The Military-Industrial Complex

Abstract

© 2011 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences CHARLES J. DUNLAP, JR., is Visiting Professor of the Practice of Law and Associate Director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University School of Law. He served thirty-four years in the U.S. Air Force and retired as a Major General in 2010. His publications include “The Air Force and 21st Century Conflicts: Dysfunctional or Dynamic?” in Lessons for a Long War: How America Can Win on New Battle1⁄2elds (edited by Thomas Donnelly and Frederick Kagan, 2010); and “Airpower,” in Understanding Counterinsurgency: Doctrine, Operations, and Challenges (edited by Thomas Rid and Thomas Keaney, 2010). [The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . . [W]e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. –President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1961)1