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When you reduce it to a simplistic economic take you miss a much broader and graver reality. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a US president and 5-star general no less coi

When you reduce it to a simplistic economic take you miss a much broader and graver reality. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a US president and 5-star general no less coined a phrase for it; "The Military Industrial Complex". Today it's the "Data Industrial Complex", but no matter. In his farewell address to the American nation he noted the tension between the economic prosperity obtained by armaments with the dangerous "acquisition of unwarranted influence".

psunavy03 3y ago
While Ike had a point, that point is also usually blown way the hell out of proportion by people with zero experience in foreign relations, national security, or the military itself. Usually to make some ideological point it's arguable whether Ike himself would have agreed with. We're seeing right before our eyes why a defense sector is a crucial part of a Western democracy's economy, and if the struggles to keep Ukraine in the fight don't convince people, just wait until Xi Jinping gets a bug up you-know-where about Taiwan.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  In my philosophy one should not dismiss the words of an intelligent or experienced person because other fools misunderstood them. I think you're right that naive people adopted Eisenhower's slogan as a banner for their own, sometime quite nutty theories. "Military Industrial COmplex" has such a theatrically sinister sound to it doesn't it? It almost immediately conjures an image of the Death Star. But I'm interested here in the point that this highly credible figure did make, and why, and that it's ever more important today in a world where kinetics and geophysical boundaries mean less than networks of business and financial relations. As a pro-defence person, I sometimes use the example of the Claymore mine to explain this to hawkish, but simplistic thinkers; On one side it has the words "THIS SIDE TOWARDS ENEMY" written in large clear letters. One can only cringe at the misadventures preceding that necessity, but I think the same needs writing on a lot of other technologies. > a defense sector is a crucial part of a Western democracy's economy, More. A defence sector is a crucial part of any nations existence. It is deflating that to a mere "economy" that is problematic. Because a bad defence sector can serve an economy while undermining an existence. That's happens when, through expedient financial alliances with the wrong sorts you end up with the pointy end facing towards your own people and not the enemy.

psunavy03 3y ago

While Ike had a point, that point is also usually blown way the hell out of proportion by people with zero experience in foreign relations, national security, or the military itself. Usually to make some ideological point it's arguable whether Ike himself would have agreed with. We're seeing right before our eyes why a defense sector is a crucial part of a Western democracy's economy, and if the struggles to keep Ukraine in the fight don't convince people, just wait until Xi Jinping gets a bug up you-know-where about Taiwan.

nonrandomstring 3y ago
In my philosophy one should not dismiss the words of an intelligent or experienced person because other fools misunderstood them. I think you're right that naive people adopted Eisenhower's slogan as a banner for their own, sometime quite nutty theories. "Military Industrial COmplex" has such a theatrically sinister sound to it doesn't it? It almost immediately conjures an image of the Death Star. But I'm interested here in the point that this highly credible figure did make, and why, and that it's ever more important today in a world where kinetics and geophysical boundaries mean less than networks of business and financial relations. As a pro-defence person, I sometimes use the example of the Claymore mine to explain this to hawkish, but simplistic thinkers; On one side it has the words "THIS SIDE TOWARDS ENEMY" written in large clear letters. One can only cringe at the misadventures preceding that necessity, but I think the same needs writing on a lot of other technologies. > a defense sector is a crucial part of a Western democracy's economy, More. A defence sector is a crucial part of any nations existence. It is deflating that to a mere "economy" that is problematic. Because a bad defence sector can serve an economy while undermining an existence. That's happens when, through expedient financial alliances with the wrong sorts you end up with the pointy end facing towards your own people and not the enemy.