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

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^[update], 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]

Potential dangers

Whether or not there is, or has ever been, a specific thing that can be accurately described as a military-industrial complex is disputed.^{[43]: 251-252 [44]: 357 [45]: 181-182} However, such an entity would be a direct threat to liberty and thus the possibility has received significant attention.^{[46]: 18 [47]: 173–176} Numerous specific dangers could arise from a military-industrial complex.

The concept of a military-industrial complex is unique to the United States, or at least use of the term with reference to other countries entails significant ambiguity as to the meaning.^[48]: 4 There are several ways in which the U.S. is unique in this regard:

• It allows the armed services to do their own procurement, unlike other countries.^[49]: 10
• According to Linda Weiss, it is unique in lacking an industrial policy designed to favor its arms industry.^[45]: x
• Although many countries have instituted permanent preparedness for war, only the U.S. has gone about this by setting a strategic goal of leading in technology through perpetual innovation.^[45]: 52

Excessive spending

Further information: Military budget of the United States

High levels of military spending may be evidence for the existence of a military-industrial complex,^{[14]: 187 [10]: 190–191} since it is an interest shared by all parties to the complex.^[14]: 187 Concerns over the economic burden of defense feature prominently in American declinism.^[45]: 3

A military-industrial complex uses resources that could instead go towards economically useful products, posing an opportunity cost.^[50]: viii The Soviet Union was an example of this danger where Alexei Kosygin said that underdevelopment of the consumer sector was caused in part by high spending on defense. Andrei Grechko, on the other hand, said that an even larger share of resources should have been devoted to the Soviet military.^[51]: 106 Disagreements over the proper level of military spending sometimes escalate into conflicts where patriotism is pitted against fiscal prudence. Those who suggest that a weapons system is not needed may be painted as traitors. During the Cold War, calls for balance and moderation in the United States were often dismissed as being soft on communism.^{[14]: 40–41}

A high budget deficit during the early 1990s was partially caused by the combination of high defense spending and tax cuts championed by President Ronald Reagan.^[52]: 4 These negative economic effects were foreseen at the beginning of the Reagan administration when it was already clear that the economic stimulus provided by peacetime defense spending was outweighed by opportunity costs.^[53]: 160

Conflicts of interest

A continuing community of interests between the military and industry creates the potential for an old boy network in control of weapons procurement that threatens the public interest.^{[54]: 256–257} This may involve a revolving door dynamic were personnel frequently change their employment between government and private industry, thus making their allegiance unclear.^[47]: 179

The benefits of a standing army are distributed unevenly, and so throughout the history of the US, support has varied by region. For example, naval expansion was supported by Northeasterners to further their interests in commercial shipping during the early 1800s. Coastal Southerners also supported naval spending, but those further inland preferred internal improvements such as canals, railways, and roads. Support for naval expansion became more widespread during the 1840s and 1850s with the rise of Manifest Destiny with special interest in the South.^{[55]: 11–12}

Similarly, the Interstate Highway System was built with federal money partially for national defense, but disproportionately benefited automobile manufacturers, highway contractors, real-estate developers, and highway officials.^{[56]: 133, 145}

Erosion of democracy

The United States Government was designed to avoid tyranny by containing a variety of countervailing forces that check and balance one another. However, concern arose during the Vietnam War that certain segments of society were coming together to dictate national policy. These segments included corporations, military officers, civilian bureaucrats, labor leaders, and scientists.^[57]: 1 The Founding Fathers were specifically concerned about militarism, with George Mason saying “once a standing army is established in any country, the people lose their liberty”.^[46]: 18 A military-industrial complex would be inherently anti-democratic because it would challenge civilian control of the military. Eisenhower worried that some officers embraced, and even sought out, alliances with industry and Congress.^[14]: 40 Political-military decisions could be unduly influenced by jobs and profits and public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite.^{[15]: 15, 20}

A military-industrial complex would be a self-perpetuating system that reinforces its own growth while acting as a force of repression both at home and abroad.^{[50]: vii [58]: 3} Special interest groups that occupy positions of power within the state could be mutually supporting and together wield more power on matters of defense than any countervailing coalition. These groups could either fool themselves into believing that they are furthering the public good or may deliberately deceive the public to further their own interests.^[49]: 5

A military-industrial complex isn't the only sort of militarism with the potential to erode democracy. The Soviet Union^{[59]: 255–256 [60]: 1-6 [61]: 130-131}, Nazi Germany^[62]: 76, and the Empire of Japan^[47]: 172 each had militarist authoritarian governments in the absence of a military-industrial complex.

Escalation of conflict

An escalating spiral of tensions is predicted by military-industrial complex theories. The electorate is expected to become increasingly militant and chauvinistic due to rhetoric emanating from business and military leaders. High levels of arms procurement combined with a belligerent public are then predicted to feed an international arms race.^{[63]: 199 [50]: vii}

Military-industrial complex theories further predict that congressman are pressured to vote for high levels of defense spending and aggressive foreign policies.^[63]: 199 However, no correlation was found between defense spending and defense policy voting by Senators during the 1965-1967 period.^[63]: 219

The arms industry may actively encourage strife, lobby against peace and disarmament, and stir up international suspicions.^[64]: 94 One strategy that the U.S. has embraced for maintaining its defense industrial base without direct subsidies has been to encourage the export of weapons.^{[65]: 7, 11} This has led to large flows of US-made arms into volatile regions such as the Middle East.^[52]: 61 Nations with large stores of arms may be inclined to use them, and the stores themselves may cause friction with neighbors. This danger was noted by Immanuel Kant in Perpetual Peace.^[47]: 174

Further distortions

• A military-industrial complex may generally distort the intended representative and democratic nature of the U.S. political system.^[50]: vii
• High defense spending could give the DoD excessive control over domestic industries.^[50]: vii
• Technological determinism may arise where competition between weapons systems drives relentless development of new weapons, not because they are needed, but because they are possible.^{[14]: 32–33}
• Military funding of academia may distort academic thought.^[58]: 4
• A self-perpetuating military-industrial complex would serve as an obstacle to arms control.^[66]: 25

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.^[67] Another related term is the "iron triangle" in the U.S. – the three-sided relationship between Congress, the executive branch bureaucracy, and interest groups.^[68]

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."^[69] 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.^[70]

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.^[71]

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."^[72] 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.^[73]

In the decades of the term's inception, other industrial complexes appeared in the literature:^{[70]: ix–xxv}

• Animal–industrial complex;^[74]
• Prison–industrial complex;
• Pharmaceutical–industrial complex;
• Entertainment-industrial complex;
• Medical–industrial complex;
• Corporate consumption complex.^[75]

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."^[76]

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.^[77][78][79]

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.^[80] 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

• Economy portal

• List of defense contractors
• List of countries by military expenditures
• Top 100 Contractors of the U.S. federal government
• Corporate statism
• Government contractor
• Marketing of war
• Merchants of death
• Militarism
• Military budget
• Military-civil fusion
• Military-entertainment complex
• Military–industrial–media complex
• Military-digital complex
• Military Keynesianism
• National security state
• Private military company
• Rostec
• Upward Spiral
• War profiteering

Literature and media

• The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives (2008 book by Nick Turse)
• The Power Elite (1956 book by C. Wright Mills)
• War Is a Racket (1935 book by Smedley Butler)
• War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2007 documentary film)
• Why We Fight (2005 documentary film by Eugene Jarecki)

Other complexes or axes

• List of industrial complexes

Miscellaneous

• Last Supper (Defense industry)