CHAPTER THREE
MILITARISM, WAR, AND
TERRORISM
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER THREE
BREAKDOWN
• The Military-Industrial Complex
• Protecting U.S. Economic Interests
Abroad
• Terrorism
• The Effects of Militarism
• Choosing Human Survival
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• The Military-Industrial Complex —
composed of uniformed military,
aerospace-defense industry, civilian
national security managers, and U.S.
Congress and Executive branches.
• The term was coined by President
Eisenhower in his farewell address in
1961 (5 years after Mills wrote the
Power Elite)
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• A ‘complex’ is a set of integrated
institutions that act to maximize their
collective power and get what they desire
as a group.
• The existence of a military industrial
complex post WW2 is evident because
unlike WW1 where the military
establishment was scaled back and
dismantled, after WW2 it continued on war
footing
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Components of the MIC
• 1. Military= huge budgets over 46% of National Budget.
• 2.Industry: Big contracts, protection of overseas facilitiesmultinationals, and raw materials
• 3. Civilian National Security Managers & the Pentagon.
70% of top corporations have members in CFR (Council on
Foreign relations), 85% of top banks as well, protection of
markets, production facilities and raw materials, maintaining
“superior/subordinate” relationship with the periphery (How
do they do that, 3 ways)
• 4. Congress & the Executive Branch: Congress abdicates
always to the Executive where it concerns nation-wide issues
or foreign policy without much debate. Top corporations are
the heart of the system, they are protected. Congress has the
only right to declare war but what happens? Who declares the
war these days?
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• The Power Elite have a ‘coincidence of
interests’ in maintaining a military
industrial complex. They fear that if it was
dismantled and ‘the permanent war
economy’ was converted into a peace-time
economy there would again be a “Great
Depression” type recession, which would
threaten the capitalist world system.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Multinational
– Multinational (transnational) corporations —
companies that operate production and trade
facilities in countries other than their own
– 50% of earnings of most U.S. multinationals depend
on foreign investment- foreign policy is thus designed
in a way that is consistent with protection of their
interests abroad- similar to this is protection of
regimes many of them non-democratic if they
guarantee non-interference with the multinationalsprovision of military aid and sales supplements this as
well.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Foreign Policy- absence of
democracy
• “The absence of democracy in foreign policy is even more
obvious when you consider how much is done secretly by the
President and his advisors, behind the backs of the American
public, as well as behind the backs of their elected
representatives. The list of secret actions includes the CIA’s
overthrow of the government of Iran in 1953, restoring the
Shah to the throne; the invasion of Guatemala and the ousting
of its democratically elected president; the invasion of Cuba in
1961; and the wide range of covert operations in Indochina in
the 1950s and the 1960s, including the secret bombing of
Cambodia…Iran-Contra…etc.”
• (Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence, 1991:127)
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Creating World Wars
Almost immediately after WW2 ended (1945), World War 3 began .
World War 3 (which ended in 1989 with the Malta Summit ) was
mostly a ‘Cold War’ or a series of proxy wars, where not only the U.S.
but the world was militarized and divided into warring camps. Smaller
skirmishes between these warring camps involved "terrorists and
freedom fighters", where one side's terrorist was another's freedom
fighter (Heiner 2006). The Cold War (World War 3) was a continuous
war, a ‘war without end’ or a total war. When World War 3 ended (or
fizzled out with the passing of the Soviet Union), World War 4 was
required through structural precedent in order to prevent changing a
war-time economy, as previously noted.
Preparations for World War 4 began with the First Gulf War in 1991,
stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and the use of the U.S.
trained mujahedeen (from the Soviet Afghan War), a cataclysmic
event, 9/11 and the launching of a Global War on Terrorism, another
‘war without end’ and a World War. Since war is a structural social
problem related to a military industrial complex is peace possible?
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Military
U.S. government’s discretionary
spending on Defense is greater than its
spending on ALL other programs
combined. 2006 represents a further
41% increase over the 2001 spending
Break/Video
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• Resources provided to the military include funds for
public relations to show the public that : 1) It is patriotic
to support the military especially in times of war and 2) to
tell them that various dangers lurk out there that threaten
their “way of life” and the military and its war making is
their only safeguard 3) Success in warfare as the best
advertisement for continued support 4) Using cultural
sensibilities to show that the U.S. always fights ‘just
wars’ (i.e. wars of liberation, defending freedom,
democracy and so on)
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• In part this “public relations” success is achieved by allowing the
public to only see what the military and government want them to
see through embedding reporters with the military and controlling
their output claiming that if they didn’t do that their ‘strategic
advantage’ against the enemy would be lost
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
The Aerospace Defense
Industry
• Militarism is big business
• Livelihood of millions of U.S. workers depends on the
permanent war economy.
• The DoD enters into contracts every year worth
hundreds of billions of dollars. Most contracts go 100
large corporations (over 60%) out of which the top 10
takes the major chunk (2/3rd)
• Top U.S defense contractors: Lockheed Martin, Boeing
Northrup Grumann, General Dynamics, United
Technologies, Raytheon, L-3 Communications etc
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Pentagon Capitalism
• Pentagon Capitalism: the relationship
between the aerospace defense industry
and the DoD
– Unlike the civilian marketplace where there is an
expectation of competition to meet the public’s
demand, in Pentagon Capitalism, most contracts are
awarded without any competition, the amount to be
produced is specified in advance and demand is
guaranteed.
– In order to protect these relationships the aerospace
defense industry is a strong backer of U.S. militarism
around the globe
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
The Community of Interests
• The community of interests between the military and the
aerospace defense industry where each supports the
other in order to preserve itself is further witnessed by
the movement of personnel between these two domains
– EXECUTIVES from the aerospace defense industry have moved
in great numbers to important civilian positions in the DoD
– Top ranking military officers when they retire move into
management positions with the Aerospace defense industries
– This ‘circulation of personnel’ not only creates conflicts of
interests in the workings of government and industry it ensures
that the community of interests of both is protected and a
convergence of world views and organization culture that
supports war and continuous war emerges.
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• In 1969 Senator William Proxmire gave a speech before
Congress (March 24, 1969- 13 years after Mills wrote the
Power Elite) in which he said:
“When the bulk of the (US) budget goes for military purposes:
when 100 companies get 67 percent of the defense contract
dollars, when cost overruns are routine and prime military
weapons contracts normally exceed their estimates by 100 to
200 percent; when these contracts are given by negotiation and
not by competitive bidding; and when the top contractors have
over 2000 retired high ranking military officers on their payrolls;
these are very real questions as to how critically these matters
(of war and peace) are reviewed and how well the public interest
is served.”
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
The National Security Managers
• The Uniformed military is presumably under civilian control with the
DoD
• Responsibility of safeguarding national security and formulating
foreign policy outside of the White House rests with the civilian
executives of the DoD, the state department and CIA.
• Since the ‘military metaphysic’ dominates the diplomacy advocates
are pushed to the background the civilian national security
managers in these three agencies dominate. Whenever there is a
battle between the DoD and the State Department, the DoD often
wins because it has a whole war footing structure supporting it.
• People that occupy the top posts as National Security Managers are
actually top business executives that have floated into these
positions as Dick Cheney from Halliburton and Don Rumsfeld from
Searle etc.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Equating national interest with the
interests of the corporations
• “Defining national interest and protecting national
security are the proper province of business... For a
national Security Manager recruited from the world of
business, there are no other important constituencies to
which he feels a need to respond. (Barnet 1969:89, 100)
– Barnet came to this conclusion after investigating the
background of 91 individuals who had held these
important national security managing positions from
1940-1969 and found that 70 of the 91 were from high
ranking business or finance executive backgrounds.
– Why do you think these people leave the business
world with its high paying jobs to enter government?
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
The Militarized Congress
• The equation of the military industrial
complex and a permanent war economy
(remember this for your exam):
{Uniformed military + Aerospace Defense
Industry + national security managers
(community of interests, interchangibility) +
{hundreds of billions of dollars of tax
payers money (via the militarized
“Congressional” approval)}
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• Most members of Congress support high spending levels
where it concerns military budgets, the debates center around
cutting a very small part of the budget or some small weapons
programs but overall the most of the funds requested by the
first three components of the MIC are granted
• Congressional structure involves interchangeability as well:
many members of Congress (like McCain) are themselves
either veterans of wars or retired officers, many are rich
stockholders in major corporations, those corporations give
jobs to people in the various constituencies that define the
congress members and where power goes the congress is far
behind the top 3 components in public relations and so get
easily bullied.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Protecting U.S. Economic
Interests Abroad
• The Corporate-Governmental Partnership
• Defending the World Against Socialism
• Military Readiness in the Post-Cold War
Era
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Concentration of economic
power
• In 2000, 25 million active business enterprises existed in the
U.S. out of these only 3.8% of the enterprises accounted for
82% of all business. Only 3.8% had net receipts over $1
million.
• In 2000 there were 288506 manufacturing corporations in the
U.S. Out of these the largest 1595 (those with assets over
$250 million) comprised of 76% of the whole
• Such concentration gives great power to these corporations
because the health of the U.S. economy depends on their
functioning. In order to grow and be profitable these
corporations need a ‘market’ bigger than that of the United
States and a labor pool that is less expensive, therefore they
relocate outside the US borders.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• Most U.S. foreign investment has gone to developed
nations, Canada and Western Europe, with
underdeveloped nations getting a smaller proportion of it.
The rate of returns from underdeveloped nations is much
greater. Why do you think that is the case?
– If the economic health of the United States depends on the
profitability and ‘health’ of the largest corporations and if the
health and profitability of the largest corporations depends on
relocation to high rate of return areas like the underdeveloped
nations, that means that the economic health of the United
States depends on its business in underdeveloped nations.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• As a result, the federal government of the US works closely
with these corporations to ensure that their interests abroad
are protected. The national security managers who as we saw
have a background in the business and finance world ensure
that foreign policy is designed not with the interests of the
U.S. public in mind but with their ability to operate profitably in
other countries.
• This form of foreign multinational expansion began after
World War 2, with the Marshall Aid program given to
previously Western industrialized nations that were destroyed
by the war ($13 billion) and involved the reconstruction of the
industrial framework of Europe, which also provided
investment and market opportunities for U.S. corporations.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• Military cooperation proceeded with economic pacts. There
was a creation of NATO in 1949, a pact that called for mutual
cooperation when faced by outside aggression (implying
Soviet aggression), which allowed permanent U.S. military
bases to be maintained in Europe.
• U.S. aid that is given to underdeveloped ‘colored’ countries is
qualitatively different to the Marshall Aid that was given to
Europe. That aid requires:
– U.S. consultants to be hired to assess needs which takes away 30 to 40
per cent of that Aid
– Is in the form of loans that have to be paid back
– Require political leniency in allowing multinational corporations access
to raw materials, low wage labor, lack of control and tax breaks
– Require that goods purchased with that Aid be purchased from the
United States.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• The U.S. controls 46% of the world’s arms
export market, around $13.1 billion a year.
Most of the Aid given to nations is military
aid which is designed to help dictators stay
in power or contain socialist leaders that
might emerge in those nations.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Socialism
• Defending the World Against Socialism:
– What is the threat to the U.S. from socialism?
• As we saw economic interests play a major role in
determining foreign policy
• If industry gets nationalized under socialism what
happens to the multinational corporations that
function overseas?
• Regimes in many countries that are dictatorships
receive support from the U.S. to keep socialist
popular governments from arising
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
The Effects of Militarism
• The Nuclear Club: the number of nations that have nuclear
weapons: U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China, India,
Pakistan, Israel.
• Limited Warfare: the use of conventional weapons and in
geographically specific areas, Vietnam and the Korean war,
the war on Iraq etc . Together with counterinsurgency
warfare- i.e. warfare that utilizes the paramilitary agencies like
the CIA etc to overthrow governments keeps socialism in
check to protect economic interests safe and keeps a ‘world
war’ going in order to meet the structural needs of the U.S.
permanent war economy
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• Limited Warfare, Counter insurgency and
threat of all out nuclear annhialiation is
made possible by a military industrial
complex, a permanent war economy and
an elite that espouses the Military
metaphysic.
– This leads to ever new assessments of
dangers around the world and the terming of
certain nations as ‘rogue states’
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• War: an organized armed conflict between nations
• Terrorism: use of unpredictiable violence as a strategy to gain
political objectives by individuals or groups who have little power
otherwise
– State Terrorism: the use of unpredictible violence against
individuals and groups as a strategy to gain objectives by
circumventing the law.
– Patriotism vs terrorism: what some define as terrorism others
might term patriotism, e.g. the Boston Tea party was described
by American revolutionaries as ‘patriotism’ while it was described
by the British as ‘terrorism’
– The growth of terrorism has social political and economic roots in
a system that excludes the many to benefit the few. Sociologist
C. Wright Mills wrote in the 1950s:
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• After WW2 the assumption was that
military related spending, the continuation
of the permanent war economy would
bring prosperity for the next 30 year cycle.
In this calculation, several constants that
don’t change in the 4 year period were
extended without thought towards the 30
year period…
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• Military Expenditures and the Civilian Economy:
– Big military spending is supported by the idea that war
related spending brings prosperity
– Even though many workers are directly dependent on the
military industries, these industries do not fulfill the basic
needs of the people in the products they make
– Scientific research is oriented away from civilian use to
militarized production resulting in a kind of social ‘brain
drain’
– The U.S. has become dependent on either arms sales
abroad or selling its agricultural products like third world
countries, because civilian industries have deteriorated
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• Social welfare suffers due to military
expenditure:
– In 2003, aircraft procurement by DOD was
$47 billion, in contrast to the temporary
assistance to needy families on which 5
million people depended which was $17
billion
– The threat of Nuclear War:
• Macro problems can affect the life chances of
millions of people
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• 1995 Nuclear Non Proliferation treaty:
suggested that nations who did not have nuclear
weapons promise not to acquire them but the
big powers who have them are allowed to keep
them- this is rigged against smaller weaker
nations and cannot be binding because it allows
certain nations to keep nuclear weapons,
pressurizing leaders of weaker nations that feel
threatened to develop them for the sake of their
survival.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
• Disarmament: outright elimination of
weapons
• Arms control: agreement to stabalize or
reduce the rate of production and
deployment of weapons
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Choosing Human Survival
• How can we confront the institutional
forces that promote militarism?
– Grassroots Movements and Activism
– Steps Toward Disarmament
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.
Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.