Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

"President Kennedy had read Seven Days in May shortly after its publication and believed the scenario as described could actually occur in the United States. According to Frankenheimer in his director's commentary, production of the film received encouragement and assistance from Kennedy through White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, who conveyed to Frankenheimer Kennedy's wish that the film be produced and that, although the Pentagon did not want the film made, the President would conveniently arrange to visit Hyannis Port for a weekend when the film needed to shoot outside the White House."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_less...

> America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world.

Still true today, although the "rise of the rest" means that the US is not the absolutely dominant-in-all-arenas country it was a few decades ago. That's fine with me personally, as that rise of other countries has meant improved living standards and less poverty for many areas.

> we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

"With great power comes great responsibility". No argument with President Eisenhower on this one. Power must be used with great discretion and for good purposes.

> Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

A point that seems to have been largely forgotten in recent years.

> A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

As you would expect from the man that led the most powerful single fighting force in history to that time, Eisenhower understands the value in deterrence. Our arms are indeed mighty. We are developing weapons systems that are the result of integrating applied expertise in just about every technical field. And then we are making huge systems of systems where those weapons systems work together.

> Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

It's 1961. He's talking about a system that has completely changed in seven years (since the end of large scale hostilities in Korea in 1953). What happened during that time? The Department of Defense got its legs underneath it (it was only 13 years old in 1960), the Cold War became the dominant ideological conflict shaping the world, the "Sputnik Shock" resulted in large investments in aerospace, and the space race was on. I wonder what Eisenhower would have made out of the massive changes in the 14 years since the September 11 attacks.

>In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

The core idea of the speech. I think that Eisenhower's warnings weren't heeded. The systems he oversaw had a number of positive feedback loops in their design. The biggest feedback loop in Eisenhower's time was the cold war. What were the Russians doing? Did they have advantages in technology? Could we counter their weapons systems? Their computer systems? Efforts to answer these questions continually brought technical people and money into the system, which reinforced the system, driving the system even harder. This feedback loop remains largely unchanged, only the language used ("information dominance") and the targets referred to (terrorists, other large nation states) change.

> But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

It is a world so vast that no one can really tell you exactly how big it is. The Pentagon cannot even accurately account for how the money that it takes in is spent. And it's large at even the smallest scales. You can work in the same building as someone (even a fairly small building) and have zero idea what they're working on, because you don't need to know.

> Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Something to think about in the current climate of pervasive surveillance.

> Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

Don't worry, Ike, the MIC will eventually give birth to the internet, which will make it even MORE difficult to discern signal from noise and will result in a US citizenry that doesn't believe in evolution or anthropogenic climate change. That extends to the elite that runs the country.

> As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.

Similarly, I wonder what Ike would have made out of climate change deniers? I doubt, from this language, that he would have been a denier.

Eisenhower was right on pretty much all points, but I think that by the time he noticed this, it was already too late to stop. Perhaps if the USSR had collapsed a few decades earlier, there might have been some reason dial down the gain on the feedback loop driving the growth of the MIC.