Could someone give me a primer on the Military-Industrial complex?

Is this a homework question?

MIC is about a very direct and dangerous link between the military, companies that support it and the government. You can google it pretty easily.

I can give you the Wikipedia version of the answer which explains it quite thoroughly and intellectually. You can find it here.

Example: Bell Helicopter make a lot of aircraft for the Army. Therefore, they have an interest in our being at war, since they make more money then.

The military industrial complex is the tightly linked relationships between military and industry. They are a relatively small group with close personal relationships. It is very common for the military leadership to transition from the military to the industries with which they worked.

The reason it is dangerous is that prior to when senior officers (especially) resign or retire they have a ready made job with the company they were formerly in charge of approving. That means that they favor no bid contracts, have favorite contractors and exert an undue influence on what goods or services are purchased. When they go to the industry, chances are that the military they work with were their former subordinates.
Another danger is that new fancier weapons are developed speculating on the next war or conflict. If you buy those weapons, you are itching to use them. It is understandable because it’s like buying a new car. Would you want to just park it in driveway or would you rather take it out on the highway to see what it can do?

This leaves the military leadership with a desire to go to war and an industry that fully supports them. When you have incompetent civilian leadership, like our last president, he leaves big decisions like wars to the generals. Generals that have a stake and future in bigger and better wars and weapons.

Additionally, these industries are now international. It is very likely that the arms suppliers are supplying both sides in the conflict. The bigger the war, the better the profits.

The military-industrial-complex has grown from Eisenhower’s day. It now includes the security-industrial-complex made up of homeland security, a vast surveillance apparatus, the prison-industrial-complex, the paramilitarization of local police forces, prison guard unions, and even the entertainment industry, which (think Fox News) serves a kind of propaganda function. (See Joel Dyer’s “The Perpetual Prisoner Machine.”)

A “complex” is comes into being when corporations derive so much wealth and power from the militarization or incarceration of society that they become a political power unto themselves. They then use their vast wealth to buy off legislators and obtain legislative concessions which allow them to continue to grow at the expense of social programs, like education and health care. The society’s political institutions come to be dominated by corporations; and the nation becomes less democratic, more militaristic, and tends to embark on wars (like the war in Iraq) or domestic police actions (like the war on drugs) simply because these are profitable for corporate bottom line.

This, by the way, is the very definition of fascism .

@filmfann
That’s what I was looking for. thx

There is a newer version of this term, concept: The Iron Triangle. I suppose you can google or wiki it. Same with this term: Porkbarreling. And this one: Fatcats