There was a time fairly recently that I was enamored with the idea that the U.S. military-industrial complex was a grave injustice; that it amounted to a form of institutionalized corruption. I wrote pieces and spoke on podcasts such as Matt Taibbi’s that exposed true blind spots in this military industrial complex, and felt sincerely and legitimately aggrieved. I believed that it constituted a liability during peacetime, and provided limited utility during war, and could not understand why more was not done to halt it. This essay takes a more circumspect view of the situation, to get at the roots of the biggest problem facing the U.S. military today: its industrial base is not prepared to sustain a long and difficult war with a near-peer enemy.

THE BIG STORY

The Military Industrial Complex's Rotating Door

Does the U.S. system need military expertise on the boards of companies that produce weapons and equipment?

There’s something to “the military industrial complex,” isn’t there? The revolving door is real, generals really do retire and move into the sector that’s responsible for producing weapons and equipment. Looking at the situation with clear eyes, it’s impossible not to notice the flood of retired generals, colonels, and lieutenant colonels taking positions on boards or as leaders in the companies that produce uniforms, bullets, missiles, and tanks.

We’re all familiar with the cynical position, but to reiterate it briefly: officers have a role in fielding equipment, and are incentivized to do so by companies that then “pay them back” with cushy jobs after their service is done. Those generals are more beholden to their self-interest (a big paycheck) than operational success. This explains in part why the Army ends up with the ACU rather than Multicam, for example. Once these generals and officers join a particular corporation after retirement, they’re in a good place to perpetuate the scheme, hooking up their buddies who are still in with similar arrangements and coaching them through the process of going along to get along. The criticism, summarized by the office of Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, is that this process is not meritocratic, and produces suboptimal or even mediocre results.

To mitigate this as much as possible, there are rules in place against retiring soldiers and officers immediately joining companies — there’s a “cooling off” period of between one and two years after leaving service, during which time a retired officer, soldier, or employee of the Department off Defense cannot join a company or appear in public on behalf of a private organization that does business with or seeks to do business with the government.

What is the argument for the revolving door? First and most importantly, that businesses maintaining contracts with the government benefit not only from the connections of a former general or a charismatic colonel or lieutenant colonel, but also from that officer’s expertise. Whereas a cynic would say that the entire operation is founded on self-interest, a more optimistic view holds that a general with 30 years of experience in the field and on campaigns is probably in a good position to provide key insights and advice to a company hoping to create something of real use and value to the soldier of the future — and that the generals are motivated to do so mostly out of patriotism, idealism, and commitment to the legacy of their country and military service rather than a desire for profit. Who better to develop devices for combat than people who have been in combat?

Building off this idea, the military faces a massive challenge right now, symptoms of which can be observed in its recruiting shortfalls, and in the various weapons and weapon platforms that have not led anywhere in the most expensive way possible. The name of that challenge is vision, and it confronts most militaries as they transition from one modality (in this case, COIN) to another (in this case, “great war” or war with a near peer).

Vision partly depends on general officer guidance and leadership, such as that of retired general Eric Shinseki, who was recently honored at AUSA’s capstone dinner with the George C. Marshall award for lifetime achievement. Shinseki guided the Army through its transition from a Cold War force designed to fight and defeat the USSR to a more modular and flexible force. It also depends on a Department of Defense and Congress capable of and willing to fund vision, and industry that’s capable of supporting it.

At present, it’s not clear that the military enjoys the support of Congress, and it is clear that the supply chain is deeply broken — not because of feckless or corrupt former generals and admirals, but because of a systemic preference for profit that can only be achieved overseas. This is to say, the problem of “the military industrial complex” is not necessarily one of vision (though it may be), nor is it one of execution; it is not because of corruption or favoritism. Rather, the problem, or challenge, is system-wide, and comes down to a fundamental disagreement over what a future war will look like, and how to fight in one successfully.

Some months ago I wrote a story for Military.com about how the Army is looking to expand back into a divisional or corps model. Conversations are happening behind closed doors and among retired military leaders about what war will look like five or ten years from now, and how to win it. These things take a long time to achieve; one does not train a division in months, it takes years to build trust and competence across a force at that level. And the only people who know how to do that — to maneuver a corps — are generals. It seems to me now that having them on boards with the companies that will provide the tanks, rifles, and ammunition necessary is not a bad thing.

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