They broke ethical norms, but moral concepts remained intact – therefore, despite all the force they committed, they did not violate the foundations of civilization in anything.
Julien Benda, “The Betrayer of the Clerks”[1]
When in his farewell speech, delivered on January 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower formulated a informing against the “unwarranted influence... of the military-industrial complex” [2] he may not have full realized how prophetic he spoke the words. "The possible for catastrophic growth of transferred power exists and will continue. We should never let this combination to endanger our freedoms and democratic processes. We shouldn't accept anything in advance. Only a vigilant and oriented society can counterbalance the mixing of large manufacture and military machinery into our peaceful methods and goals, and make safety and freedom make together"[3]. All Eisenhower's concerns were not only confirmed, but they were realised on a much larger scale.
The key in his words seems to be the wording about misplaced power, a power transferred, or exercised, not where its designated place is. alternatively of public institutions under appropriate control in democratic processes, the expanding influence on the actual decisions gained in his eyes the interplay of interests of the large industry, the military hierarchy and technological centres, which can mutually prosecute their own interests at the expense of the general public. The greater complexity and dependence of these organisations on large financial organisations, the more hard it is to verify them effectively. The problem is besides that the expanding influence of the military-industrial complex means not only the failure of the institutions of power, but besides the demolition of opportunities for improvement or the maintenance of a conscious and critical society. It is becoming little and little crucial to those who exercise real power, and in time it may seem harmful and threatening to their interests.
There is so a extremist contradiction between the military-industrial complex and any thought of democracy.
More than half a century later, we can say that the military-industrial complex has not only developed, but has even absorbed American politics into its authoritative institutions, making only the avatars of erstwhile democracy. All major decisions are made present in the United States on behalf of the interests of 1 or another corp or branch of the market, whether citizens want it or not. For this reason, it is frequently said that there is simply a military-industrial-parliamentary complex, indicating that the political class itself has become part of this mutually conditioned strategy of interests, and that its submission to democratic control is purely façade.
Little wonder, therefore, that the military sector has developed in the United States to be gargantuous in size, creating more than 800 military bases worldwide and a military budget of the next 10 countries taken together.
The U.S. is besides the largest arms dealer in the world, ahead of 5 times the second in the French and 3rd Russia rankings.
Among the 10 largest arms producers in the world, six are US companies, the first 5 of which are exclusively US companies [4]. According to Stephen Semler, the author of a concise and instructive article published by ‘Jacobin’, defence spending has nothing to do with protecting the safety of the country or citizens (not to mention another countries). It is simply a large strategy of "redistribution of wealth" that is to pay out of the public budget the gigantic profits of private corporations. "More than half of the U.S. military budget is transferred to the private sector all year in the form of government contracts", writes Semler.
The effectiveness of the military-industrial complex is based on common exchange of services between policies and this sector.
"Each year, counterparties contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to electoral campaigns, lobbying and prominent think tank". The interlocking interests of the political class and the arms manufacture have consequences for another expenditures, especially those related to social security, education or medical care. The more money the government “brings” into the pockets of its sponsors, the more “saving” it rules in these areas. In 2023, the Pentagon budget is the highest in history, despite the rapidly deteriorating material situation of a increasing part of society.
No wonder that any view the US political strategy as an economics of a permanent war in which the weapons manufacturing manufacture is so large – and its impact on the political class so crucial – that the country must initiate always fresh conflicts so that everyone can come to their own.
The arguments that all of these actions with a defensive function are preposterous and are not confirmed in any conscious version of the story. Suffice to say, during the Cold War, in which the conflict between the 2 planet powers seemed frozen, as a consequence proxy wars At least 20 million people were killed, including 70 percent in the Global South countries [6]. It's the best proof that it's commonly repeated Schlagwort “You want peace, prepare for war” is in fact the legitimacy of a strategy in which all decisions are subject to the material benefits of armed corporations and their satellites. And these are impossible without further damage. In fact, the military-industrial complex can besides make money from the “rebuilding” of countries devastated by conflicts caused by their interests, as can be seen from fresh past (Iraq) or current wars (Ukraine) [7].
Why is specified a clear contradiction at the heart of Western liberal democracy not discussed all day? The answer to that is simple. The military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned against was only the embryo of a corporate attack on democracy, the consequence of which present is the parallel existence of many complexes of a akin nature. There is so talk of an animal-industrial complex liable for expanding meat consumption; a prison-industrial complex, which forms the full strategy of mass incarceration [8]; a pharmaceutical-industrial complex, which is liable for increasing dependence on medical products; a entertainment-industrial complex which makes public perception dependent on mass culture formats. In today's planet of "reverse totalitarianism" [9], all areas of life are subject to the corresponding industrial complexes that manage these segments of collective experience.
All of this, however, begins and ends in a war, which is the starting point and the completion of the full system.
It besides means a silent war against a democratic society, which has been waged by advanced capitalism for years, subjecting the common good to the profits of the richest elite. And to make this full strategy work, you gotta make a full planet where war is normal, attractive, acceptable, even necessary. Therefore, the core of the military-industrial complex must be supplemented with an intellectual component. In a book published last year entitled "Vendre la guerre", Pierre Conesa, French essayist, entrepreneur and erstwhile government admin created the concept of a military-intellectual complex, thus attempting to capture the phenomenon of systemic tamement of us with war. It is not the only or even the first individual seeking this fresh form of corporate governance of society. Just callback James Derian’s book Virtuous War 2 decades earlier. Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network”[10]does Jean Baudrillard’s lyrics [11].
Conesa shows in her book the full strategy of gradually adapting political reality and public opinion to the needs of the arms industry. In fact, it proves that many segments of the marketplace began to request war and associated institutions. Therefore, presenting its concept is best to start with the centres of the military-intellectual complex. All these rich and prestigious organizations, which frequently have the most precious values of human civilization on their names, although their actions are inseparable from the mass death industry. You can call them euphemistically soft power or cultural diplomacy, related to nation branding or another fashionable categories [12]. They will dress up as activists of all oppressed minority, as long as it helps them accomplish their goals. And these, yes, service minorities, but alternatively not 1 that lacks anything. First of all, we are talking about various types of think tanks, which is simply a very correct name for these institutions. They are organizations liable for the systematic militarisation of thinking, its submission to the requirements of corporate power.
Take the Institute for the survey of War, in which the misleading word "studies" should be replaced by a word specified as "promotion" or "propaganda". However, in many countries, including Poland, the information and reports of this institution are treated as if it were an independent analysis of reality, not an component of discourse subject to political objectives. The president of this organization is Kimberly Kagan, privately wife of Frederick Kagan, brother of 1 of the most prominent neoconservative ideologists – Robert. This in turn is married to Victoria Nuland, a associate of respective U.S. government administrations, presently Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs.
Chris Hedges late called this environment late “war pimps” and showed suffering and demolition left behind their careers [13].
A Nuland is inactive doing his best to trigger planet War III in Ukraine. Among the most crucial sponsors of the institute for years were 1 of the largest arms companies in the planet – Raytheon. Today, the symbols of others appear proudly on their website – General Motors and General Dynamics. another prominent organizations of this kind include the Lexington Institute, erstwhile called the “promotional agency of the arms industry” [14] or the Atlantic Council, maintained by, among others, the UK government and corporations in the military or banking sector. According to Stephen Semler, out of the top 50 think tanks in the US, money from arms manufacturers (if only those organizations that make the list of their sponsors public) is collected as much as 79 percent [15]. Does specified a society have any chance of not being in a permanent war?
One of the products of these organizations is so-called. defense intellects, that is, “experts” who have a unusual tendency to agree with each another on all issues affecting global policy. These are fresh sovetologists who, after the collapse of the USSR, had to fill the gap then created and are now experts in terrorism, authoritarianism and any another deadly threat that will increase the request for weapons. Here we come to the second kind of institutions active in the military-intellectual complex, or media. These are besides corporations, dependent on arms companies through ownership system, staff exchange, common interests and environmental knowledge.
Today's mass media "does not control how the government uses its military resources, but influence our perception of war in specified a way as to persuade us to support the military apparatus" [16]
– writes Helen Johnson, author of a five-part analysis of the dependence of corporate media on the arms industry. In the case of the largest tv stations or press titles, it is hard to even talk about mainstream media, which suggests that they represent any balanced or even nonsubjective point of view, shared by a reasonable majority of society. They are simply media establishment representing the interests of the financial and political elite increasingly strengthening their power and increasingly detached from the everyday lives of their societies.
Who gets a voice in these centers? Who speaks on tv on behalf of social interest?
How did they show Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea, on American television, global policy is widely commented upon by people associated with arms companies [17].
The movie Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earl "War Made Easy" (2007) proved this in a strong way, based on Norman Solomon's book under the same title. Defense intellects create, together with corporate media, a kind of resonance box, in which it is hard to find even individual statements not serving the interests of the military-industrial complex. These intellectuals do not present their own revealing thoughts, but repeat the thought shortcuts that will lead the audience to the required conclusions the shortest way.
The speciality of the military-intellectual complex is besides acts of false self-defence. “We haven’t done enough” which always means “we haven’t started a war before” and “we have never been able to solve a diplomatic problem.” It's whipping. post factum is proof that reasoning of the military-intellectual complex is fundamentally circular thinking. due to the fact that the full strategy leads to lamented consequences (war), and then its actors mourn their expected passiveness, washing their hands and clearing their consciences in advance. In specified a war on thinking, any intellectual “should have any Accused” 27, as Cones notes ironically. However, it seems to me that the intellectual of the complex does not attach so much to dissident activity, at least not to the hand that feeds it. First of all, he is individual who can perfectly fake reasoning and in various ways say the same thing and what others have said before him.
The perverse dimension of the complex is that its formulas are always presented as an action for and on behalf of the victims. In fact, they perpetuate competition in victimization, which is well-mobilised to supply an alibi for military interventions, especially since victims are allowed to diabolize and even dehumanize their opponents. Conesa devotes quite a few space in her book ignored by the complex to conflicts and victims that no 1 will put at the centre of attention due to the fact that they are just not useful as part of another war machine. Either they are victims of the complex itself or their temporary and permanent allies.
For those who are terrified by the above imagination of the functioning of our political world, I have no good news. Another strategy of head management has appeared on the horizon. As Michael Schollenberger and Matt Taibbi have shown, journalists active in a series of articles called #twitter files have already been established "a large and increasing network of links between government agencies, academic institutions and NGOs that are subject to active censorship of American citizens" [28] and consequently besides another countries. The Censor-Industrial Complex is simply a system-wide regulation of accessibility to any information that would appear dangerous to the centres of transferred power.
The institutions bent over the mediocre people deceived by misinformation and post-truth are precisely the same organizations that sale us war all day.
And as shortly as there are credible texts about their machinations and interconnectedness, there will surely be a way to "protect" public opinion from them. And that this will be done on behalf of actual or alleged victims of net hatred and on banners will they fly flags of ill-recognizable symbols and passwords? Well, have we always been taken distant from our freedom differently?
Vendre la guerre: Le complexe militaro-intellectuel, Pierre Conesa,
I’aube, 2022
Source:
[1] Julien Benda, Treason of the Clerks, by Marek J. Mosakowski, Publishing home of Political Critics, Warsaw 2014, p. 170.
[2] Text of the speech, cf. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html, accessed 4 May 2023.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Data behind the SIPRI study (Stokholm global Peace investigation Institute, cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry, accessed May 4, 2023.
[5] Stephen Semler, How the Military-Industrial Complex Gets Its Power and Harms Workers, in 6 Graphs, ‘Jacobin’, https://jacobin.com/2022/10/pentagon-budget-military-contractors-lobbyists-biden, accessed 4 May 2023.
[6] Ibid.
[7] On the profits from reconstruction of Ukraine, cf. Branco Marcetic, Ukraine's Postwar Reconstruction Has large Business Licking Its Lips, ‘Jacobin’, https://jacobin.com/2023/01/ukraine-postwar-reconstruction-western-capital-blackkrock-neoliberalism; Bradley Devlin, BlackRock Plots to Buy Ukraine, ‘The American Conservative’, accessed 4 May 2023.
[8] On this subject, Lt. Loic J.D. Wacquant, Prison of Poverty, trans. Michał Kozłowski, Book and Press, Warsaw 2009.
[9] Cf. Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, Princeton University Press, Princeton 2008.
[10] See James Der Derian, Virtuous War. Mapping the Military-industrial-Media-Entertainment Network, Routledge, London – fresh York 2001.
[11] Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War was not there, trans. Sławomir Królak, Wydawnictwo Sic!, Warszawa 2006.
[12] Lieutenant Pierre Conesa, Vendre la guerre. Le complexe militaro-intellectuel, Éditions de l’aube, Paris 2022.
[13] Cf. Chris Hedges, Pimps of War, https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/11/hedges-the-pimps-of-war/, accessed 4 May 2023.
[14] Lieutenant Ken Silverstein, Mad Men. Introduction the defence industry’s pay-to-play ad agency, “Harper’s Magazine”, https://harpers.org/archive/2010/04/mad-men/, accessed 4 May 2023.
[15] Stephen Semler, How the Military-Industrial Complex Gets Its Power and Harms Workers, in 6 Graphs, pp.
[16] Helen Johnson, The (im)proper meshing of the corporate media and the military-industrial complex, ‘The Miscellany News’, https://miscellanynews.org/2021/05/13/opinions/the-imper-meshering-of-the-corporate-media-and-the-military-industrial-complex/, accessed 4 May 2023.
[17] See Matt Taibbi, Matt Orfalea, The "Gentlemen's Agreement": erstwhile tv News Won't Identify defence Lobbyists, https://www.racket.news/p/the-gentlemens-agreement-when-tv?s=w, accessed 4 May 2023.
[18] Pierre Conesa, Vendre la guerre. Le complexe militaro-intellectuel, pp., p. 79.
[19] Lieutenant Pierre Bourdieu, About TV. The regulation of journalism, by Karolina Sztanderska, Anna Ziółkowska, PWN, Warsaw 2009.
[20] Helen Johnson, The (im)proper mixing of the corporate media and the military-industrial complex, dz. cit.
[21] Pierre Conesa, Vendre la guerre. Le complexe militar-intellectuel, pp. 164.
[22] Ibid. p. 177.
[23] Ibid. p. 157.
[24] Ibid. p. 91.
[25] On the usage of Genocide for Political Needs, cf. Edward S. Herman, David Peterson, Politics of Genocide, Monthly Review Press, fresh York 2010.
[26] Lieutenant Pierre Conesa, Vendre la guerre. Le complexe militaro-intellectuel, pp., p. 95.
[27] Ibid. p. 109.
[28] See https://censorshipindustrialcomplex.org/resources#ftnt_ref5, accessed 4 May 2023.
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