New at Foreign Policy in Focus Military Industrial Complex Revisited: How Weapons Makers are Shaping U.S. Foreign and Military Policies By William D. Hartung As a result of a rash of military-industry mergers encouraged and subsidized by the Clinton administration, the "Big Three" weapons makers, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon, now receive over $30 billion per year in Pentagon contracts. The Clinton administration's five-year budget plan for the Pentagon calls for nearly a 50% increase in weapons procurement, from $44 billion per year now to over $63 billion per year by 2003. On issue after issue--from expanding NATO, to deploying the Star Wars missile defense system, to rolling back restrictions on arms sales to repressive regimes--the arms industry has launched a concerted lobbying campaign aimed at increasing military spending and arms exports. These initiatives are driven by profit and pork barrel politics, not by an objective assessment of how best to defend the United States in the post-cold war period. www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/papers/micr/index
[PEN-L:8562] Foreign Policy In Focus
Interhemispheric Resource Center Tue, 29 Jun 1999 17:20:22 -0600