expertise, or other forms of support to filmmakers, video game developers, and related media producers. In the United States in particular, such collaborations have contributed to films, games, and other media that depict military themes and operations. In some cases, media production has been developed with direct military involvement, such as America's Army, a video game created by the U.S. Army for recruitment and public outreach purposes.[55] Through these interactions, entertainment media can play a role in shaping public understanding of military activities and warfare, extending the influence of military institutions beyond traditional domains such as production and procurement, into areas of cultural and media production.

See also

Literature and media
Other complexes or axes
Miscellaneous

References

Citations

  1. ^ "military industrial complex". American Heritage Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  2. ^ "definition of military-industrial complex (American English)". OxfordDictionaries.com. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  3. ^ "Definition of Military–industrial complex". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  4. ^ Roland, Alex (2009). "The Military–Industrial Complex: lobby and trope". In Bacevich, Andrew J. (ed.). The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II. Columbia University Press. pp. 335–370. ISBN 978-0231131599.
  5. ^ "Ike's Warning Of Military Expansion, 50 Years Later". NPR. January 17, 2011. Retrieved March 27, 2019.
  6. ^ "SIPRI Year Book 2008; Armaments, Disarmaments and International Security" Oxford University Press 2008 ISBN 978-0199548958
  7. ^ Held, David; McGrew, Anthony G.; Goldblatt, David (1999). "The expanding reach of organized violence". In Perraton, Jonathan (ed.). Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. Stanford University Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0804736275.
  8. ^ "President Dwight Eisenhower Farewell Address". C-Span. January 17, 1961.
  9. ^ Ledbetter, James (2011). "5: The Speech". Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military–Industrial Complex. Yale University Press. pp. 106–131. ISBN 978-0-300-15305-7.
  10. ^ a b Ledbetter, James (2011). Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military–Industrial Complex. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15305-7.
  11. ^ a b Brunton, Bruce G. (1988). "Institutional Origins of the Military–Industrial Complex". Journal of Economic Issues. 22 (2): 599–606. doi:10.1080/00213624.1988.11504790. ISSN 0021-3624. JSTOR 4226018.
  12. ^ Riefler, Winfield W. (October 1947). "Our Economic Contribution to Victory". Foreign Affairs. 26 (1): 90–103. doi:10.2307/20030091. JSTOR 20030091.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Lynn III, William (2017). "The End of the Military–Industrial Complex". Foreign Affairs. 93: 104–110 – via EBSCOhost.
  14. ^ Roland, Alex (2021). Delta of Power: The Military–Industrial Complex. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9781421441818.
  15. ^ Ropp, Theodore (1977). "Chapter 1: Nineteenth-Century European Military–Industrial Complexes". In Cooling, Benjamin (ed.). War, Business, and American Society. Kennikat Press. pp. 100–110. ISBN 0-8046-9156-8.
  16. ^ Galbraith, John (1972). "Chapter 20: How to Control the Military". In Pursell, Carroll (ed.). The Military–Industrial Complex. Harper & Rowe. pp. 280–285. ISBN 978-0-06-045296-4. SBN 06-045296-X.
  17. ^ Kennan, George Frost (1997). At a Century's Ending: Reflections 1982–1995. W.W. Norton and Company. p. 118. ISBN 978-0393316094.
  18. ^ a b Nicastro, Luke (September 23, 2024). "The U.S. Defense Industrial Base: Background and Issues for Congress". www.congress.gov. Congressional Research Service. pp. 1, 4–5. Retrieved January 13, 2026.
  19. ^ Pilisuk, Marc; Hayden, Thomas (July 1965). "Is There a Military Industrial Complex Which Prevents Peace?: Consensus and Countervailing Power in Pluralistic Systems". Journal of Social Issues. 21 (3): 67–117. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1965.tb00506.x. ISSN 0022-4537.
  20. ^ Moskos, Charles C. Jr. (April 1974). "The Concept of the Military–Industrial Complex: Radical Critique or Liberal Bogey?". Social Problems. 21 (4): 498–512. doi:10.2307/799988. ISSN 0037-7791. JSTOR 799988.
  21. ^ Schwarz, Elke (January 20, 2025). "Silicon Valley venture capital blowing up the US defense industry". Asia Times. Retrieved May 7, 2025.
  22. ^ Sindreu, Jon (December 29, 2021). "How Silicon Valley and a New Pentagon Strategy Are Breaching the Defense Business". WSJ. Retrieved May 7, 2025.
  23. ^ Kinder, Tabby (June 20, 2023). "Silicon Valley VCs rush into defence technology start-ups". Financial Times. Retrieved May 7, 2025.
  24. ^ Gholz, E. (January 6, 2011). "Eisenhower Versus the Spin-off Story: Did the Rise of the Military–Industrial Complex Hurt or Help America's Commercial Aircraft Industry?" (PDF). Enterprise and Society. 12 (1): 46–95. doi:10.1093/es/khq134. ISSN 1467-2227.
  25. ^ Ledbetter, James (2011). Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military–Industrial Complex. Yale University Press. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-300-15305-7. It seems fair to say that the term "military–industrial complex" is almost always used as a pejorative (even if its best-known usage was arguably neutral, in that Eisenhower warned not against the MIC itself but against its "unwarranted influence").
  26. ^ Roland, Alex (2021). Delta of Power: The Military–Industrial Complex. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 2. ISBN 9781421441818. Perhaps the most consistent and abiding feature of the term "military–industrial complex" is the pejorative flavor that Eisenhower imparted to it.
  27. ^ Brandes, Stuart (1997). Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America (PDF). University Press of Kentucky. p. 6. ISBN 0-8131-2020-9. The word profiteering is disturbingly imprecise and nearly as pejorative as the term military–industrial complex.
  28. ^ Roland, Alex (2021). Delta of Power: The Military–Industrial Complex. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 22. ISBN 9781421441818. The military–industrial complex smacked of conspiracy, and the scientific-technological elite did nothing to dispel the ominous implications of Eisenhower's warning. Six decades later, the opprobrium implied in Eisenhower's language still hangs over the relationship between war, technology, and the state.
  29. ^ Brandes, Stuart (1997). Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America (PDF). University Press of Kentucky. p. 276. ISBN 0-8131-2020-9. The concept of a "military–industrial complex" suggested a mysterious, clandestine conspiracy against the public purse, but not a deliberate plot to stir up war to fatten profits.
  30. ^ Sunseri, Alvin (1977). "Chapter 11: The Military–Industrial Complex in Iowa". In Cooling, Benjamin (ed.). War, Business, and American Society. Kennikat Press. p. 158. ISBN 0-8046-9156-8. The term military–industrial complex ... suggests that a conspiracy exists between military leaders and industrialists; one that is designed to protect their vested interests.
  31. ^ Rhode, David (2020). In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America's "Deep State". W. W. Norton & Company. p. iv. ISBN 9781324003557. To conservatives, the "deep state" is an ever-growing government bureaucracy, an administrative state that they think relentlessly encroaches on the individual rights of Americans and whose highest loyalty is to its own preservation and power. Liberals are less apt to use the term "deep state," but they fear the "military–industrial complex"—a cabal of generals and defense contractors who they believe routinely push the country into endless wars, operate a vast surveillance state, and enrich themselves in the process.
  32. ^ Green, Lloyd (April 26, 2020). "In Deep review: Trump v intelligence – and Obama v the people". The Guardian. Retrieved October 19, 2025.
  33. ^ Gross, Terry (October 19, 2020). "'In Deep' Challenges President Trump's Notion Of A Deep-State Conspiracy". NPR. Retrieved October 19, 2025.
  34. ^ Ledbetter, James (2011). Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military–Industrial Complex. Yale University Press. pp. 5–6. ISBN 978-0-300-15305-7.
  35. ^ a b c "'A lot higher than we expected': Russian arms production worries Europe's war planners". The Guardian. February 15, 2024.
  36. ^ "Russian Lawmakers Pass Spending Bill With Record Defense Budget". The Moscow Times. November 21, 2024.
  37. ^ "Putin: Russian military–industrial might makes victory in Ukraine 'inevitable'". Reuters. January 18, 2023.
  38. ^ Luck, Philip (February 24, 2025). "How Sanctions Have Reshaped Russia's Future". Center for Strategic and International Studies.
  39. ^ Schulmann, Ekaterina (March 2024). "Russia's New Military–Industrial Class". Foreign Policy.
  40. ^ Cooper, Luke (April 2025). "Russo-Ukrainian War: The Political Economy of the Present Balance of Forces" (PDF). PeaceRep: Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform. University of Edinburgh. pp. 20, 42.
  41. ^ Boulègue, Mathieu (July 2024). "Russia's military–industrial complex and military innovation". Chatham House.
  42. ^ a b Harrison, Mark (2003). "Soviet Industry and the Red Army under Stalin: A Military–Industrial Complex?". Cahiers du Monde russe. 44 (2/3). School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences: 323–324. JSTOR 20174777.
  43. ^ Adams, Gordon; D'Onofrio, Christine; Sokoloff, Nancy (1981). The iron triangle: the politics of defense contracting. Studies / Council on Economic Priorities. New York: Council on Economic Priorities. ISBN 978-0-87871-012-6.
  44. ^ Pursell, C. (1972). The military–industrial complex. Harper & Row Publishers, New York, New York.
  45. ^ a b Steven Best; Richard Kahn; Anthony J. Nocella II; Peter McLaren, eds. (2011). "Introduction: Pathologies of Power and the Rise of the Global Industrial Complex". The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination. Rowman & Littlefield. p. xvi. ISBN 978-0739136980.
  46. ^ Brummer, Matthew (January 2016). "Japan: The Manga Military". The Diplomat. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
  47. ^ "Virtuous War: Mapping the Military–Industrial–Media–Entertainment Network". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
  48. ^ "Once We Were Allies; Then Came MICIMATT". consortium news. May 8, 2020. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
  49. ^ Nibert, David (2011). "Origins and Consequences of the Animal Industrial Complex". In Steven Best; Richard Kahn; Anthony J. Nocella II; Peter McLaren (eds.). The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 197–209. ISBN 978-0-7391-3698-0.
  50. ^ Nicholas Freudenberg (2014). Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health. Oxford University Press. pp. 95–123. ISBN 9780190495374.
  51. ^ Holland, Steve; Singh, Kanishka (January 15, 2025). "Biden takes aim at 'tech industrial complex,' echoing Eisenhower". Reuters. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
  52. ^ Falconer, Rebecca (January 1, 2025). "Biden warns against extreme wealth and rise of "tech industrial complex" in farewell address". Axios. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
  53. ^ Johnson, Ted (January 16, 2025). "Joe Biden Warns Of "Tech Industrial Complex" In Farewell Speech: "Americans Are Being Buried Under An Avalanche Of Misinformation And Disinformation"". Deadline. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
  54. ^ Green, Erica L. (January 17, 2025). "In Farewell Address, Biden Warns of an 'Oligarchy' Taking Shape in America". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 5, 2025. The Biden version referred to the "tech–industrial complex," in which he warned of the erosion of truth itself, brought forth by unchecked social media platforms — a reference to Meta doing away with fact-checkers this week — and artificial intelligence.
  55. ^ Allen, Robertson (2017). America's digital army: games at work and war. Anthropology of contemporary North America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-8529-3.

Sources

Further reading

  • Adams, Gordon, The Iron Triangle: The Politics of Defense Contracting, 1981.[ISBN missing]
  • Alic, John A. (2021). "The U.S. Politico–Military–Industrial Complex". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1870. ISBN 978-0-19-022863-7.
  • Andreas, Joel, Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism, ISBN 1904859011.
  • Byrne, Edmund F. (2017). "Military Industrial Complex (MIC)". Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer International Publishing. pp. 1–5. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_209-1. ISBN 978-3-319-23514-1.
  • Cochran, Thomas B., William M. Arkin, Robert S. Norris, Milton M. Hoenig, U.S. Nuclear Warhead Production Harper and Row, 1987, ISBN 0887301258
  • Cockburn, Andrew, "The Military–Industrial Virus: How bloated budgets gut our defenses", Harper's Magazine, vol. 338, no. 2029 (June 2019), pp. 61–67. "The military–industrial complex could be said to be concerned, exclusively, with self-preservation and expansion.... The defense budget is not propelled by foreign wars. The wars are a consequence of the quest for bigger budgets."
  • Cockburn, Andrew, "Why America Goes to War: Money drives the US military machine", The Nation, vol. 313, no. 6 (20–27 September 2021), pp. 24–27.
  • Friedman, George and Meredith, The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the 21st Century, Crown, 1996, ISBN 051770403X
  • Good, Aaron (2022). American Exception: Empire and the Deep State. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 978-1510769137.
  • Hartung, William D.; Freeman, Ben (2025). The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home. Bold Type Books. ISBN 978-1645030638.
  • Hooks, Gregory (2008). "Military–Industrial Complex, Organization and History". Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (2nd ed.). pp. 1278–1286. doi:10.1016/B978-012373985-8.00109-4. ISBN 978-0-12-373985-8.
  • Hossein-Zadeh, Ismael, The Political Economy of US Militarism. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006.[ISBN missing]
  • Keller, William W., Arm in Arm: The Political Economy of the Global Arms Trade. New York: Basic Books, 1995.[ISBN missing]
  • Kelly, Brian, Adventures in Porkland: How Washington Wastes Your Money and Why They Won't Stop, Villard, 1992, ISBN 0679406565
  • Lassman, Thomas C. "Putting the Military Back into the History of the Military–Industrial Complex: The Management of Technological Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1945–1960", Isis (2015) 106#1 pp. 94–120 in JSTOR
  • Mathews, Jessica T., "America's Indefensible Defense Budget", The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 12 (18 July 2019), pp. 23–24. "For many years, the United States has increasingly relied on military strength to achieve its foreign policy aims.... We are [...] allocating too large a portion of the federal budget to defense as compared to domestic needs [...] accumulating too much federal debt, and yet not acquiring a forward-looking, twenty-first-century military built around new cyber and space technologies." (p. 24.)
  • McDougall, Walter A., ...The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age, Basic Books, 1985, (Pulitzer Prize for History) ISBN 0801857481
  • Melman, Seymour, Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War, McGraw Hill, 1970[ISBN missing]
  • Melman, Seymour, (ed.) The War Economy of the United States: Readings in Military Industry and Economy, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971.
  • Mollenhoff, Clark R., The Pentagon: Politics, Profits and Plunder. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1967[ISBN missing]
  • Patterson, Walter C., The Plutonium Business and the Spread of the Bomb, Sierra Club, 1984, ISBN 0871568373
  • Pasztor, Andy, When the Pentagon Was for Sale: Inside America's Biggest Defense Scandal, Scribner, 1995, ISBN 068419516X
  • Pierre, Andrew J., The Global Politics of Arms Sales. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.
  • Preble, Christoper (2008). "Military–Industrial Complex". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 328–329. ISBN 978-1412965804.
  • Roland, Alex (2021). Delta of Power: The Military–Industrial Complex. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9781421441818.
  • Ritter, Daniel P.; McLauchlan, Gregory (2008). "Military–Industrial Complex, Contemporary Significance". Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Second ed.). pp. 1266–1278. doi:10.1016/B978-012373985-8.00104-5. ISBN 978-0-12-373985-8.
  • Sampson, Anthony, The Arms Bazaar: From Lebanon to Lockheed. New York: Bantam Books, 1977.[ISBN missing]
  • St. Clair, Jeffery, Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror. Common Courage Press, 2005.[ISBN missing]
  • Sweetman, Bill, "In search of the Pentagon's billion dollar hidden budgets – how the US keeps its R&D spending under wraps", from Jane's International Defence Review, online
  • Thorpe, Rebecca U. The American Warfare State: The Domestic Politics of Military Spending. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.[ISBN missing]
  • Watry, David M., Diplomacy at the Brink, Eisenhower, Churchill, and Eden in the Cold War, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2014.[ISBN missing]
  • Weinberger, Sharon, Imaginary Weapons, New York: Nation Books, 2006. ISBN 9781560258490.
From the National Archives
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex