Permanent War Economy Research Articles

Death dealers: Dynamics of Israel’s permanent war economy

This study critically explores Israel’s permanent war economy, examining its core principles and strategic impacts. It analyzes how the war economy is integral to Israel’s settler-colonial structures and functions, fulfilling various ideological, geopolitical, and financial goals through a sustained conflict footing, rather than being a transient occurrence. To this end, the study identifies and analyzes four key dynamics underpinning Israel’s war economy: First, acute societal militarism serves as an economic growth engine, nurturing skilled military capital and advanced technologies that feed the war economy system. Second, the role of American patronage is examined as a key enabler of the Israeli war economy. In the absence of a traditional colonial metropole, the United States functions as an imperial sponsor, providing extensive military aid, technological transfers, financial assistance, and diplomatic backing–without which Israel’s military posture would be inconceivable. Third, the article investigates Israel’s exploitation of the occupied Palestinian territories as a laboratory for testing, optimizing and marketing military systems’ performance to international clients. Fourth, examines how Israel’s arms export multiplies revenues for the Israeli war economy while also providing diplomatic leverage to advance Israel’s geopolitical agendas and foreign policy objectives.

Propagating a permanent war economy? U.S. FDI in warring host countries

PurposeConventional wisdom suggests that war in the host country makes it unattractive for foreign firms to invest. To see if this is true for US firms on the aggregate, this paper aims to examine the veracity of a “permanent war economy” hypothesis, that foreign direct investment (FDI) may, in fact, increase in the host country not despite, but because of, war, i.e. one that lends credence to the idea that, in the USA, “defense [has] become one of constant preparation for future wars and foreign interventions rather than an exercise in response to one-off threats.”Design/methodology/approachThe authors test the hypotheses using Generalized Method of Moments estimation, with Heckman Selection, on US FDI data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and war data from the Correlates of War2 Project, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program/International Peace Research Institute data set, the International Crisis Behavior Project and the Center for Systemic Peace Major Episodes of Political Violence data set. The final sample consists of 351 country-year observations in 55 host countries from 1982 to 2006.FindingsThe findings indicate that overall US FDI in a host country in a given year decreases if the host country is engaged in wars with multiple countries and if the US Government is involved in the war. Most notably, the results show that US involvement in multiple host country wars is actually correlated with increased US FDI into the host country, providing empirical support for the “permanent war economy” hypothesis.Originality/valueWhile other studies have focused on war and FDI, the authors have sought to show the impact of the involvement of arguably the most influential country, i.e. the USA, in the sovereign matters of a focal host country. By studying FDI from the USA as a function of US involvement in wars overseas, over the years with the greatest use of private military companies by the USA and the largest portion of global FDI accounted for by the USA, this work motivates a research agenda on home-host-"other” relations in the context of war and FDI, with the “other” being the supranational “elephant in the room.”

The Continuing Costs of the Permanent War Economy

The Continuing Costs of the Permanent War Economy

Cultures of Militarism

This volume contributes to a new anthropology of militarism that has crystallized since the end of the cold war. Unlike scholars in mainstream security studies and political science, anthropologists treat militarism as a process rather than a reified, measurable quantum acting as an independent variable. Anthropological analysis of militarism focuses on the social construction of security threats; the decentering of the state’s monopoly over legitimate violence in an era where guerillas, paramilitaries, and military contractors hold unprecedented sway; the increasing hybridization of war and peace in the context of a permanent war economy; the capillary colonization of social and imaginative life by military processes thanks to militarized media institutions; and the suffering, both bodily and psychological, of those who are killed, injured, bereaved, or dislocated by military processes. In the context of a global militarized capitalist system, this suffering is transmuted into profit in various centers of accumulation. Whereas folk ideology may portray individual military initiatives as defensive moves against aggression, this analysis reframes militarism as an integrated global system with its own escalatory logic that feeds off actors’ inability to recognize the ways in which each militarized action reinforces the growth of militarism as a transnational exterminist structure.

The Revolving Door and the Entrenchment of the Permanent War Economy

AbstractThis paper analyzes the “revolving door” phenomena in the military sector in the US. The revolving door refers to the back-and-forth movement of personnel between the government and private sector. We examine the structure of the revolving door and explain how its very nature leads to the perpetuation of the permanent war economy. This analysis yields several important implications. First, the dynamics of the revolving door shape the military-industrial complex in a way that serves the narrow interests of select elites rather than the broad interests of citizens. Second, because the perverse incentives are a product of the institutional structure of the US military sector, the negative consequences are also structural and cannot be solved by increased oversight.

The Revolving Door and the Entrenchment of the Permanent War Economy

This paper analyzes the “revolving door” phenomena in the military sector in the United States. The revolving door refers to the back-and-forth movement of personnel between the government and private sector. We examine the structure of the revolving door and explain how its very nature leads to the perpetuation of the permanent war economy. This analysis yields several important implications. First, the dynamics of the revolving door shape the military-industrial complex in a way that serves the narrow interests of select elites rather than the broad interests of citizens. Second, because the perverse incentives are a product of the institutional structure of the U.S. military sector, the negative consequences are also structural and cannot be solved by increased oversight.

The Origins of the Permanent War Economy: A Consequence of Government, Not Capitalism

This paper explains the origins of the permanent war economy in the United States. We emphasize the combined efforts of three key interest groups (military, labor unions, and industry) that arose in the context of the dual crises of the Great Depression and World War II. During the depression and the war that followed, there arose a partnership between industry, the military, and politicians. These crises, combined with the State’s monopoly over the military, created the opportunity for these interests to influence the trajectory of economic activity in a self-serving, and lasting, manner.

The overlooked costs of the permanent war economy: A market process approach

How does the permanent war economy interact, and subsume, the private, non-military economy? Can the two remain at a distance while sharing resource pools? This paper argues that they cannot. Once the U.S. embarked upon the path of permanent war, starting with World War II, the result was a permanent war economy. The permanent war economy continuously draws resources into the military sector at the expense of the private economy, even in times of peace. We explore the overlooked costs of this process. The permanent war economy does not just transfer resources from the private economy, but also distorts and undermines the market process which is ultimately responsible for improvements in standards of living.

Contesting Identity

The interface between religion and politics has become strong in the wake of expansion of modernity in its contemporary form. This can be regarded as cultural globalization. To interpret this phenomenon, the demonization of Islam by the West led by the US has been taken as a key epistemological point. This article argues that this policy, framed as part of the American strategy in the global war on terrorism, has constituted a key component of the larger US agenda. One facet of this agenda is primarily related to America’s bid to perpetuate the institutional structure of the permanent war economy envisaged during the Cold War period. The structure consists of the vocational interests of the arms lobby and the hawkish politico-bureaucratic-strategic condominium in the US. To accomplish this goal, communism, the United States’ Cold War enemy, has been replaced by a new enemy, Islam, at the end of the Cold War. The events of 11 September 2001 brought all this to a full circle and facilitated the US to advance justifications for continuing the permanent war economy and to substantiate the transformation of the ideological conflict of the Cold War into a cultural conflict in the post-Cold War period. In this regard, the rise of US soft power, made possible by the pervasive impact of globalization, has helped defend America’s post-Cold War proposition regarding an emergent war culture and the portrayal of Islam as the Manichean other in this war.

The Overlooked Costs of the Permanent War Economy: A Market Process Approach

How does the permanent war economy interact, and subsume, the private, non-military economy? Can the two remain at a distance while sharing resource pools? This paper argues that they cannot. Once the U.S. embarked upon the path of permanent war, starting with World War II, the result was a permanent war economy. The permanent war economy continuously draws resources into the military sector at the expense of the private economy, even in times of peace. We explore the overlooked costs of this process. The permanent war economy does not just transfer resources from the private economy, but also distorts and undermines the market process which is ultimately responsible for improvements in standards of living.

Eisenhower's Paradoxical Relationship with the “Military-Industrial Complex”

This analysis of Eisenhower's farewell address and its core concept, “the military-industrial complex,” explores the contribution of its major authors and editors, including Milton Eisenhower, and the changes in the text due to its transformation from a State of the Union speech into a television address. It situates this final act of Eisenhower's rhetorical presidency in paradoxical conjunction with a hawkish strand of contemporary conservatism. Media coverage of this conservative insurgency influenced the interpretation of the military-industrial complex producing a definition closer to the permanent war economy, discussed by C. Wright Mills, instead of the nuanced concept intended by the speech's creators.

Tourism and the military: Pleasure and the War Economy

This paper argues that market forces have driven the means by which the military-industrial complex in the United States has increasingly shaped the tourism industry in recent decades. A business-oriented military entity that creates enormous destructive potential has had an influence upon the provision and character of tourism. Examining certain aspects of the tourism industry reveals a sometimes paradoxical, and yet ultimately profitable, blending of pleasure-oriented consumption and the by-products of a permanent war economy. The tourism industry and military-industrial complex may seem to possess qualities that are contradictory in nature but they are also complementary in various ways. Commerce supports and encourages profitable antagonisms; it is guiding the interplay between tourism and the military sphere

Dirty wars: landscape, power, and waste in western American literature

Acknowledgments Introduction: Dirty Wars 1. The Purloined Landscape 2. The Prehistory of the Permanent War Economy 3. Dust Breeding: Narrative of Inter(n)ment 4. Learning from Los Alamos 5. Gridlocked and Homeless 6. Loomings: Dread in West Texas 7. After Nature: Gothic Contamination 8. After Nature Writing 9. The West as Cold War Museum 10. The Fringe of Empire Conclusion: Endless War

In Memoriam: Chalmers Johnson

In Memoriam: Chalmers Johnson All of us at Asian Perspective mourn the passing of one of our distinguished editorial advisory board members, Dr. Chalmers Johnson. He died on November 27 at the age of 79. Chal Johnson will long be remembered not just as one of the world’s leading authorities on Japanese politics, but also as a giant among critical thinkers on U.S. policy in Asia. His groundbreaking study of Japanese state capitalism—MITI and the Japanese Miracle (published in 1982)—challenged neoliberal political economy and set the stage for many subsequent writings on state-guided economic development strategies elsewhere in East Asia. Later in life, Chal produced a masterful series of books on U.S. policy in which he underscored the dangers of “blowback” (the title of the first in the series, published in 2000) not just for U.S. interests abroad, but also for democracy at home. The creation of a permanent war economy, and its implications for democratic values, was a particular concern of his. Later books expanded on these themes: The Sorrows of Empire (2004), Nemesis (2006), and Dismantling the Empire (2010). As a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, for many years, Chalmers Johnson mentored numerous young scholars who have gone on to distinguished careers in the profession. Fittingly, one of them, Professor Peter Van Ness, will assume Chal’s place on our advisory board. We send our heartfelt condolences to Chalmers Johnson ’s wife, Sheila, his family, and his many friends and admirers. Mel Gurtov Editor-in-Chief ...

Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion (review)

Reviewed by: Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion Mark Hulsether Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion. By T. Jeremy Gunn. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2009. When I first picked up this excellent book, I was unsure whether it had anything new to teach me. Gunn's subject—the crystallization in the late 1940s and early 1950s of an alliance between (1) religious discourses about God and country (2) a permanent war economy linked to a policy of global military supremacy, and (3) extravagant pro-capitalism and anti-socialism in most non-military sectors of the economy—seems on first impression to be old hat for American Studies scholars, and Gunn tends to presuppose a consensus approach to US culture that has long been out of favor. Moreover, Gunn is not a conventional scholar of US history and religion; although he holds a Religious Studies Ph.D from Harvard, recently he has worked as a lawyer associated with the American Civil Liberties Union. Although he cites a solid mix of scholars, readers of this journal may sometimes find him thin on pre-1940s historical contexts and traditions of critiquing US empire. He does little to clarify how his stress on change in the 1940s intersects with a wider historiography, nor how his account of the role of religion within these changes differs from other scholarly treatments. Thus I initially wondered if Gunn had set out to reinvent the wheel. I am happy to report that, in fact, the results are far more impressive. By approaching from a different angle than most scholars and concentrating on a new interpretation of primary sources (mainly journalistic coverage and government documents, some recently declassified), Gunn achieves a fresh and dynamic new interpretation of this crucial topic—an important intervention into ongoing debates. After an introductory section, Gunn offers three strong chapters documenting the surging importance of civil religion, militarism, and capitalism in the decade after 1945. Using vivid examples, he dramatizes changes from an earlier historical baseline and the effects of these changes on cultural discourse and political-economic policy. For example, he shows how expectations of rapid military demobilization after 1945 (as happened after World War I) gave way to a permanent war economy, and how earlier religious voices promoting peace and moderate socialism (including a 1940s commission chaired by John Foster Dulles and a chapter in The Fundamentals) became marginalized in a frenzy of flag-waving, ostentatious public prayers, and Christian capitalism. Importantly, Gunn offers two rich case studies to document the consequences of his themes. One chapter treats the 1954 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and another the rise and fall of Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam. The Guatemala chapter brilliantly demonstrates how Gunn's themes intersect, and is written with a concreteness and rhetorical skill that would make it a fine introduction for students into critical thinking about news media. The Vietnam chapter is especially noteworthy for shining a light on the religious dimensions of Diem's rise to power. Diem was a protégé of Cardinal Spellman with a base among Vietnamese Catholics, and there was a strong Christian vs. Buddhist aspect to his government's failure. Meanwhile, religion was central to the discourse about the war inside the US—dramatized by such things as the lionization of Thomas Dooley as [End Page 182] the public face of US intervention and the way that the self-immolation of the Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, galvanized antiwar protest. Gunn makes it clear that religious aspects of anti-Communism in Vietnam—and also, by extension, in related places like Korea—deserve greater attention than most scholars have given them. Tradeoffs are implicit in Gunn's method, as in any scholarly approach. His stress on the forging of a hegemonic coalition in the world of elite politics, economics, and media takes the focus off ongoing disagreements—before, during, and after the period in focus—as well as precedents on which his emerging coalition built. Some scholars will desire more attention to labor and working class history, compared to the usable past that Gunn highlights, as well as to...

Contesting Patriotism

In the days following the tragic events of September 11, U.S. peace movement organizations (PMOs) found themselves operating in a difficult political climate. For the government, the mainstream media and the general public, “citizen,” “patriot” and “retaliation” merged into a single “American” identity so that many felt that the nation and its way of life were at risk and that war was an appropriate response to the “new threat.” Since then the mistaken hyperbole of an “everything has changed” approach to understanding September 11 has permeated most discussions of the event. While the extent of change is exaggerated, it is nonetheless true that significant shifts occurred in the political landscape in both domestic and foreign policy. In addition, relatively simplistic understandings of patriotism gained even more credence than usual in the U.S., and policy dissent was denigrated and more easily branded as unpatriotic.A long-range and comparative approach to history shows that many of thesepolitical developments are predictable and relatively common when a statecomes under attack on its home soil. But owing partly to the United States’ placement as the world’s lone military superpower and its imperial policies in a globalized economy, the attacks of September 11, 2001 also deeply influenced how Americans understand themselves and perceive their relationships to the rest of the world. For example, the false insularity that most Americans had long taken for granted was suddenly threatened. The Bush administration easily exploited this, rallying support for a policy of a permanent war economy, aggressive military retaliation, pre-emptive attacks abroad and civil liberty suppression at home. At the core was a call to intensely nationalistic patriotism.

From Private to State Capitalism: How the Permanent War Economy Transformed the Institutions of American Capitalism

(1997). From Private to State Capitalism: How the Permanent War Economy Transformed the Institutions of American Capitalism. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 311-332.

A Few Good Species

Andrew Ross If there has been one constant in the history of science, it is the relationship of applied research and technology to military force. Nothing belies the myth of pure science more than the evidence that it has served as the handmaiden of warfare or, in the period of the national security state, as a central component of the permanent war economy that continues to sustain elite interests among the major powers and their clients. We all know about science's utility to the military trade of destruction, but what happens when the military is charged with utilizing science to repair the destructive consequences of that trade? The euphemism of the "peace industry" took on a new life after the cessation of the Cold War at a time when the security establishment, deprived of its staple of Manichaean ideological conflict, turned in the direction of environmental considerations and elevated "environmental security" to the forefront of its global overviews. The result, by no means conclusive, is the outcome of a messy encounter between the functional ethics of ecological science and the institutional mentality of warmaking.