The Rise of the Pentagon and U.S. State Building: The Defense Program as Industrial Policy

Abstract

State-centered theories stress the potential for states to be proactive as well as reactive. But the analytic tools developed in this literature have not been employed to examine the most impressive episode of state building in the postwar United States-the rise of the Pentagon. This article examines the bureaucratic resources at the disposal of the Pentagon and concludes that high-ranking military officers have operated as relatively autonomous bureaucrats. Case studies of the aeronautics and microelectronics industries provide evidence that the Pentagon has implemented a de facto industrial policy in the name of national defense. The substantive conclusion-that the autarkic Pentagon has implemented a massive industrial policy-contradicts the view that the hegemonic U.S. state is strong in the international arena but too weak and fragmented to plan the domestic political economy.