The Atlantic – August Cole: The Uncertain Future of the Military-Industrial Complex
This post is part of a 12-part series exploring how the U.S.-Russia relationship has shaped the world since the December 1991 end of the Soviet Union. Read the full series here.
Source: The Atlantic, 12/13/2011
ASP Adjunct Fellow August Cole is a featured author.
The 1990s might not have been a decade of peace, but they were for big, U.S. defense firms. After decades of working for a Defense Department oriented toward the defeat of the Soviet Union, they struggled to adjust. During the 1980s the Pentagon had spent billions of dollars on developing and improving expensive hardware — tanks, submarines, fighter jets — but, in the post-Soviet ’90s, their appetite shrank.
The defense industry is once again at a crossroads, and the stakes are the highest they’ve been. Large defense contractors are interwoven into not just every layer of the national security apparatus, but also of civilian government. They are involved in everything from smart bombs to military interrogations to the most recent U.S. census. Tens of thousands of jobs are again on the line during a time of economic trouble. Whatever the level of military spending falls to, the defense industry’s economic, strategic, and political actions well into the 21st century will continue to be heavily influenced by its period of decline following the fall of the Soviet Union.
This article is available online here
