Above: Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, inspects work on the Maya Train with military personnel.

By: Raúl Romero

On January 17, 1961 upon concluding his term as president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a speech about which much has been written since that time. On that occasion, the outgoing president reported on the power that the military-industrial complex had acquired: In government councils we must guard against the acquisition of undue influences, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.  Circumstances do and will exist that will make it possible for powers to emerge in undue places, with disastrous effects.

By the military industrial complex, Eisenhower referred to the link between the military system, the armaments industry and the government, a complex that involved the work of more than 3.5 million people, as well as a multi-million budget that represented more than the net income of all US companies in those years. The military-industrial complex, built with the argument of national defense and world peace, began taking shape after the Second World War.

The influence of this powerful alliance between industries, militaries and rulers, Eisenhower signaled, was total: economic, spiritual and “palpable in every city, in every state congress, in every department of the federal government.” In addition, the military-industrial complex also involved the reproduction of capital, development of military technology and the U.S. imperialist expansion.

Although the alliances between industry, rulers and militaries date back a long time and have different approaches, according to the conditions and characteristics of each country, the military-industrial complex classification helped to understand some of the dynamics of militarism and militarization, and also facilitated the understanding of the consolidation and expansion of the power elite in the U.S.

Five years before Eisenhower’s speech, Charles Wright Mills analyzed in his book, The Power Elite (1956) the changes in the U.S. elite and concluded that for its time, it was composed primarily of an alliance between warlords, top corporate bosses, and the political directorate. The warlords, explains Mills, got ahead by filling political vacancies, gained and were given more and more power to make decisions of the most serious consequences, or to influence them. Mills also warned about the role of publicity and technology in the complex, the reason for which some specialists prefer to use the term military-industrial-media and technology complex.

More than half a century has passed since the warnings issued by Mills and Eisenhower. Their prognosis came true: the military-corporate complex is in force today and with a decisive weight in the internal and external politics of the United States. It matters not whether the government is controlled by Democrats or Republicans, the military elite remain in power, making many from decisions or even making up wars to guarantee the reproduction of capital. But their survival has also implied their adaptation. The weapons and the enemies have changed, and that’s why today the military industrial complex builds technologies of surveillance, control and destruction while manufacturing a narrative of new threats, such as terrorism, organized crime and migrants.

Today in Mexico the Army wins more and more influence in every sphere, be it the political, economic and even the ideological, it’s worth recuperating the reflections with respect to the category of the military-business complex to try to understand the phenomenon.

First of all, we must look at the renewed alliance between government, military and industrialists in 2006 and then reoriented in 2018 toward the extractive sector, of infrastructure and energy, whether it be in the construction of the Santa Lucía airport, of the Maya Train (Tren Maya) [1] or of the Interoceanic Corridor, to mention two of them. Furthermore, defining these projects and works as national security reveals the importance of this alliance in the country’s current project. It is also necessary to observe if this alliance does or does not have to do with the interests of the U.S. military industrial complex, or if it has its own interests.

On the ideological plane, it’s necessary to pay attention to measures ranging from the return of obligatory service and the military passbook, to the broad publicity strategy that places the Army as a repository of patriotic values and the defense of the nation.

Likewise, two possible scenarios should be noted, both of which are counterproductive for society: the possibility that this alliance is merely the germ of a new elite, or the possibility that the old elite reclaims the State apparatus, a scenario in which an Army with that power would mean an even greater threat to the progressive, democratic and revolutionary forces.

When the military are predominant members of the power elite, Mills reflected, what they seek is expansion. Hopefully we still have time to shut them down.

[1] See also, “Militarizing the Maya Train”: https://chiapas-support.org/2021/04/01/militarizing-the-maya-train/

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada on Sunday, December 12, 2021

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/12/12/opinion/014a1pol

Translated by Schools for Chiapas and Re-Published by the Chiapas Support Committee