The Warfare State

Abstract

The pressures of post-World War II have cre ated in America a new phenomenon, a power complex which may be aptly called the Warfare State. It is a conjunction of military-industrial power, against which President Eisenhower warned in his Farewell Address. Fed by ever increasing bil lions of dollars, the Warfare State rests upon two assumptions: that safety can be achieved only through power, that prosperity depends upon the constant pump-priming of the domestic economy through the expenditure of military billions. Both assumptions are false. Power in the nuclear age has become self-defeating and suicidal. Full employment and prosperity can no longer be guaranteed by military expenditures, for ex perience proves that vast sums spent for military hardware act in the long run only as a drug and a drag on the over-all econ omy. But both myths, aided by the lobbying of the military- industrial complex, persist in influencing American decisions and preventing them from being based on clear conceptions of reality.