Book Review: Eisenhower and the Military Industrial Complex

A book review by the director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, Christopher Preble, at The Washington Monthly: How conservatives ignored, and liberals misconstrued, Eisenhower’s warnings about military spending.

The book is Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military Industrial ComplexA , by James Ledbetter.

During the first 150 years of its existence, the United States maintained a small standing army, mobilized additional personnel to fight the few wars declared by Congress, and then sent most of the men home when the war was won. Americans had little need for a large military, as the framers of the Constitution had hoped.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, however, the United States created a massive military geared toward intervention overseas. Critics charged that the permanent national security state went hand in hand with the rise of the imperial presidency and the steady erosion of the power of Congress and the courts. Others warned of the loss of individual liberties under a “garrison state.”

No president worried more about this fundamental change in the nation’s character than Dwight David Eisenhower. Eisenhower governed from the perspective that a nation’s security was directly tied to the health of its economy. He believed that if military spending rose too high it would ultimately undermine U.S. security, which he saw as a product of bothmilitary and economic strength. Eisenhower also worried that a permanent armaments industry was fundamentally altering the relationship between citizens and their government.