What was President Eisenhower referring to when he coined the term "military-industrial complex"?
1 Answer
See below
Explanation:
He claimed that an oligarchy had emerged due to the development of war economy. Indeed the Cold War forced the federal government to keep the defence budget very high it meant that some industries boomed and prospered. Those were industries whose production was connected with war. Such industries have their productions located in California and Texas and other states.
The military industrial complex is not only based on making war material such as bombs or war aircrafts, it also recruited in the universities to recruit and train more engineers and also specialists in other fields such as geopolitics in order to convince the public. Henry Kissinger is an example of a Harvard graduate who devoted his life to defending the military industrial complex both in the media and as an advisor.
The military industrial complex has lobbied for wars for over sixty years and it has worked, connections between this complex and secretaries of state and advisors can be found (Cheney, Mc Namara, Dulles) and explains virtually all the wars America has been involved in the last 100 years. The US has the biggest military presence worldwide(around 900 military bases in 130 different countres in 2012), the purpose of such an occupation is to make that the dollar remains the World reserve currency.
American corporation cannot thrive if the dollar does not keep that status, and it means forcing countries to buy oil in dollars (it is called the Petrodollar), this is why so many American bases are present in the Persian Gulf where plenty of oil can be found. Saddam Hussein and Gaddhafi were overthrown because they opposed that order.
