Political Science

Although some scholars have traced the origins of the military-industrial complex merely to the Second World War, the actual causes which gave rise to the formation and the maintenance of the military-industrial complex go back much further.  More specifically, the formation of the military-industrial complex was caused by the American navys relationships with the steel industry in the nineteenth century, by the evolution of military and industrial lobbies, and by the external threats that America faced in an era of increasingly violent competition for colonial possessions and global influence.

While some have argued that the Military-Industrial Complex grew most directly out of the Second World War, broader-minded historians and political scientists generally agree that the origins of the military industrial complex can be traced to naval rearmament projects in the late nineteenth century and international political considerations and pressures (Ross, 1991, p. 10).  As the United States moved further away from its civil war it began to view its national security interests in a more international context.  One of the Navys primary concerns was creating a domestically available supply of strategic materials the reasonable premise was that the American Navy did not want to be dependent on foreign suppliers of strategic materials if hostilities broke out.  Indeed, as one scholar has noted, Although steel armor and improved ordnance signalled the way of the future, no viable sources of supply existed in the United States and the technology and material that initially gave rise to the military industrial complex was steel (Hackemer, 1995, p. 704).  This was because the Navy required steel for the construction of new naval ships to be used in defending American national security interests abroad and ensuring national defense readiness closer to home.  At that time, the majority of Americas naval fleet was designed for shallow water and riverbed operations.  Thus, a deal was struck between the American Navy and the American steel industry.  The American Navy, with congressional approval, promised to steer lucrative contracts to the steel industry if it concentrated on improving technology and production capacity.  The steel industry, sensing impressive profits, accepted and the Military-Industrial Complex was born.  The initial cause underlying the formation of the Military-Industrial Complex, therefore, was the American Navys need to produce better ships using a domestically created supply of the steel, a strategically significant material, rather than a need to sustain employment following World War Two.

The Military-Industrial Complex may never have arisen had the initial contract between the American Navy and the steel industry not proven so beneficial for the military and so profitable for big steel.  A number of lobbyists took advantage of the successful contracts between the American Navy and the steel industry in order to pursue their own particular objectives.  The military began to lobby for more contacts with different types of industry in order to satisfy legitimate military objectives.  Members of industry began to lobby for naval expansion in order to generate more profits.  This became a mutually reinforcing process in which a more comprehensive and interdependent relationship arose between the American military establishment and American industry.  As the Military-Industrial Complex grew in complexity, and as American military activities overseas became increasingly wide-ranging, this phenomenon went largely unchallenged through two world wars.  It was not until 1961 that a military insider, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, warned the American people of the dangers of the military and industrial lobbies more particularly,
In a nationally televised address on January 17, 1961, only four days before John F. Kennedys inaugural, Eisenhower warned of the dangers of undue influence exerted by the military-industrial complex. He cautioned that maintaining a large, permanent military establishment was new in the American experience, and suggested that an engaged citizenry offered the only effective defense against the misplaced power of the military-industrial lobby.  HYPERLINK httpwww.questia.comPM.qstaod98942975(Hartung, 2001, p.  39)

In short, the second cause underlying the formation and the maintenance of the Military-Industrial Complex was the rise of lobbies advocating the expansion of contracts between the American military and private industry.

Finally, the American Military-Industrial Complex was also caused by an extraordinarily competitive external environment in which nations fought for and fought to defend colonies and regions with national security implications.  America confronted a number of these external threats.  They fought, for example, with the Spanish over colonial possessions in Cuba and as far away as in the Philippines.  America fought in a world war.  These external conflicts created a need to improve and to expand American military might.  These needs to improve and to expand, in turn, required a dependence on the ingenuity and the productive capacity of private industry.  Had these external threats not existed, the need for intensive and pervasive relationships between the American military and private industry would have been far less necessary.  One pair of scholars has noted, for instance, that the central premise is that a state of continual military preparedness must be maintained to achieve an international balance of power necessary to preserve peace HYPERLINK httpwww.questia.comPM.qstaod95136592(Isaac and Leicht, 1997,  p. 29).  In sum, the external threats facing America led to policies which advocated a state of continuous military preparedness in turn, this continuous state of military preparedness was supported and propped up by the rise of the Military-Industrial Complex.  The final cause of the creation of the Military-Industrial Complex, therefore, was the global political environment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which America was confronted with a number of external threats.

In the final analysis, the Military-Industrial Complex arose as a result of certain causes which occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  These causes included the American navys desire to build better ships using a domestic source of steel, the rise of increasingly influential military and industrial  lobbies, and the existence of external threats that encouraged America to pursue a state of rather continual military preparedness.  The truest causes, therefore, are deeply embedded in American history rather than an outgrowth of the Second World War.